6 Dr. Seuss Books Canceled by His Own Business Over Racism Accusations
Beloved children’s book author and illustrator Dr. Seuss is being partially canceled by his own estate over claims that some of his books contain racist or racially charged imagery.
In a Tuesday announcement that represents peak cancel culture, Dr. Seuss Enterprises told The Associated Press on what would have been the renowned writer’s 115th birthday that half a dozen of his cherished books will no longer be circulated.
“These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong,” Dr. Seuss Enterprises, which was founded by the author’s family after his death, said in a statement. “Ceasing sales of these books is only part of our commitment and our broader plan to ensure Dr. Seuss Enterprises’ catalog represents and supports all communities and families.”
The estate said it had “listened and took feedback from our audiences including teachers, academics and specialists in the field as part of our review process. We then worked with a panel of experts, including educators, to review our catalog of titles.”
The books being canceled are “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.”
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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:— Dr. Seuss (@DrSeuss) March 2, 2021
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These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.Ceasing sales of these books is only part of our commitment and our broader plan to ensure Dr. Seuss Enterprises’ catalog represents and supports all communities and families.
— Dr. Seuss (@DrSeuss) March 2, 2021
What is so offensive about these titles?
“And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street” portrays an Asian person wearing a “conical hat, holding chopsticks, and eating from a bowl,” the AP said.
“If I Ran the Zoo” contains images of “two bare-footed African men wearing what appear to be grass skirts with their hair tied above their heads,” the report said.
It isn’t clear who complained the loudest about the late author’s strikes against the new American social credit system, but the Seuss estate decided to cancel the titles the same day President Joe Biden omitted any mention of Seuss in his Read Across America Day proclamation.
The AP noted that Dr. Seuss is listed as the second-highest-paid dead celebrity, having earned his estate more than $33 million last year.
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That estate has chosen to repay his life’s work by dragging his legacy through the dirt and riding his coattails on works that haven’t yet been deemed abhorrent. That will come, eventually.
One Virginia school district already branded his entire body of work as problematic.
“Research in recent years has revealed strong racial undertones in many books written/illustrated by Dr. Seuss,” the Loudoun County school district said in a statement Saturday in response to rumors it would cancel Seuss.
“The Cat in the Hat” has received criticism in recent years, so you know that cancelation is coming.
Surely 1960’s “Green Eggs and Ham” will be found noninclusive at some point. What will happen when yellow, brown, white, purple and topaz hams feel left out? Wait until Dr. Seuss Enterprises learns that billions of Muslims across the globe don’t even eat ham.
Perhaps the 1971 environmental saga “The Lorax” will remain viable for those at Dr. Seuss Enterprises in the short term — that is, until speaking up for trees is attributed to mansplaining. Although the book’s title character appears anatomically androgynous, the character’s mustache would lead one to assume it to be male.
You would think Seuss, who was born Theodor Seuss Geisel, would have enough social equity with the left to survive for another several years. Leftist activists often appear as if they’ve borrowed their appearances and hair colors from fictional characters in Seuss books, and the man was a liberal Democrat and a supporter of former President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal policies.
But unlike the eggs in Seuss’s most popular work, that new deal wasn’t green, and the author lived in a different era — one that is now the target of a group of people who hate context and don’t understand nuance.
His partial cancelation will surely see him, at some point, summarily shut down amid the American left’s ongoing book-burning campaign.
Is there a better way to posthumously honor a beloved and iconic author and illustrator than to shut him down on what would have been his birthday?
Is there anything more demonstrative of our culture than to see an enterprise essentially advocate for the cancellation of itself?
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
