Walk in the Woods

Nik Curfman 3/2/21 Nik Curfman 3/2/21

Journal: #218 Dr Seuss Hears A Who

We don’t have to be pissed off or militant about any of this. The hoards on FoxNews and CNN want to draw us into some bullshit game of “hate thy enemy/fear-fear-fear.” I refuse to take the bait. I want to recognize the damage a few illustrations can make without disparaging Dr Seuss. It’s a very human story.

Culture Wars Suck

My instinct with this website is to stay out of politics and cultural issues, although I have occasionally let my thoughts and feelings be known. Culture wars are a tar baby (in the strictest sense of the historical term.) One salient example is Harry Potter.

Millions of Christian teenagers rushed to Harry Potter because their conservative parents told them it was witchcraft. None of them knew Harry Potter was a Jesus figure. The final battle literally includes the killing of a giant snake and a resurrection. The whole series is littered with Biblical references.

(Parents and Christian figures did this while going to see Lord of the Rings in droves. Because somehow…Lord of the Rings wasn’t occult? Or witchcraft? Or the fact that Aragon used the Army of the Dead to win a battle? The only difference I can see is the Baby Boomer generation so set against Harry Potter grew up with Lord of the Rings. Of course it wasn’t evil…to them.)

Dr Seuss Cuts Some Books

Fast forward to today, March 2nd, 2021. Dr Seuss Enterprises, the privately held company who owns the rights to publish 48 titles, decided to cease publication of six Dr Seuss books. I admit it hurt my heart when I first read the headlines. I grew up reading Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, and others. I loved them. We all did.

Political Idiots

As is our new normal, the typical political blowhards took to their ramparts to denounce or laud the announcement. Right-wingers like Sean Hannity raged about “cancel culture”, and crazy CNN ran with “Dr. Seuss had a long history of publishing racist and anti-Semitic work.” This despite the fact Dr Seuss (Theodore Geisel) was named an honorary Jew by the major of Jerusalem in 1969.

A Step Back From Idiocy

What if some of what Mr Geisel wrote in the those Dr Seuss books years ago is- in fact- hurtful? This is a real moment to decide to let go of some literature, but it doesn’t have to be everything the man wrote. Please consider the following pictures from If I Ran The Zoo. The white people look normal and healthy. Some of them wealthy. The Chinese look odd, and the Africans charred. To be fair, the Russians look a bit marred.

Perfect White People

Nope

Good Lord, This Is Bad

Poor Russians

I still love Dr Seuss, but my heart sinks looking at those illustrations. For the love of God, the Africans look like monkeys. I wouldn’t want my future children to read it. I will want to teach them Africa is full of all kinds of people, with all kinds of skin, and none of them look like that. I will want to teach them China is full of a many different ethnic groups. And, only some Russians sport bush-like beards. I want my kids to know the truth. The above is not true.

Dr Seuss Is Good, Not Perfect

I’m not going to judge Mr Geisel all these years later. Everything we know about the man says he was compassionate and kind. He did the best with what he had, and he was flawed. (He wrote quite a few racist political cartoons in his youth.) The good thing about him is he evolved as a man. He stopped drawing racist cartoons and inspired kids to use our imaginations. Horton Hears a Who is one of the great children’s books of all time. The Lorax is an anti-consumer, pro-environment book, and The Grinch is timeless in its criticism of Christmas greed.

From what I can tell, the older Mr Geisel grew the less he used stereotypical figures in his illustrations. The Lorax and The Grinch barely use human figures at all. He wasn’t stereotyping Chinese people into his 70’s.

I’m thinking about the kids. What they put in their brains at such a young age matters, and I’m not just talking about white kids. I try to put myself in the shoes of little black children. If I looked at the picture above, I would not be inspired by it. As an adult Christian man, I’m not inspired when people shit on Jesus. Matter of fact, I hate it. It makes me feel defensive and small. (And as an adult it’s up to me to believe in me and my Savior, rather than approval of naysayers.)

Little Things Matter, No Matter How Small

Do I think one drawing in one book is going to make a huge difference? No. It’s cumulative the effect**. If I Ran A Zoo is still sitting on shelved all across America. (Currently on sale on Amazon for a cool $1500.) I’d rather fight for a place where black kids don’t have monkey like representations stacked next to “respectable white people.” The contrast is stark and depressing.

The last point I want to make is this: we don’t have to be pissed off militant about any of this. The hoards on FoxNews and CNN want to draw us into some bullshit game of “hate thy enemy/fear-fear-fear.” I refuse to take the bait. I want to recognize the damage a few illustrations can make without disparaging Dr Seuss. It’s a very human story.

(**I want to recognize the irony of my opening statement about Harry Potter. I’m defending one set of books while I approve the discontinued publication of others. In my life, the damage done by racism is vastly superior to the occult or witchcraft. The enemy dangles witchcraft in the face of conservative Christians while they do nothing about racism, statues to Confederate generals, and crooked cops. Witchcraft is real, but witches didn’t own millions of slaves, didn’t pass Jim Crow laws after the Civil War, imprison generations of men on bullshit charges, deny minorities jobs, mortgage loans, and educational opportunities. White people did. Christian white people.

I aim to change that. Not because I feel guilty, but because I love black people. I love them enough to have every opportunity I’ve been given, and I’ve been given a lot. I’m not a self-made man. I’m the result of loving parents(with means) and generous friends(again- with means and opportunities to spare.)

So yes. I believe racism exists and is a problem. And, yes. It’s a much bigger deal than witchcraft.)