Front Burner - Dr. Seuss, and how to deal with racism in children’s classics

Episode Date: March 4, 2021

Dr. Seuss Enterprises will no longer publish six of the beloved author’s books because of their racist content and imagery. Philip Nel and Michelle H. Martin, two experts on children’s lit, discuss Dr. Seuss’s legacy, and how to engage with problematic children’s classics.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Pussall. So you may have heard earlier this week that Dr. Seuss Enterprises, the company that manages Dr. Seuss' books, is pulling six of his books from production for racist messages and images. for racist messages and images.

The announcement has become this real flashpoint, with accusations that a beloved author was essentially getting cancelled. My guests today are two academics who specialize in children's lit, and they're here to talk about Dr. Seuss, his legacy, and more broadly, how to engage with problematic children's classics. Think Huckleberry Finn and Little House on the Prairie. Philip Nell is the author of several books, including Was the Cat in the Hat Black? The Hidden Racism of Children's Literature and The Need for Diverse Books. And Michelle H. Martin is the author of books including Brown

Gold, Milestones of African American Children's Picture Books, 1845 to 2002. Philip and Michelle also happen to be good friends. 2002. Philip and Michelle also happen to be good friends. Hello to you both. Hello. Hi. Thank you so much for joining me today. And Philip, I wonder, what was your reaction when you found out that Dr. Seuss Enterprises had decided to stop publishing six books? Well, I was both surprised and glad. They had not previously indicated that they were receptive to the critiques of racism in Seuss's work, so I was surprised. for the culture that they put into the world and have made the decision that they are not going to continue profiting from these six books, all of which contain racist images. Michelle, how about you? What was your first reaction? Yeah, I was glad as well. And oftentimes it takes somebody else calling out a company or an individual for, you know, to deal with their, you know,

racist or objectionable content. So I was glad to know that it was the company, the Seuss Enterprises that did that. And Philip, let's talk about these six books. So they include, and to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street, which I understand was the first book actually published under the Dr. Seuss name, but also McElligot's Pool, Scrambled Egg Super, The Cat's Quizzer. And can you just give me a few examples of the kinds of words and images that are depicted in them that have been deemed racist? Yeah, the general answer is that there's caricature of people of African descent, Asian descent, and Arab descent. That's the theme across the six books. And to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street is one of the more famous ones.

For example, a character described as Chinese has two lines for eyes. He eats with sticks, and the depiction of that character has a pointed hat. and the depiction of that character has a pointed hat. Seuss was called out on this, and he revised it to make it a less egregious caricature, but still a caricature in 1978. And he becomes a Chinese man who eats with sticks. He cuts off the pigtail and removes the yellow hue from the skin of the man.

So it is something he was aware of, and it is something that was aware of. And it is something that he sort of addressed, but not entirely successfully. Michelle, I know another one of the six is if I ran the zoo, and I know you found an old copy of that from your childhood, and you've got it with you now. And could you just read us the passage about the African island of Yirka and describe what you see illustrated there? Yeah, so basically the premise of the book is there's a little boy who goes to visit the zoo and he decides that if this were his zoo, he wouldn't do it like this. He would go all over the world and get animals that are truly unique and unusual. And here's one trip he would make. I'll go to the

African island of Yurka and bring back a tizzle-topped tufted mazurka, a kind of canary with quite a tall throat. His neck is so long if he swallows an oat. For breakfast, the first day of April, they say, it has to go down such a very long way, that he gets to his stomach the 15th of May. to go down such a very long way that he gets to his stomach the 15th of May. But the characters carrying this mazurka are sort of indescribable. It's hard to tell if they're humans or animal. They look more simian, monkeys or apes. They are black, not brown or whatever, but they are black. And they, you know, it's just, they're not flattering images. They also have tufts, just like the Mazurka, which suggests that, you know, well, maybe they're humans, maybe they're not. Yeah. And to answer what you were just saying there, Michelle,

