WHAT DR. SEUSS BEING CANCELLED MEANS FOR YOU
WHAT DR. SEUSS BEING CANCELLED MEANS FOR YOU
According to The Federalist, “Dr. Seuss has been cancelled. Some of his work has been deemed racist, and we can’t have that. On Tuesday, the entity that oversees the estate of Theodor Seuss Geisel announced it would no longer publish six of Geisel’s books because they “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.”
Among the works now deemed unfit for children are Geisel’s first book under the pen name Dr. Seuss, “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” published in 1937, and the much-beloved, “If I Ran the Zoo,” published in 1950. The former depicts a “Chinaman” character and the latter shows two men from “the African island of Yerka” in native garb. . . .
By all accounts he was a liberal-minded and tolerant man who hated Nazis and, as a political cartoonist, mocked the antisemitism that was all-too-common in America during World War II. . . .
But context and nuance don’t factor into the inexorable logic of the woke left, which flattens and refashions the past into a weapon for the culture wars of the present. What’s important to understand is that this isn’t simply about banning six Dr. Seuss books. All of Geisel’s work is, in the judgment of left-wing academia, an exercise in “White supremacy, paternalism, conformity, and assimilation.” It might be easy for conservatives to laugh that off as nonsense, but they shouldn’t, because this isn’t really even about Geisel.
The Left Is Carrying Out a Cultural Revolution
To grasp how a man known as much for his messages of tolerance as for his artistic genius could be canceled for racism, you have to understand what’s actually happening here. . . .
There’s a predictable pattern to what we’re seeing now. It’s predictable because it has happened before in much the same way it’s happening now. During China’s Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and ‘70s, the Chinese Communist Party, at the direction of Mao Zedong, called for the destruction of the “Four Olds”: old customs, old culture, old habits, old ideas. . . .
Children and students were encouraged by the communist government to inform on their parents and elders, to shame and condemn them in public. The guilty were forced to recant in “struggle sessions,” during which they were mocked and humiliated, sometimes tortured, sometimes murdered. Before it was over, millions were dead.
We’re obviously not there yet, but the woke revolutionaries who now run our elite institutions and exert outsized influence in the corridors of power are following this same pattern.
First, they come for the monuments, destroying the icons of the past and re-writing history to turn even our national heroes and Founding Fathers into enemies. The animating ethos of the mobs pulling down Confederate statues is the same as The New York Times editors who gave us the 1619 Project. And because there is no limiting principle to iconoclasm, they have moved on from Confederates.
The City of Charlottesville, for example, having removed or tried to remove every last Confederate monument, is now pleading for someone, anyone, to haul away a giant statue of explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. . . .
Then they come for the books, destroying any ideas or literature that challenges their ideology—like Ryan Anderson’s 2018 book on the dangers of transgenderism, which Amazon summarily canceled last month. Even seemingly unobjectionable books can be targeted, if not for their content then for the race of their author. Just ask Jeanine Cummins, whose novel “American Dirt” drew the ire of the left last year simply because Cummins, who is white, wrote a book about Mexican drug cartels. . . .
So much for statues and books. At some point, the left will come for actual people, because the ideology of revolution demands that dissent—and therefore dissidents—be silenced, by force if necessary.
If you think that’s an exaggeration, recall what happened all across the country last summer when Black Lives Matter “protesters” took to the streets. They didn’t just march and chant, they rioted. They attacked businesses, destroyed entire city blocks, and carried out a campaign of intimidation, harassing, and in some cases attacking random people if they didn’t kneel and repeat the slogans of the revolution. . . .
So forget about Dr. Seuss. Forget about the statues and the books. Those things are just the beginning. It could easily get much worse. The woke revolutionaries of the left can’t be bargained with or appeased. They believe this is a zero-sum game, that one side will win and one side will lose. And they’re right. . . .
Leo Terrell says cancel culture will backfire ‘because it denies history,’ explodes on liberal professor over Dr. Seuss books: ‘You do not represent the black community’
According to The Blaze, “Leo Terrell slammed cancel culture in a Tuesday interview with Fox News’ Martha MacCallum. . . .
The civil rights attorney’s remarks were in reference to Dr. Seuss Enterprises’ announcement that it would stop publishing at least six books that some people said included “racist and insensitive imagery.”
Later on Tuesday, he spoke with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, where he blasted a fellow guest over the controversy.
What are the details?
Defending the books, Terrell, a former teacher, said that the images “reflect the time in which the books were written.”
“I am not offended by those pictures because it talks about the evolution of this country and how we are now,” he said. “You cannot ignore history, you cannot eliminate history. There’s worse pictures than that. But taking in context, those that want to cancel these books, those that think those books are racist, show me the harm to victims today. They can’t!
“They use this argument of racist as a gimmick, a talking point to basically cancel people out,” he added. “I think it’s wrong as a teacher. … We cannot eliminate our history. Some of our history is bad but the majority is great. Both sides need to be taught.”
MacCallum admitted that some of the images in the book are not how “we depict people today,” and noted that a majority of the images with which people took issue were based on the conditions of an entirely different era.
“Cancel culture is going to backfire, because it denies history,” he agreed. . . .
What else?
On Tuesday night, Terrell spoke with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, where he exploded at fellow guest liberal professor Dr. Omekongo Dibinga — who advocated for the books’ cancellations.
“I support the decisions of a company making a decision on its own that it didn’t want to offend a group of people, so I’m all about supporting this,” Dibinga told Hannity and said that myriad examples of racism in Seuss’ books gave him reason to believe that the company was “making the right decision to respect how these people are viewed.”
Terrell snapped back, “Those books are historical books. Those books talk about the weaknesses, the flaws in this country, and how this country has grown. … You name me one person, first and last name, who’s been harmed by any of these books! You cannot do it!”
“I can name the black community that has harmed by those books,” Dibinga said.
“No you don’t!” Terrell shouted. “Don’t say that! You do not represent the black community!… You don’t represent me! For you to sit here and say that is a lie!” . . .
What do you think about Dr. Seuss being canceled? Share in the comments below. . .
(Photo Credit: Unsplash.)
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Comments
Ridiculous. Just makes me want to buy the books. People are now asking $1,000 for those books on Amazon. My grandson’s 2 favorite books are “Green Eggs and Ham” and “Are You my Mother”. I read him those books just about every time I am at his house which is often. Dr. Seuss books are the best books to learn to read.
Thank you Terrrell for standing up against the bullying of the people who want to be who’s in who’sville.I can’t think of ever being harmed by Dr Seuss books a wonderful part of a natural childhood. Children are exposed to very harmful manipulation these days. Do not be deceived by this diversion.