Let’s talk about Dr. Seuss with critical, not emotional, thinking.
First, the books are not being “banned” and this is not censorship. Anything that states otherwise is deceptive. A private company has decided to stop producing 6 items out of a whole collection. This is well within their rights. Censorship would be if the federal government stepped in and demanded the company stop producing. That did not happen and the company has complete power over their production.
Second, the question of Seuss books being good or bad is a false binary. Dr. Seuss did produce a lot of heavily racist content over the decades both inside and outside his books. Particularly early to mid 20th century. This is a simple fact and the books in question do contain racial stereotypes of Asians, Native Americans, and Africans.
He also has books that are specifically written to promote diversity (like The Sneetches) and books dedicated to highlighting marginalized voices (like Horton Hears a Who). Dr. Seuss also expressed deep regret in his later years for his racist depictions in his content. He changed over the decades, and so did his books.
Thirdly, it is always important to note that our own senses of nostalgia and rosy retrospection are cognitive biases that bypass rational thinking and critical analysis. It is important to reassess our own patterns of thinking throughout our lives so that we can grow in our critical skills. When we think emotionally, our biases take over and we lose rationality.
Building Early Literacy
“But we can use these books to teach about cultural sensitivity!”
Yes, but only if done within the proper channels and not with young children developing early reading skills.
One of the primary developmental aspects to young children is categorization. As early as 1 year old, children start learning how to categorize the world around them. Colors, shapes, faces, people, cultures…when young children (1-6ish) are exposed to racial stereotypes, they embed those into their categorization patterns.
You know the whole “no one is born racist, they learn it”… that is precisely what is happening with these 6 books. This is how and when young children learn racism and these patterns can be subtle and very difficult to overcome later in life. But that is centering white children in the issue.
Children in minority communities also internalize these patterns about themselves which can have devastating psychological impacts. Literacy can only be learned when a child’s identity and cultural values are confirmed and validated. Literacy development hinges on socio-cultural validation. When a child’s identity is not validated, they often shut down in academic settings. This is why maintaining a diverse collection for communities is so vitally important for early childhood education. When these types of books are sequestered and properly contextualized, they can be helpful in teaching how to identify and combat racial stereotypes, but only if this lesson is intentional and these patterns are not already present in a child’s internal categorizations. Otherwise, they risk rejecting the lesson because they find the content fits into their established worldview.
Children have to be prepared *before* reading the book that what they are going to look at is offensive. This is how you foster antiracist cognitive patterns. The lesson *must* be intentional and this is what libraries tend to do. They are no strangers to the discussion of how to curate proper children’s collections and this is not their first rodeo.
Libraries are dedicated to curating collections that offer positive perceptions that can be internalized for ALL members of their communities and they take great pride in maintaining diverse collections that foster adequate literacy skills for all children. They also do NOT like censorship and removing materials for controversial content is book banning. Ask a librarian to remove an offensive book and watch their eye twitch. (JK, don’t do this, give love and funding to your local librarian.)
Libraries tend to collect these types of books from the shelves for the context of having this discussion with children in that, this is offensive and why, while minimizing the potential for internalization of negative self-perceptions.
If the loss of books still troubles you, this list here has some fantastic replacements to help build a diverse collection for children in which marginalized characters and POC are centered in the narrative. Remove one book with anti-Asian racism and replace it with a book about an Asian culture written by someone inside that culture.
We can foster a generation built on respect for others and genuine curiosity about other cultures.
