If I Ran the SeussCo

So I kind of want to talk about the Dr. Seuss thing--with the Seuss Foundation discontinuing six books that they deemed to be racially insensitive--but the problem is, there are just so many right-wing culture-warrior shitheads, and it's hard to have a conversation without feeling like you're in some way engaging with them.  So let's just let it be noted that they are arguing in one hundred percent bad faith, they don't actually care even a tiny bit about Seuss other than this providing them with a convenient cudgel, they'd almost certainly never even heard of any of the books being banned, and that, really, they suck in every way.  I don't care what they say, as indeed nobody should.  They can go straight to heck.  Though I should also say that I'm not a fan of scornful liberals dismissing the books tout court on the basis of their newly-discovered principle that Dr. Seuss sucks.  Much less people who note that they've never heard of the books in question, as if that has anything to do with anything.  A pox on both yer dumb ol' houses!

I was a big fan of Dr. Seuss books as a child, (and still am), and I was very familiar with four of the ones on the list (I missed out on Scrambled Eggs Super, which is too bad, since it's pretty great; and I'd never even heard of The Cat's Quizzer until now).  Both the drawings and the rhymes (which always perfectly scan) are just so great.  I'm probably a rare breed in that I've actually purchased his books as an adult, for my own consumption.  First, I just want to do something that's not related to my main point but which personally I can't not do, and that is to defend On Beyond Zebra.  When I saw that it was there I thought, huh.  I loved the hell out of that book.  It's not inconceivable that there's something bad there that I just didn't notice as a younger and less aware person.  So I went back to it, and...well, there's only one page that could possibly have bothered them, and it is this one:

I mean...come on.  I will do my best to listen with an open mind if you want to explain to me why this is offensive, but you're going to have an uphill battle convincing me.  I think you would have to try very hard to be offended by this.  And two of the other books, McElligot's Pool and Scrambled Eggs Super, have similar sorts of images as their only sins: people who are definitely coded as being non-white, but who aren't any sort of racial caricatures.  Suffice to say, I do think that taking these three out of circulation was a pretty big overreaction, and I wish they hadn't done it.  It's probably telling that the children's literature expert interviewed here doesn't even mention these three.

Well, of course, this is just futzing around along the edges.  The real issue is three images, one from And to Think that I Saw it on Mulberry Street and one from If I Ran the Zoo.  If not for these, I doubt this whole incident would have even happened.  I think what it must have been was, people complained (justifiably) about these images, and that made the Seuss people super-paranoid about the depiction of any character who could be considered "ethnic."  You've probably seen them, but for reference:

YIKES.  I do not care to defend these.  But here's my issue: people are calling these books racist, but I don't think that's really true: rather, they're books that feature several incidental pieces of racist imagery.  There's no ideological racism here.  These aren't The Turner Diaries for Kids.  "Semantics," you shout at me.  But is it?  If these books were trying to convey a racist message--or, I suppose if the incidental racism were pervasive enough to drown out anything else--it would be impossible to enjoy or appreciate them.  But that's not the case: some ninety-five-plus percent of the content is totally inoffensive, and a lot of it, in fact, is really great stuff.  So I feel it's sort of a quandary: would I want to expose my hypothetical children to these three images?  Clearly not (I was, and I turned out okay, for certain values of "okay," but that's neither here nor there)--not unless I thought they were mature enough to talk to about these things and why they're not considered acceptable today.  So if a children's book isn't appropriate for children, why should it stay in print?  But...these are also works of art, dammit.  They shouldn't just be dismissed like that.  I find the "it's a private company; they have the right to do what they want" argument really disingenuous.  I mean, yes, that statement is true--but do you think all art should only be available according to the whims of corporate boards, or just the stuff that you personally don't care about?  But if you don't want to give them to kids, and there are very few adults buying these things for personal consumption (me notwithstanding)...augh!  You can perhaps see how it's a problem.

I've thought about similar issue re insensitive aspects of old Disney comics, of course.  What seems to be the consensus that we've hit upon there is that it's okay to print these things, as long as it's in higher-end books generally aimed at an older audience, with disclaimers in the front.  That's fine, but Disney comics are perceived as more of an all-ages thing, whereas Seuss really isn't, so I don't know if that works.

Honestly, I think the best solution is to just make minor revisions to the books.  Use the pejorative "bowdlerize" is you must, but as I said, we're only talking about a tiny percentage of the material, and nobody reads these books because they're looking for racism.  It would be fine.  You will always be able to find the originals online if you want to see what you're "missing."  I really wonder how the culture warriors would react to that.  Currently, they can just barf out a lot of abstract nonsense about censorship and cancel culture and stuff, but what if they actually had to specifically defend that image of African natives?  Would they back away, or would they go all-in, damn the torpedoes?  There was a time when I would've thought the former, but given the level of T****ian radicalization they've undergone...who knows?