Illustration for Little Black Sambo board game, 1924.
I seriously hate the term “cancel culture” and think the whole controversy is bullshit. But now I’m seeing People Who Ought to Know Better wringing their hands over the “canceling” of six Dr. Seuss books and fretting that “canceling” is getting out of hand.
To which I say, get over it. This is not new. When I was a small child in the early1950s I remember being read Little Black Sambo (1899), still considered a kids’ lit classic at the time even though Langston Hughes had blasted it back in the 1930s as hurtful to Black children. In its day I believe Sambo was at least as widely read as The Cat in the Hat (which has not been “canceled,” I hope you know). It’s hard to find copies of Sambo now, although I understand the basic story (which is charming) has been retold in other children’s books in less blatantly racist ways.
The six Dr. Seuss books dropped by the publisher, Dr. Seuss Enterprises, are And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, If I Ran the Zoo, McElligot’s Pool, On Beyond Zebra!, Scrambled Eggs Super!, and The Cat’s Quizzer. Those last four I never heard of, and I have no memory of reading the first two, although I had heard of them. But I learned through googling that Mulberry (1937), at least, does have objectionable illustrations such as the one on the left. This is not something that would be published today.
Mulberry is still available via Amazon, through resellers. A hardback copy is going for $749.99. If you have an old copy in the attic, you might want to find it now.
The argument was made that we shouldn’t judge the Seuss books based on today’s standards of what’s acceptable. That’s a lecture I make about historical figures and documents all the time. But I doubt that a parent reading the Mulberry Street book to a child is going to stop and explain why the illustration of the “Chinaman” isn’t acceptable, especially at a time when anti-Asian discrimination and violence are on the rise in this country.
Consider the old blackface minstrel shows. It’s one thing to learn about them as an artifact of history. It’s another entirely for someone to produce them today and bring them to a theater near you.
I want to call your attention to this story in the New York Post, which begins:
First it was Huck Finn. Then it was JK Rowling. Last week it was “The Muppet Show.” This week it’s Dumbo. It’s only a matter of time before “Star Wars” gets canceled and you know it.
Will Gen X please stand up? I have something I want to say to you — to us.
We grew up in a country that didn’t ban books. We all agreed that witch hunts and blacklists were bad. Censorship was an outrage. The 1980s were not that long ago. Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.
Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and The Muppet Show are as available as ever, as are JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books. (Rowling has been under fire because of comments about trans women.) Controversy and criticism are not censorship or “cancellation.” Dumbo got into trouble because of the crows, of course, and isn’t being shown or marketed by Disney any more.
There has always been controversy about art, you know. Did you know that Jonathan Swift (the author of Gulliver’s Travels) tried to stop the Dublin premiere of Handel’s Messiah oratorio in 1742? Many people thought it scandalous to present a musical work about Jesus in a music hall, to a paying audience.
Closer to home, remember all those years in which the Right tried to shut down the entire National Endowment of the Arts because of the infamous “Piss Christ” photo (1987)? Republicans did succeed in cutting the NEA budget, mostly riding on outrage about that photo. Somehow that doesn’t count as “cancelling.” Odd, that. But let’s go on.
In fact, all kinds of stuff was censored and revised and “canceled” before 1980. I take it the author of the New York Post article was only discussing the post-McCarthy period, say about 1960, until 1980, as the time when “witch hunts and blacklists were bad” (there was a lot of witch hunting and blacklisting in the 1950s) and “censorship was an outrage.” Books banned somewhere in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s included J.D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye (naughty words); John Updike’s Rabbit, Run (explicit sex); Judy Blume, Forever (teenage sex); Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five (anti-Christian); and Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (naughty words). Seriously, a lot of books were tossed from schools and libraries in the 1960s and 1970s, usually by conservatives.
Now, let’s go back to publishing and what I saw as a worker bee in the publishing industry, beginning in 1973 and my first job as a college graduate, working as a production editor for a university press.
In the 1970s, as the civil rights movement and second-wave feminism were having an impact, publishers realized that much of their backlist (older books still being reprinted and sold) contained a lot of racist and sexist crap that was suddenly embarassing. Those books were either revised for reprinting or quietly dropped from publishers’ catalogs. This was going on in academic and mass market publishing alike. And many children’s books, not just Sambo, were either retired or re-illustrated.
By the late 1970s I was working for a small publisher in Cincinnati, and we were going to produce a joke book for after-dinner speakers. The author was an older guy who had long made a living as a motivational speaker. One of his “jokes” was about wife beating. It’s a joke that might have been told by a stand-up comic on the old Ed Sullivan Show in the early 1960s. It probably was, actually. But in the 1970s, not so much. Attitudes were evolving.
I deleted the “joke” from the manuscript. The author was outraged. My manager, also a woman, backed me up. A lot of male managers might not have, yet. The stuff about his frigid wife and shrewish mother-and-law (mainstays of stand-up comedy once upon a time) stayed in, though.
