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Dr. Seuss didn’t have ‘a racist bone’
in his body, stepdaughter says
The publisher announced Tuesday that it will stop selling the titles because they “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.”
By Noah Manskar | New York Post
One of Dr. Seuss’ stepdaughters insisted to The New York Post on Tuesday that the world-famous children’s author was no racist — and that she hopes his six controversial kiddie books yanked from publication will be back.
"There wasn’t a racist bone in that man’s body — he was so acutely aware of the world around him and cared so much,’’ Lark Grey Dimond-Cates said of her late now-embattled stepdad, whose real name was Theodor Seuss Geisel.
The publisher of the Dr. Seuss books, Penguin Random House, announced Tuesday that it will stop selling six of his titles because they "portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong."
Dimond-Cates said the publishing house’s arm that oversees his legacy, Dr. Seuss Enterprises, informed her Monday about the decision not to continue printing "If I Ran the Zoo," "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street," "McElligot’s Pool," "On Beyond Zebra!," "Scrambled Eggs Super!" and "The Cat’s Quizzer."
"I think in this day and age it’s a wise decision," she told The Post of the move.
"I think this is a world that right now is in pain, and we’ve all got to be very gentle and thoughtful and kind with each other.
"This is just very difficult, painful times that we live in," said Dimond-Cates, a California sculptor who added that Geisel came into her life when she was in grade school.
"We’re taking that into account and being thoughtful. We don’t want to upset anybody.’’
Dimond-Cates’ mother was Geisel’s second wife, Audrey Geisel, and the sculptor also has a sister, another of the author’s stepdaughters, Leagrey Dimond. Dr. Seuss did not have any children of his own.
Still, Dimond-Cates said she hopes the six pulled books eventually will go back into print "because his body of work is unique."
She described her stepdad as "a sensitive, intelligent, caring man" who was "a product of his times, as we all are" — noting that he revised some of his illustrations over time and advocated for environmental conservation through books such as "The Lorax."
She recalled that three of the halted titles — "Mulberry Street," "McElligot’s Pool" and "If I Ran the Zoo" — grew out of Geisel’s memories of his "very happy childhood" in Springfield, Mass.
"Mulberry Street [particularly] always makes me smile,’’ the relative said.
She noted that more than 20 publishers passed on the book — which takes its name from an actual street in Springfield — before it became the first to be published under Geisel’s iconic pen name.
"I think the lesson to learn from that book is, ‘Don’t give up,’ " Dimond-Cates said.
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In one of Geisel's banned books he represented Asians with horizontal lines as eyes and holding chop sticks!
He represented Africans in another banned book as barefooted and with grass skirts! Horrors!Read how the Southern Poverty Law Center hate group was behind this banning of the Jew "Dr. Seus's" children's books, here: https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bann ... -work-anti
Dr. Seuss Cancelled by Va. School System
Caving to SPLC Group’s Claim His Work Is
‘Anti-Blackness,’ ‘White Supremacy’
By Craig Bannister | February 26, 2021
The educational arm of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has bullied a Virginia school district into cancelling any mention of beloved children’s book Author Dr. Seuss on a pro-reading day established by National Education Association (NEA) to honor his birthday.
Every year since 1998, schools have celebrated “Read Across America Days” on Seuss’ birthday, March 2. But, the Loudon County, Virginia school system will snub Seuss this year, bowing to the demands of SPLC’s “Learning for Justice” activists, The Daily Wire reports:
As evidence against Seuss, Learning for Justice has cited a study titled “The Cat is Out of the Bag: Orientalism, AntiBlackness, and White Supremacy in Dr. Seuss,” which claims that:“Learning for Justice — a left-wing educators group — is demanding that Dr. Seuss be canceled. A prominent Virginia school district has taken marching orders and ordered its schools to avoid “connecting Read Across America Day with Dr. Seuss.”
“Loudoun County Public Schools, one of the nation’s most affluent school districts, announced that it will no longer recognize Dr. Seuss on his birthday. In an announcement obtained by The Daily Wire, the school district said that Dr. Seuss’s children’s books contain “racial undertones” that are not suitable for “culturally responsive” learning.”
One of the study’s criticisms, for example, is that the cat character in The Cat in the Hat books is racist because his mouth is open to many times:“Some of Dr. Seuss' most iconic books feature animal or non-human characters that transmit Orientalist, anti-Black, and White supremacist messaging through allegories and symbolism. These books include The Cat in the Hat; The Cat in the Hat Comes Back; The Sneetches; and Horton Hears a Who!”
---“The Cat’s mouth is also depicted as open wide on fifteen of the nineteen pages he is present. Nel cites Sianne Ngai’s research that explains, ‘the mouth functions as a symbolically overdetermined feature in racist constructions of Blackness.’”
