Dr. Seuss Enterprises, a book publishing outfit that oversees the effort of the late children’s book author, has said it would stop publishing and licensing no fewer than six books because they contain images that are racist and insensitive.
The decision was revealed on Dr. Seuss’ official website recently. According to the website, the six books 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.
Dr. Seuss Enterprises revealed that it made this decision in 2020 after it reviewed its catalog with the help of a panel of experts.
The statement read: “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.”
Dr. Seuss died in 1991 and he still remains one of the most famous and widely read children’s book authors. In 2020, he was ranked by Forbes as the second most profitable dead celebrity (after Michael Jackson), raking in $33 million from various film, television, other licensing deals, and book sales that almost reached six million in the United States in 2020.
While his books like The Lorax and The Sneetches have been praised for their embrace of inclusion, environmentalism, and diversity, a sizeable proportion of his work has come under heavy criticism in recent years over its use of racist imagery. The department of Dr. Seuss Enterprises which manages his artistic legacy has a websits page that acknowledges that the early cartoons of Geisel contained “racially stereotypical drawings [that] were hurtful then and are still hurtful today.”
According to NPR, when Geisel apparently wrote a minstrel show and performed a major role in blackface when he was in college.
After he became Dr. Seuss, he was able to lean on racist stereotypes. As the Artistic nature of Dr. Seuss website also depicts, in his first book as Dr. Seuss in 1937, titled ‘And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street‘, An Asian character was depicted by Geisel with “‘traditional clothing’ and chopsticks,” while he made the character’s skin yellow. Also, in ‘And in If I Ran the Zoo‘, Dr. Seuss drew two men who were from Africa and were depicted wearing grass skirts with no shirts and shoes.
