The Dr. Seuss issue

[Lynx-lynx]

If that's the case, which author/s will try this next (or legatees of authors)

Edit: the field is open

[DiapDealer]

Simple business decision <> uninformed, snap decision. Once all the facts were in, I'm quite certain their path forward was a no brainer.

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Once all the facts were in, I'm quite certain their path forward was a no brainer.

Yup. Once all the facts were in... Facts such as the negative publicity these books had been receiving in recent years from vocal activists; considerations related to the expected fallout from those with competing agendas; the meagre sales of the books in question...

They could have axed the books years ago when they were receiving complaints about them. I'm sure the sales of the titles in question were not much better in 2014 than they were last year. They didn't do it then. There have been some very public incidents since then, resulting in a lot of "feedback" from outside audiences... and so they finally made their no-brainer decision after consulting with "a panel of experts" after making all their various calculations.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

The image is an antique representation of a Chinese person with chop sticks. That is how many many Chinese people dressed in the past and the utensils they used. Does the image have some negative connotation in the USA that I am unaware as I do not live in that country?

This gets into how to interpret Dr. Seuss books. Some of it is here:

https://reason.com/2021/03/08/dr-seu...ks-censorship/

As seen in my link, Geisel/Seuss was an old-fashioned liberal opposed to strong racial and ethnic identification. This is why he portrayed people who looked the part of their race as silly. It is also, I think, one reason why he made the great majority of his characters animals. Indeed, when he was accused of racism, he defended himself on my-characters-are-animals grounds.

Another objection, to the Seuss books, is that when Geisel does have human characters, they are almost always white. I think he did this because he didn't usually like to show racial differences. But it might have been a bigger mistake than one (or is it two?) depictions of a barefoot Black man in a grass skirt.

If he was alive today, he might be saying -- OK, I'll re-draw the few people in those books to make them racially ambiguous. This might be enough to prevent further book suppression, even though the diversity literature professors wouldn't really be satisfied.

None of this, including everything I got wrong above, has anything to do with the freedom, to buy eBooks, that I defend.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Question Mark

Just curious. What do you make then of the Cambridge elementary school librarian who publicly refused Melania Trump's gift of Dr. Seuss books, writing an open letter explaining how harmful they were despite two years earlier hosting a Green Eggs and Ham breakfast for students while dressed up as the Cat in the Hat?

I think that librarian was a piece of crap aggrandizing herself by injecting politics into a situation where there shouldn't have been any, and I thought it at the time.

Seems very much like outside pressure to score cheap political points to me. Do you really think that the Seuss foundation would have overlooked those events?

This is where you lose me. You think everything is associated with outside agitators when it is far more likely that librarian was being a nasty piece of shit to the Trumps because it was likely her only chance to interact with them in any meaningful way.

There were liberals like me that thought that was uncouth.

At any rate, I do doubt that that situation had anything to do with the current one. You are trying to pull unrelated threads together as a conspiracy and I just don't see it.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Can't buy, but can now stream: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6dYrdRlNZSKaVxYg5IrvCH

Yeah, I've been following that. The KLF are an interesting rabbit hole to go down. Very weird guys.

I just thought they fit into the discussion as artists who withdrew their work after it was widely available.

[John F]

... “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,” it said. ...

I haven't been reading the links, so have they said what their broader plan is?

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

This is where you lose me. You think everything is associated with outside agitators when it is far more likely that librarian was being a nasty piece of shit to the Trumps because it was likely her only chance to interact with them in any meaningful way.

I had assumed that you had read the other posts which I had written in this thread where "outside agitators" did directly contact Dr. Seuss Enterprises.

The removal was not made abruptly, as, according to Dr. Seuss Enterprises, the company made the decision last year. There had already been various complaints raised by the likes of teachers regarding the content of certain books. For example, If I Ran the Zoo was challenged at the Vancouver Public Library in 2014 for racist Asian stereotypes.

https://www.cbr.com/dr-seuss-stepdau...s-publication/

Dr. Seuss Enterprises were also likely not unaware of other "outside agitators" who went to the NEA with the findings from their study and "stakeholder" feedback to pressure to the NEA to move the focus of Read Across America Day from Dr. Seuss where it had been for 20 years.

