This kind of thing has always happened. I remember old 1940s Tom and Jerry cartoons with racist stereotypes on TV in the 70s when I was little and then they quietly disappeared*. Someone in charge at some point made a decision. A sensible one, I think. Maybe the key word here is "quietly". The Seuss Estate can do what it likes with its own books, of course, but I do wonder why it needed to turn this publishing decision into a very public birthday announcement:
"Today, on Dr. Seuss’s Birthday, Dr. Seuss Enterprises celebrates reading and also our mission of supporting all children and families with messages of hope, inspiration, inclusion, and friendship.
We are committed to action. To that end, Dr. Seuss Enterprises, working with a panel of experts, including educators, reviewed our catalog of titles and made the decision last year to cease publication and licensing of the following titles:And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, If I Ran the Zoo, McElligot’s Pool, On Beyond Zebra!, Scrambled Eggs Super!, and The Cat’s Quizzer.These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong."
It seemed guaranteed, almost designed, to bring out the silliest catastrophizing from both conservatives and liberals. Which it has.
From the ridiculous and permanently outraged Ben Shapiro:
"In the end, the only literature allowed will be the literature that adheres to the values of our postmodern world — a world in which we are not expected to conform to societal rules but society is expected to conform to our own acts of self-definition. That means your child reading “I Am Jazz” but never — never, Gaia forbid! — the Bible. It means goodbye to cultural icons, large and small — goodbye to all vestiges of the past, replete with their “bigoted” value systems.
It means that the purges have only just begun."
https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion...s/202103130006
From the reality-challenged Meena (niece of Kamala) Harris:
"I have two young daughters, and I’ve spent countless hours looking for books that would reflect their experiences and encourage their ambitions. As a new parent, I was surprised and frustrated by how hard it was to find those books. Often, I was forced to improvise on the fly – changing pronouns from “he” to “she” or “they,” and sometimes even resorting to coloring a White character’s skin with a brown marker. So I took this news [
the Suess decision] as a small but significant milestone for the millions of other parents of color who have struggled with the same challenges…Inevitably, though, when I do read my daughters stories with representation that falls short, I encourage them to follow along with a critical eye. I ask questions about what’s missing: why don’t we know the women characters’ names? Why don’t they speak? Or even, where are they?"
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.spo...mp-content=amp
(Really? After "countless hours" of searching she can only find children's books with unnamed, silent female characters or no female characters at all? Apart from several that popped into my head immediately, a Google search of "strong female characters in children's books" and "strong black girls in children's books" took a matter of seconds to produce hundreds of results
https://coloursofus.com/250-children...g-black-girls/
The article is basically an excuse to plug a children's book she's written.)
Equally ridiculous statements, both of them.
Some of the images in the Seuss books
are dated and racially stereotyped and I understand the reasons behind withdrawing them. But if the Seuss Estate's main concern was, as Roger suggests, "to preserve the Seuss brand as one that is untainted by values that most of Seuss's best work stands opposite" then making such a public statement about their ceasing publication of these minor titles (something that barely anyone would have otherwise noticed) has backfired spectacularly. Instead, they've made Suess a pawn in the interminable culture wars. In a lot of minds he
is now tainted, officially "problematic", suspect and defended only by the right and this will override his messages of tolerance, his pioneering environmentalism and his imaginative genius for words and pictures. And what has been achieved? Is America more racially harmonious? Have any people of colour had their lives improved? Nope. Just more noise and performative bullshit from all concerned.
*though they’re still available on DVD