I also remember being given the task of revising a backlist how-to book that was still selling well but was badly dated in many ways. It was full of such charming asides as “This is so simple even your wife could do it.” I rewrote a lot of that one. If the author complained I never heard; he may have been deceased.
“Serious” academic books also came under scrutiny. Before the 1970s one might often be reading a scholarly account of some ancient battle between, say, Persians and Greeks. And then you’d run into a sentence like “The Persians overran the Greeks and stole their women.” Somebody’s consciousness needed to be raised.
In the 1970s there were many studies and symposiums and what not examining conventions in language, with the aim of making our language more inclusive and respectful. It was during this period that, for example, mailman became mail carrier, chairman became just chair or chairperson, and retarded became developmentally disabled, This didn’t happen all at once; it was a long-drawn-out process taking place mostly in academia and publishing.
At some point, the people engaged in this process began to refer to is as “political correctness,” a phrase that had been coined in the 1930s to describe the way people in totalitarian states like the Soviet Union or Third Reich had to watch what they said. This was a kind of in-joke, originally. Then somebody published a humor book about political correctness that poked gentle fun at the process. This process did get a bit silly at times. I remember a manuscript for a middle school social studies text in which somebody wanted to change “Viking oarsmen” to “oarspersons,” for example.
The humor book became a best seller, and then everybody knew the phrase “political correctness.” PC became a pejorative in the 1980s and 1990s as conservative academics like Allan Bloom were fretting that the old Euro-centric curricula in literature and liberal arts generally were being challenged in favor of something more global. And then by the 1990s “PC” had become a rallying cry for bigots who resented having their speech corrected. I remember reading a social-psychology paper ca. 1998 that proposed White racists sincerely believe all other Whites are just as bigoted as they are but won’t admit it “because they’re just being PC.” “Political correctness” to right-wing extremists became a kind of censorship that didn’t allow people to speak “truth.”
And this brings us back to the Right’s phony outrage over Dr. Seuss books they’ve probably never read or cared about until they heard they were being “canceled.” Notice that news stories about the deicision by the publisher to drop six lesser-known and dated works from the backlist are nearly all illustrated by pictures of the beloved Cat in the Hat, who has not been affected in any way.
If these six books were not by such a famous author the publisher might have tweaked the text a bit and hired a new illustrator. That’s been done with some old children’s books; mostly readers don’t notice.
And it’s also the case that publishers drop books from their lists all the time and let them go out of print. If the publisher freely chooses to do this, it’s not censorship. It’s a business decision.
But let’s look at who is trying to “cancel” books because they don’t like the content. According to the American Library Association, the ten most challenged books of 2019 were mostly attacked because of their LGBTQ-inclusive content. Social conservatives were trying to get them out of schools and libraries, and probably succeeded in some places.
One of the two exceptions was The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. The other exception was the Harry Potter series, but not because of JK Rowling’s comments about trans women. According to the ALA, the series has been removed from some schools and libraries “for referring to magic and witchcraft, for containing actual curses and spells, and for characters that use ‘nefarious means’ to attain goals.”
Damn, those spells really work? I’ll have to look some of them up again.
I've looked over some of those books. Some of them are flawed masterpieces, which a few simple edits can fix. The Chinaman who eats with sticks could be changed to, oh let's say, a serviceman who's juggling bricks; and this could be given an appropriately Seussian illustration.
The publisher and the estate would have to invest a small amount into hiring a poet and an artist, and devote editorial attention to make sure that the edit is seamless. But then they could keep the book on their list. Dropping publication is both ham-handed self-righteousness and corporate soullessness.
I propose a competition: the Seuss Repair Contest. Contestants submit re-edits of the offending poems and pictures. Winners get a fee, and published in Seuss. The judges include a member of the estate, an editor from the publisher's, an artist, a critic, a self-righteous scold, and a child. The scold is allowed to expound at length, but has no vote.
The main problem with such a contest is that the publishers would have to show clearly just what they object to. Some of these baffle me. "If I Ran The Zoo" included a two-page spread about "Eskimo fish" wearing parkas. Is that the problem? Would changing it to "Inuit fish" help? That has an inner rhyme!
And I have yet to find any recognizable stereotypes in "On Beyond Zebra". Or anything recognizable at all, outside of Seuss's world. Just what was the problem?
Perhaps they did it to unload a lot of back inventory!
I can imagine that Seuss purists would throw fits and boycott the book, though. There's also a strong possibility that the six books in question aren't selling well enough to salvage, from a business standpoint.
So maybe it's just that the publishers want to thin out their inventory, and seek excuses.
Actually, the Eskimo fish – or if you insist, Inuit fish – were in McElligot's Pool. My bad.
Native Alaskans object to the term "Eskimo" (my impression is that they don't want to be referred to using somebody else's term). They also angrily object to the "Eskimo kiss" concept (i.e., rubbing noses), which I always viewed as cute and innocuous.
Hey, publisher, please give me a chance to adjust the illustration and verbiage first before ceasing to sell the books!?!
A few little things, here and there, can make a big difference!