he is trying to represent an African human. And we know this because these resemble earlier cartoons that he did in which he has racist caricatures of black people. But they are so dehumanized that that is a question you have as you look at it. Yeah, they also look quite identical. Right. And that is the problem. Michelle, when you first read this book as an adult, when you went back and saw it as an adult, and especially speaking as a black woman, you know, what went through your mind? What did you think? Well, you know, we talk a lot about, you know, Rudine Sims Bishop's idea of mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Those mirrors, you know, the books that you look at, and they reflect your life. Windows reflect the life of people who don't look or live like you, so you can learn some things about how they look and live. And then sliding glass doors are those sort of immersive experiences that allow

you to sort of walk into this other world. And it's not really possible with this book. You know, the only characters in this book are white characters. And so there's no invitation for BIPOC children or children of color to enjoy this, you know, this world, but also these characters, if these are the only representation of Black characters in the book, and they are, there's really nothing there for Black children to find mirrors in. And so, so as a Black reader, there's nothing here for me. Philip, I know you've looked very deeply at racist and racial imagery in Dr. Seuss's books, not just these six. And you even wrote a book called Was the Cat in the Hat Black? And firstly, what do you mean by that? Was the cat in the hat black?

Literally why is that the cat in the hat is influenced by blackface minstrelsy, as are many characters in 20th century popular culture, including Bugs Bunny, including Mickey Mouse, including the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz. So, you know, it's not unusual that blackface minstrelsy would influence a popular character. Blackface minstrelsy was a popular form of entertainment and is very much part of Seuss's own visual imagination. He wrote a blackface minstrelsy skit when he was in high school and performed in it in blackface and and that kind of imagery shows up in his cartoons the cat in the hat is also influenced by crazy cat the creation of the african-american cartoonist george harriman and by annie williams

a haughton mifflin elevator operator who wore white gloves and a secret smile. And so you might say that he is quite literally racially complicated in his lineage. Now, I raise it as a question because of that mixed lineage, but I also raise it as a question because unlike the example that Michelle has discussed in If I Ran the Zoo, this is much more coded than that, right? This is more subtle than that. And so you could say, well, all right, it's more subtle. Maybe people don't notice it. Maybe this doesn't rise to the same level of problem. Or you might say, but might not that prepare us to accept more egregious versions of

that caricature? In which case you would say, well, maybe racist images and ideas often hide in plain sight, often lurk in the culture we consume, and we consume it not aware of that history. There is a tension here, right? Because some of Dr. Seuss's books also had really strong anti-racist messages, right? Yes. So for example, when Horton Hears a Who was published in 1954, one reviewer described it as, quote, a rhymed lesson in protection of minorities and their rights. The Sneetches was inspired by his opposition to anti-Semitism, and you can certainly read it as an anti-racism fable, too. So yeah, so he has that impulse in his children's books. He has that impulse elsewhere, too, in his political

cartoons. You know, there are political cartoons that are critical of discrimination against African Americans in hiring practices, that is the critical of Jim Crow. He even has one essay on humor where he calls out racist humor in particular. So he does have anti-racist impulses, but he's also unaware of the degree to which his own imagination, one that is steeped in American popular culture, is a racist imagination. And I think what's perhaps the most important thing is that a lot of people think of racism

as an either or. You know, you're on team racism or you're not. But it's actually more complicated than that. You can be trying to do anti-racist work and not aware of how you're also doing racist work. Michelle, you know, this story has been really explosive. I know that on Fox News on Tuesday, this was like their big story all day. Let's bring in Donald Trump Jr., executive vice president of the Trump Organization. They canceled Mr. Potato Head. You know, this week alone, they canceled The Muppets. You know, they're canceling Dr. Seuss from reading programs.

I mean, these are books. I literally know the cat in the hat by heart without the book there because I read it so many times to my children. These things are not racist. And now U.S. Republican Congressman Kevin McCarthy is bringing this up in Congress while debating like a totally unrelated bill. Under the Constitution, we generally defer to states and counties to run elections. Democrats want to change that. First, they outlawed Dr. Seuss, and now they want to tell us what to say. Why do you think that this decision has become such a political flashpoint this week?

