After grandma’s daily dose of Jeopardy is a round of news that she usually watches on CBS – the local and then the national. This week one of the hot topics was of course Dr. Seuss’s birthday and the annual Read Across America Day. Dr. Seuss Enterprises used a special panel to decide that 6 of his books will no longer be published because they “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.”
My takeaway from that wasn’t that the books were banned, they are just not going to publish them anymore. Makes sense to me, especially after reviewing some of the books. There’s some controversial history in Seuss’s past works, and even though I love the classic greats, I also am aware of that much – so this decision didn’t really phase me much and in fact I thought it was a practical and probably much needed course of action.
As the week progressed I realized that there was a huge outcry happening throughout the country about it. My mom shared something that was posted on Facebook with me because she responded to it. Facebook was her only source of info on this particular topic I guess, because her takeaway from what she had read was that they were banning and cancelling Dr. Seuss and her response reflected that.
SMH. It’s hard to explain my deep frustration on this continuing plague of social and word of mouth “news”. 😡. It wasn’t that long ago that people took what they saw on the internet at face value – it could be true, it could be false, it could be a robot – and didn’t take it as fact without some other reliable source weighing in on the matter.
The strange thing about this turn of events is that I am a huge conspiracy buff and believe that news has always been censored (that is different from being fake). But I’m also more apt to read/watch and believe a major news outlet and look deeper into something rather than first believing something someone throws up on the internet to get a reaction out of people.
I’ve gotten off topic… Instead of going off on a rant about how the crazy people are cancelling Dr. Seuss, why don’t you discover for yourself what the 6 books are and what is questionable in them. If you still feel that they are appropriate for children (and at that point I will question your parenting skills and right to be a human), then so be it – at least you will be more informed on the topic and come to your own conclusions.
Honestly, these books will still be around (just look at Dick and Jane folks…if you have never checked out the Johnny Phoenix Misinterpretation bit, I highly recommend it) … let’s just shelve them for appropriate ages and as a lesson in history.
xoxo,
Da’Nela, an American Misfit, [she/her/hers/trying to be humanish, maybe]
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Resources:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/02/us/dr-seuss-books-cease-publication-trnd/index.html
https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/trevor-noah-tucker-carlson-dr-seuss-143410190.html
Also Read:
https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/250740/posts/13379
And add some humor to your day:
