Born to an English teacher mother, Star Trek: The Next Generation star LeVar Burton is known by many geeks as Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge, but his longest career tenure was serving as the host of Reading Rainbow. As a person who’s so synonymous with literacy, it is no wonder Anderson Cooper recently sought him out for his opinion on the March 2 announcement by a huge name in books: Dr. Seuss.
On Dr. Seuss’s birthday, which has also been celebrated for years as Read Across America Day, Dr. Seuss Enterprises (DSE) released a statement saying they worked with “a panel of experts, including educators” to review the entire Seuss catalog and will retire, or cease the publication and licensing of, six books: 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.
On his popular show Anderson Cooper Full Circle, the host brought in LeVar Burton to get his take on this announcement.
“Actually, I think that, in the general sense, once you know better, it is incumbent upon you to do better, and that’s exactly what Seuss Enterprises is doing here,” Burton replied. “They are being a responsible steward of the brand and they looked at these six titles and determined that in the light of today, they really don’t fit with the values that we’ve all come to know Dr. Seuss for.”
As if in agreement with Burton, the statement from DSE goes on to clarify:
“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.”
While the DSE did not list specific reasons for each book’s inclusion on this list, speculations abound. Theodor Seuss Geisel, the man known as Dr. Seuss, has a history of racist depictions — especially of Black and Asian people — in his political cartoons and propaganda work for the US military during World War II. Unfortunately, these caricatures continued to show up in some of his children’s books.
If I Ran the Zoo includes racist caricatures of a Russian man and an Arabic man, while men of Asian descent are shown carrying an animal on their heads and are referred to as “helpers who wear their eyes at a slant.” And perhaps worst of all, the page about the “African island of Yerka” shows two black men in grass skirts with huge bellies and large lips, once again doing the manual labor on the page.
In McElligot’s Pool, a young boy imagines fish wearing Inuit-style fur-lined hoods but refers to them and the man depicted on the same page as “Eskimos,” which is a slur against the Inuit. This problem continues in the “Scrambled Eggs Super!”, which depicts another harmful depiction of Inuit people.
On Beyond Zebra! features a character who seems to be Arab called “Nazzim of Bazzim” and rides a Seussian camel-like creature called a “Spazzim.” The Cat in the Hat himself becomes part of the problem in The Cat’s Quizzer when he asks “How old do you have to be to be a Japanese?” while showing a yellow-skinned person in an Asian conical hat.
In the original 1964 printing of And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street, the character Marco not only thinks up a “rajah, with rubies perched high on a throne [on an elephant]”, but also a yellow-skinned “Chinese boy who eats with sticks” and who wore an Asian conical hat and a long ponytail.
When Burton spoke with Cooper, he brought up the importance of recognizing when someone is being “other-ised” the way these characters of other nationalities were in Dr. Seuss’s books. Burton discussed how harmful these depictions are to everyone involved, including the children learning from the books, but especially those being “bothered”:
“In America specifically, our xenophobia has creeped into every aspect of our culture. And we have a tendency in this country to other-ise everybody. Asians, Hispanic, Blacks. White normative culture has always been this way when it comes to ‘the other.’ We have tremendously racist underpinnings in this nation, and the sooner we make peace with it, we come to terms with the fact that this is a part of the fabric of America — Only then, only then, Anderson, are we prepared to do anything about it, to make lasting, systemic change.”
Thankfully, Dr. Seuss himself seemed to realize what he was adding to the popular culture with his racist depictions; or at least someone with sway over his decisions pointed it out. In the 1978 reprinting of And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street and every reprint after it, a reference to “Chinese boy” changed to “Chinese man.” More importantly, the reprinting removed his yellow skin and ponytail, showing some concrete strides towards moving away from the racist illustrations.
In fact, Dr. Seuss’s books The Sneetches, The Butter Battle Book, and even Horton Hears a Who have been praised for their positive messages against racism, violence, and xenophobia. Add to that, with the push for environmentalism in The Lorax and the boundless wonder and enthusiasm in Oh, The Places You’ll Go, it is easy to understand why the DSE wants to focus on printing his many other titles.
“Look, all of our heroes are human; they are all flawed. It’s one of the things I learned from Gene Roddenberry, one of my storytelling mentors,” Burton said to Cooper, mentioning the ST:TNG creator, by name. “Gene was a guy who had this great vision, but he also wanted all the women in short skirts, so our heroes are flawed.”
Although some sources in media are portraying the retirement of these six books as a case of “cancel culture,” that does not seem to be the case. The decision comes from the estate of Dr. Seuss himself, after an investigation by experts and those who knew Geisel well. It is pertinent to state that these books are not being banned and safe to guess many libraries will not remove the books from circulation. This way, anyone who wishes can still share these books with their children or reference them when discussing America’s racist past.
“What I think families can best do is ensure that children have access to diverse books, which is to say, books that feature characters from a variety of backgrounds,” Burton continued. “The world needs to be reflected in the literature that kids absorb. And we don’t have to go out of our way to teach children how to be anti-racist, children are naturally anti-racist. They don’t look at one another in terms of being ‘something different than I am.’ It’s the adults in the room that really need some anti-racist training.”
And if you want to learn with your child? All the better, Burton said. “There is a wonderful series of books called ‘A Kid’s Book About…’ and it explains very complex concepts, these books, in really digestible terms. ‘A Kid’s Book About Racism’ is a really good place to start.”