Nostalgia. I think that, you know, one of the sort of hardest battles that I fight in teaching children's literature is that if there's a book that is problematic, but the student, you know, the student or students love that book. Oh, my grandma read me that book. Oh, I just remember, you know, snuggled up in my mom's lap when I read that book. And so it's really hard for us to take books that we love and have an affection for and that remind us of our own childhood and examine it critically, but it's necessary. And I also argue that there's so many wonderful new stories. Why do we have to keep hanging on to stories that are problematic and

hurtful to, you know, a large swath of the population when we can find and celebrate new stories as well. I want to ask you about some other children's books that have also come under fire for racist themes and descriptions. So Huckleberry Finn uses the N-word many times. Little House on the Prairie has really racist depictions of Indigenous people. So does Peter Pan. And Philip, you know, can we talk a little bit about how you think teachers and parents should engage with these books? Should they just not read them or teach them at all? Like

what should people do here? Well, that's an option. I mean, honestly, you know, one way to hasten the decline of a racist classic is not to teach the book. You know, and as Michelle says, there are lots of other books out there that you could teach instead. Why this one? Why is this important to teach? I mean, I think everybody should should ask that. So that is a solution. There are other solutions. You could teach it critically. You could put, say, the adventures of Huckleberry Finn in conversation with books that actually understand slavery and don't think it's a great big joke, as the last third of Huckleberry Finn does. And you could teach alongside of it things like Julius Lester's collection of slave narratives, To Be a Slave from 1968.

There are many books that will offer the kind of perspective that Huck Finn does not, you know, that there are, for example, mothers who would rather kill their children than allow them to be enslaved, which is not something that Huckleberry Finn understands. But it's going to require a lot of work from the teacher. It's going to require a willingness to read uncomfortably. You really have to prepare for it. And you really have to understand that the conversations you're going to have are and should be uncomfortable ones. So if you prepare for these uncomfortable conversations, and you, you know, work to teach these books critically, is it even possible then

to enjoy these books as a work of fiction and also acknowledge the racism in it? I guess what I'm wondering is if these two things are very at odds with each other. Might I take that one up? Please. Please. Yeah. So I was thinking about, you know, Phil was talking about pairings and I was thinking about To Kill a Mockingbird. And that tends to be taught as, you know, classic. But if you think about the fact that it's a white writer writing from a white lens, a child focalized through a child who is white looking at and looking on what's happening to a black man. Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, an African-American writer who lived through the civil rights movement, who was a part of that movement, who's writing a Black child and the story of her family

and their land. And there's a similar situation that happens in both of those books, but the lens and the perspective are completely different. If you were to teach them in tandem and together, it highlights what's there and what's missing. And so I think that, and that doesn't necessarily mean that when a teacher teaches those books in tandem, that she can or he can no longer enjoy the books or that the children that they're teaching to won't enjoy them. But you have much more of a critical awareness of the lens, of the perspective, But you have much more of a critical awareness of the lens, of the perspective, of, you know, who's speaking and whose history are you getting, you know? I'm wondering if given the choice between just teaching these overlooked works or pairing them with some of these more problematic classes, classics, would you favor pairing over throwing away the classics?

You know, I mean, I have a PhD in English. I believe Phil does too. I'm not necessarily willing to, you know, I don't believe in banning books. And I also don't believe necessarily in completely tossing them out of a curriculum. I think it's important when my daughter goes to college that she reads some of the classics that I read. But I'm delighted that she's in a private school where she didn't have to read about Hester Prince. She didn't have to read about their, you know, she's doing Afrofuturism instead. So, and I think that her literary vocabulary is going to be just as rich from having studied those texts that are not just by dead white males. So I'm not going to say, I'm not going to be absolutist about that. No, I don't, so I'm not going to say I'm not going to be absolutist about that no I don't I don't think that nobody should read uh Huckleberry Finn I think there are are merits to that book but there's

other stuff as well that will give you um a less racist view of the world even at that time I'm going to go. organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples.

