Dr. Seuss, whose iconic “The Cat in the Hat” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” have entertained millions for generations, is in the bull’s-eye of America’s cancel culture.
The company that manages his titles has announced it is canceling six books because of racist and insensitive imagery.
FoxNews.com reported: “As adored as Dr. Seuss is by millions around the world for the positive values in many of his works, including environmentalism and tolerance, there has been increasing criticism in recent years over the way black, Asian and other characters are drawn in some of his most beloved children’s books, as well as in his earlier advertising and propaganda illustrations.”
Six books by Dr. Seuss, Theodor Seuss Geisel, have been dropped from future publication or licensing by Dr. Seuss Enterprises.
The company said in a statement: “These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong. 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.”
The six books, which are expected to become collectors’ items, 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”
The collection of Dr. Seuss books generated an estimated $33 million in 2020, the company said.
The company said it had reviewed the books over a period of time and made the decision to halt publication last year.
The announcement came as President Biden erased Dr. Seuss in his “Read Across America” proclamation.
The event is an annual celebration of reading held on the birthday, March 2, of Dr. Seuss, who died in 1991 at the age of 87.
Biden followed presidential tradition by proclaiming Tuesday as “Read Across America Day,” but he left out any mention of Dr. Seuss, the inspiration for the day.
President Trump, in 2018, urged Americans to “always remember the still-vibrant words of Dr. Seuss: ‘You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.'”
Fox News commentator Liz Peek wondered if the attack on Dr. Seuss could be the “tipping point” in the cancel culture war.
“The same boneheads who claim that the ‘mister’ in Mr. Potato Head is overly ‘exclusive,’ that Aunt Jemima syrup encouraged racial stereotyping, that math is a vestige of White supremacy and that gender reveal parties are ‘transphobic,’ want you to find racism in the pages of ‘Hop on Pop,'” she wrote.
“This is absurd, of course, and makes Democrats who applaud such virtue signaling look stupid. But the urge to condemn people who challenge the woke mob and cancel every icon of American life – the founders of our nation, the historical monuments that adorn our cities, the books we grew up reading – has reached a tipping point.”
She pointed out that even the “famously left-wing Bill Maher is calling for an end to the excess, telling his TV audience, ‘Cancel culture is real, it’s insane and it’s growing exponentially.’
“Under the guise of increasing tolerance liberals have become utterly intolerant, and especially of opposing ideas,” Peek wrote. “We have seen an American president and many of his supporters scrubbed from autocratic social media platforms – actions that drew rebukes even from the reliably anti-Trump Emmanuel Macron of France and Germany’s Angela Merkel.
“We see liberals like the Washington Post’s Max Boot calling for cable companies to drop conservative news organizations. We see longtime editors and writers at the New York Times felled because they stand up for free speech,” she wrote.
“As is often the case, the perpetrators of this nonsense appear ignorant of the facts. Theodor Seuss Geisel, who wrote under the pen name Dr. Seuss, was an ardent liberal who supported FDR and passionately spoke out against fascism. His work includes books that embrace environmentalism (‘The Lorax’) and racial equality (‘The Sneetches’). To conclude that Seuss was a closet racist is preposterous.”
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