The Banning of Dr. Seuss
anna_grin said:but actually can we petition for them to do this
I don't see why you can't contact the organization behind this. . .or start some sort of social campaign that would hopefully gain a ground-swell. We ( PoeticMedics ) would back you, as well as my personal account ( can't speak for Johnny but know him well enough to guess he would too ).
I don't see why you can't contact the organization behind this. . .or start some sort of social campaign that would hopefully gain a ground-swell. We ( PoeticMedics ) would back you, as well as my personal account ( can't speak for Johnny but know him well enough to guess he would too ).
anna_grin
ilchruthach
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ilchruthach
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im more of an ideas woman i get tripped up the how to execute
plus i am far from a social media messiah and i don’t think my voice holds much sway in the dot com internetosphere
like, how would i?
plus i am far from a social media messiah and i don’t think my voice holds much sway in the dot com internetosphere
like, how would i?
JohnnyBlaze
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Ahavati said:
I don't see why you can't contact the organization behind this. . .or start some sort of social campaign that would hopefully gain a ground-swell. We ( PoeticMedics ) would back you, as well as my personal account ( can't speak for Johnny but know him well enough to guess he would too ).
I'm all for not sidelining the books indefinitely, especially since the discussion about them has hardly run its course.
There has to be a creative solution that can allow them to continue printing.
I don't see why you can't contact the organization behind this. . .or start some sort of social campaign that would hopefully gain a ground-swell. We ( PoeticMedics ) would back you, as well as my personal account ( can't speak for Johnny but know him well enough to guess he would too ).
I'm all for not sidelining the books indefinitely, especially since the discussion about them has hardly run its course.
There has to be a creative solution that can allow them to continue printing.
Magdalena
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I looked through my collection of his books that I bought for my son when he was in infants school about 15 years ago. I don't think I have any of the ones in the list.
Edit: Those books are a collection of different authors, including the other names Seuss went by, but they are similar reading material.
anna_grin said:im more of an ideas woman i get tripped up the how to execute
plus i am far from a social media messiah and i don’t think my voice holds much sway in the dot com internetosphere
like, how would i?
Everywhere. Let me look into a few things; make sure there's not already one created that we could somehow support.
plus i am far from a social media messiah and i don’t think my voice holds much sway in the dot com internetosphere
like, how would i?
Everywhere. Let me look into a few things; make sure there's not already one created that we could somehow support.
anna_grin
ilchruthach
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ilchruthach
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yeah i don’t think they were ever in the greatest hits. which is why i am leery of the motivations behind selecting these books and not, for example, the sneetches which has received criticism for its oversimplification, or the cat in the hat, which has been interpreted as possibly a kind of minstrel portrayal. they make money off those ones.
god bless him Seuss made a few gaffes in his time but i do think his heart was in the right place
god bless him Seuss made a few gaffes in his time but i do think his heart was in the right place
anna_grin
ilchruthach
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ilchruthach
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if you look into it, the issue isn’t overt racism but harmful stereotypes which were abundant at the time. as compared to others the good doctor definitely did far more for social justice than others and found a way to make it appeal to kids which is amazing. if this goes ahead not only do the Seuss estate (to use a millennial term) dirty delete all that historical context, Seuss himself could be held up as a patron saint of the alt right.
don’t want that
don’t want that
This is a hard one. I’m not a fan of banning books, whether I find them problematic or not. Two of my kids are voracious readers like me and we’ve dealt with tons of harmful or insensitive stereotypes in old books and stories, and they’ve always been a springboard for conversations about equality and about where we’ve come from. It’s hard to know how we got here if we don’t know where we’ve been. I’d perhaps add a disclaimer to the books, but banning them outright is a slippery slope, in my opinion.
Baredsoul
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I completely agree. We can’t erase or ignore the past and we can’t pretend it was something it was not. That is the path to repeating our mistakes. Books shouldn’t be banned. Put the disclaimer on them and perhaps some discussion ideas at the back. They can then be used to educate and expand our thinking.
Baredsoul said:I completely agree. We can’t erase or ignore the past and we can’t pretend it was something it was not. That is the path to repeating our mistakes. Books shouldn’t be banned. Put the disclaimer on them and perhaps some discussion ideas at the back. They can then be used to educate and expand our thinking.
I really dig the idea of some discussion points at the back. We do it for books like To Kill a Mockingbird and others with similar themes in school, why not expand that to include other books with problematic or outdated verbiage/illustrations? I have probably 30 books in my collection that would trump anything remotely disturbing in Dr. Seuss’ portfolio (although one of them is a Dr.Seuss book that didn’t make this list for some reason). I think it opens the door for some really great discussions about why those terms or character portrayals were used and what life was like for people who were stereotyped in such negative ways.
I really dig the idea of some discussion points at the back. We do it for books like To Kill a Mockingbird and others with similar themes in school, why not expand that to include other books with problematic or outdated verbiage/illustrations? I have probably 30 books in my collection that would trump anything remotely disturbing in Dr. Seuss’ portfolio (although one of them is a Dr.Seuss book that didn’t make this list for some reason). I think it opens the door for some really great discussions about why those terms or character portrayals were used and what life was like for people who were stereotyped in such negative ways.
anna_grin
ilchruthach
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ilchruthach
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i like that idea very much
EdibleWords
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I like that idea, too. Save the books, preserve the mistakes.
JohnnyBlaze
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NY Public Library keeping Dr. Seuss books in circulation
https://nypost.com/2021/03/03/ny-public-library-keeping-dr-seuss-books-in-circulation/
Public libraries for the most part are going to continue lending out the aforementioned books until they wear out and have no more replacements.
https://nypost.com/2021/03/03/ny-public-library-keeping-dr-seuss-books-in-circulation/
Public libraries for the most part are going to continue lending out the aforementioned books until they wear out and have no more replacements.