Like with the Chinese depiction: I can change that!
That's easy. Draw a 30ish, bearded, tattooed, White guy in jeans and a t-shirt, exiting a sushi/sashimi joint with an open box, and the caption would read, "…A Brooklyn 'hipster' who eats with sticks…"
See?
Easy, right?
There will always be someone to find fault. I remember 50 years ago when people were complaining about Ronald McDonald being a derogatory stereotype for people of Scottish heritage.
I really hated to see IF I RAN THE ZOO on the list, because the comically long names of the animals and places are such potential confidence builders for young readers. Being able to read a 50-letter word by pronouncing syllables is a significant victory. I had not read the book since I was a kid, but I remember it was fun for me as a strong reader to say the ridiculous words. Just from that standpoint of achievement, I'd have preferred to see that one cleaned up and renewed. I don't know what was objectionable in it, as I was not a very "woke' child, and it has been more than a few years since I read it. Several decades, in fact. But we do need to present learning materials that are helpful to children, both academically and socially. No need to insult people.
Yeah, If I Ran the Zoo was my fave from that list, too. I clicked a link from a friend's FB Comment which showed 3 questionable pages:
1. Two Africans carrying a long-neck bird on a pole between them. The Africans look like Pygmies – short, bizarre top-knot (matching the bird?). exaggerated faces, like a Suess version of some tribe I would have seen in National Geographic.
2. Double-page spread of Asians hauling Bustard & Flustard (who only eat mustard/custard…). Text says they "wear their eyes at a slant". Attire is mish-mosh of old Asian styles (loose sleeves, wooden high sandals, grass hat, etc).
3. A "Chieftain" from the "desert of Zind" riding the Snaggle-Foot Muligatawny. Ethnicity of the Chieftain is unclear; presumably Arab, but not obvious (light brown hair?). This page is listed as problematic mainly because Gerald McGrew muses about putting the Chieftain in the zoo along with the animal.
None of the stereotypes really impugn the character of the people depicted, but the images and text are pretty obviously "offensive". I can't fault Geisel's Estate for taking this one out of print.
But still, I find it sad that new generations will be less likely to read Suess' timeless political metaphor:
"If I ran the Zoo, said young Gerald McGrew, I'd make a few changes, that's just what I'd do."
All right, at worst delete those pages. Keep the deleted pages in a vault or something. Sure the purists will wail, but the kids keep the rest of the book. Deleting all is ham-handed; and probably a cover for corporate downsizing.
And there will be bootlegged copies…
The whole thing is conservative BS. It's all they have.
I haven't spent any time looking into the details of why a private organization made a particular business decision. And I don't plan to waste any of my time doing that. What I can tell you is that any "true" conservative entrepreneur who starts a small publishing company would go ballistic if anyone tried to constrain their free-market right to decide what to publish and what not to publish.
As far as I know, neither a government agency nor a liberal activist organization coerced the Seuss organization to take this action. So, conservatives, please, STFU.
It's the same BS as the phony "war on Christmas", which the right has manufactured out of whole cloth. In our capitalist society, any company, e.g. Target, has the right to establish policy that they think will keep as many customers as possible buying their products. So, do the right wingers direct their "rage" at the corporate policy makers? No they blame "liberals". Go figure.
While I'm on a roll, it the same BS as Hannity screaming "Who the hell is Joe Biden to tell you what you can or can't do on July 4th?" I say to Hannity: "Who the hell are YOU to tell the President of the United States what he can or cannot say about OUR government's GUIDANCE on what is helpful or harmful to the health of the general public?" So you want to censor the POTUS. FU (I have freedom of speech)
I'm a big fan of To Kill A Mockingbird. (As an example.) There are a number of times the author used the 'N' word, as far as I can remember putting the word into the speech of bigots or children emulating bigots. I would not change a word but whether an author doing a book in that period should use the verbiage of the time is open to debate.
On 'cancel culture', I think many miss the strategic intent of the complaint. Conservatives want the mass media market to treat lies with the same respect as facts. Threats of violence are only words and they want them accepted as mainstream. Preparing an insurrection is not something they want criminalized. That law enforcement may apply to domestic terrorists the level of surveillance applied to Muslims has them terrified.
'Cancel Culture' is about protecting anything whites do until you can prove violence.
OT, this one is for you Maha, A one-woman watchdog is tormenting the far-right in deep-red California
Something I've not seen mentioned in any articles about old children's books is how sexist some are. I read Mulberry Street to my daughters back when they were young. I was shocked that among all the people parading down the street, there isn't a single female. It's just page after page of men doing everything under the sun. I had to rewrite the story to add female characters so my daughters could have some role models.
Yeah, that’s one of the things publishers started to adjust in the 1970s. By the 1980s, when I was working for an el-hi textbook publisher, we had quotas of how many boys/men girls/women had to be depicted in each book, plus there were “ethnic checks” — illustrations had to depict a certain percentage of racial minorities. Before the 1970s no one really paid attention to such things, I don’t believe.