We have gone on beyond nonsense. Theodore Geisel — Dr. Seuss — whimsically drew and rhymed his way into our hearts. But owners of his copyrights and trademarks have announced that they will no longer keep in print a handful of Seussiana, including And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, If I Ran the Zoo, and On Beyond Zebra!
“These books portray people,” says a press release from “Seussville,” “in ways that are hurtful and wrong.”
The objection appears to be that caricatures of Chinese and Africans and others are based on stereotypes and, therefore, “hurtful.”
After retrieving your rolled eyes from deep within their sockets, recognize that cartoons and caricatures rely upon stereotypes. Which is why I still own copies of the first two books on the list and will not hesitate to read them and show the pictures to any child of any race or ethnicity who might be interested.
While the woke guardians of the Seuss brand have every right to cease publication — just as eBay, the trading platform, possesses the right to prohibit sale of used copies — this is historic. The woke social justice crowd have pushed their mania past absurdity.
Not, alas, a funny, Seussian absurdity.
His very liberal voice, favoring individuality, diversity and just being nice, was utterly at odds with the implied calumny from the corporation that bears his pen name.
But I do hear chanting in the background: “boil that dust speck!” (A great line from Horton Hears a Who.) Seuss developed his case against intolerance and mob mania in a number of works, most of them not deprecated by his heirs, thankfully.
Kids who read them possess the tools to understand the whys of woke nonsense.
Pity that the adults in charge do not.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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