As critical race scholar-activists, we engaged stakeholders, including youth, families, and teachers from racially marginalized communities, to identify and document existing forms of resistance to Seuss' racist works. In 2017, we submitted this stakeholder feedback, and our study findings, to the National Education Association’s (NEA) Read Across America (RAA) Advisory Committee. RAA is the nation’s largest celebration of reading, with over 45 million annual participants. The NEA created the event in 1996 to take place on Dr. Seuss' birthday (March 2nd). For twenty years, the celebration was centered around Dr. Seuss' children’s books and the author himself. We advocated that they reconsider their twenty year focus on Seuss and use their platform to promote anti-racist diverse books by authors of color.

https://sophia.stkate.edu/cgi/viewco...0&context=rdyl

And then there was the Learning for Justice article in 2019 which Dr. Seuss Enterprises would also likely have been aware of: https://www.learningforjustice.org/m...about-dr-seuss

And we know that Dr. Seuss listened to "feedback" from outisde audiences and then enlisted the help of "a panel of experts" to arrive at their decision, a process that involved "months of discussion."

The decision to cease publication and sales of the books was made last year after months of discussion, the company told AP.

"Dr. Seuss Enterprises 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," it said.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dr-seus...se-publishing/

It does seem that a lot of outside pressure was being put on Dr. Seuss Enterprises and that it wasn't a simple business decision on their part.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Good lord. Speaking of frothing.

Seriously, do you ever do anything other than simply snark at other posters? Maybe some sort rational other than it doesn't fit your preferred narrative?

[meeera]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

I'm against book/eBook (and newspaper) suppression and self-censorship regardless of whether it is corporate or governmental, left or right. I guess we could discuss political motives over at the political forum, but in terms of a web board promoting Mobile Reading, I don't think motive is the big issue. The issue is, for me, freedom to read.

It sounds to me like you are arguing that your supposed "freedom to read" should trump other people's freedom of speech.

Just because they engaged in a particular type of speech once, doesn't mean they should be compelled to do so forever more just because you say so. If they no longer wish to reprint books to which they hold the copyright, bad luck, it's out of print. Many books go out of print. Find a secondhand copy, or wait till it's public domain, like you have to with all the other gazillions of out-of-print books. You've had eighty-four years to get yourself your own copy of Mulberry Street.

They get to stop engaging in this particular speech. You get to try to convince them otherwise. Then the chips will fall where they will.

[murraypaul]

It seems reasonable to think that the foundation have found themselves on the end of a bit of pressure and some bad publicity, have looked at the sales of the books in question and decided that they just aren't worth the hassle, and that they can turn it around and get some good publicity by making their decision public.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Seriously, do you ever do anything other than simply snark at other posters? Maybe some sort rational other than it doesn't fit your preferred narrative?

Sure. I help all kinds of people here with various things. If you don't know this, it probably just means that you only tend to use Mobileread in a fairly limited way. Step out of the General and News forums every now and then and you might know this.

And seriously??? Someone frothing at "intellectuals" about "frothing intellectuals" doesn't deserve a little snark thrown their way? Please.

Plus it's not as if you ever tend embrace criticism of your own preferred polemic.

Jot down the users I tend to snark at sometime. You might be surprised at how small a group that it actually is.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Question Mark

It does seem that a lot of outside pressure was being put on Dr. Seuss Enterprises and that it wasn't a simple business decision on their part.

I read through the same articles you did and arrived at a different place.

What's important is that you feel it is true.

[ekbell]

What bemused me is that I went and checked out my copy of Your Favorite Seuss: A Baker's Dozen published in 2004 and found three of the offending books.

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I read through the same articles you did and arrived at a different place.

So you read all the same articles, including the one which specifically stated that complaints had been made to Dr. Seuss Enterprises and giving an example of one from 2014, and yet you still don't "see where outside pressure was put on the Seuss foundation."

Interesting...