Michelle, you know, I know that you're teaching courses to people who are going to become librarians or teachers, and they'll be talking about books with young kids themselves. And you found some innovative ways to teach books that are now considered problematic. For example, even Harry Potter. You know, a lot of people question why the characters in these books, which are in a fantasy world, all have to be white. And also, of course, J.K. Rowling has come under a lot of fire for comments about trans people. Rowling wrote, people who menstruate, I'm sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wombin, wimpund, womud.

How did you design a course that engaged with these kinds of books? Yeah, last summer, I taught a five-week course that was called Harry Potter in the 21st Century, Race, Equity, and Privilege in the Fantastic. And it basically, what we did was used the Harry Potter books as kind of a starting point to read books by BIPOC authors that also focus on fantasy worlds to look at the contrast between, you know, if you have an indigenous author who's writing fantasy that's based on indigenous mythology, how does that differ from the world that J.K. Rowling writes? I also had a lot of students who, you know, were the same age as Harry when Harry, you know, when the books were coming out. And so they had this, it's been a very painful process for them. So it was like part literature and literary study, part therapy, because,

you know, what do I do with my Harry Potter sheets? What do I do with all this stuff that I have from being such a fan? And I have all this fan fiction that I've written about Harry Potter. How am I going to pivot that and also take these books or not take these books into my library work, what am I going to expose kids to instead? Really interesting. I feel like I would have loved to have taken that course. Me too. But coming back to Dr. Seuss for a second,

I know we've talked about there are obviously these overtly racist images in the books that aren't going to be published anymore. And then the images that many people may not have the context to understand the history of like the cat in the hat. And Michelle, you know, I know you're also running a reading camp for young kids. And so when we're talking about something like Dr. Sue, something like Cat in the Hat, how do you decide when or if to explain that buried racist imagery to children? You know, these are young children. With Can't Read-O-Rama, I mean, we've had over nearly 50 story times

since the pandemic started. We're doing them every week. And I would say 90% of the books that we've read and probably 85% of the readers who we have brought in, readers, authors, illustrators, have all been BIPOC. I'm not going to spend time on Dr. Seuss in Camp Read-O-Rama when I am attracting kids from a whole lot of different backgrounds. I want to show them Brian Collier. I want to introduce them to Kelly Starling Lyons, who's going to be our guest next month for eCamp. I'm not going to spend

time on Dr. Seuss. They can find that on their own because I know they're in their libraries, but they might not know about Milo Imagines the World, which just came out a few days ago. So, you know, quite honestly, I mean, we do have tough conversations because Milo Imagines the World is about a kid and his big sister who go visit their mom in jail. So we do have deep conversations. But I only have a certain amount of energy and time. And there are so many wonderful books out there that that's not a book I'm bringing into my program. All right, Philip, Michelle, I want to thank you so much for this conversation today.

You've given me so much to think about. So thank you so much. Thank you.. You've given me so much to think about. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Thanks. Our pleasure. All right, so before we go today, an update on a story that we did earlier this week about sexual misconduct allegations against former military chief of defense Jonathan Vance. Currently, a parliamentary committee is looking into these allegations, including who knew what

and when. Well, some pretty scathing testimony Wednesday from the former military ombudsman, a guy named Gary Wahlberg. He testified that he warned Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan back in 2018 about an allegation against Vance, saying, quote, I reached into my pocket to show him the evidence I was holding. He pushed back from the table and said no. And I don't think that we exchanged another word. Sajan responded late Wednesday saying he disagreed with parts of the testimony and said he can assure Canadians that any allegations brought forward were very quickly put forward to proper authorities. We're keeping a close watch on this story and we'll keep you posted. That's all for today though. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner.

Talk to you tomorrow.