# And to Think I can't See it on Mulberry Street -- Six Seuss Books retired for racism **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [March 2, 2021, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113 "2021-03-02T14:09:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/341 "2021-03-06T14:55:27Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > The Right freaks out, starts whining about cancellation, ignores 300 years of copyright law development And the foundation is doing this for the most capitalist of reasons. They want to preserve the value of Dr Seuss’s reputation to enhance the financial value of the rest of his portfolio. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/342 "2021-03-06T16:38:33Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > All this demonstrates is that the GOP isn’t a serious party concerned with actual governance any more: in a week when the COVID aid package passes with 0 GOP votes, they dedicate their time to cultural whining. There was _one_ R Yea vote in the House but then the guy said he’d pushed the wrong button so it was walked back. [Cite](https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/202162). ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/343 "2021-03-06T16:39:50Z")
It’s like when you help an old lady across the street, realize it was a mistake, and throw her under a bus. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/344 "2021-03-06T16:49:56Z")
‘Damn, bitch, use your own forearm to balance on’ ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/345 "2021-03-06T19:50:50Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > The Right freaks out, starts whining about cancellation, ignores 300 years of copyright law development, and in protest, start buying the guys other books, thereby further enriching the very people who pissed them off. > > Good going, guys. That was some pretty smart shit there. It’s like they were, y’know, signaling to their supporters that they find virtue in keeping those books in circulation? And they don’t mind scoring a huge self-goal to do so. Now I’m almost hoping this _ **were** _ a brilliant 3-D bank shot maneuver from the estate! ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/346 "2021-03-06T20:21:14Z")
But the books being bought _weren’t_ the ones the owners refused further printings on. So they were keeping in circulation books already in circulation. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/347 "2021-03-06T21:11:09Z")
These are the guys who bought Nike shoes and burned them after Kaepernick knelt for the national anthem. I don’t think their strong suit is thinking things through. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/348 "2021-03-06T21:21:13Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Enjoy your boiling water, Mr. Frog. You tell me to enjoy it now, but soon you’ll be LITERALLY BOILING ME IN WATER!!! is how you sound. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2021, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/349 "2021-03-06T21:25:28Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > People are not divided into mutually exclusive categories of “racists” and “non-racists”, where the latter are completely pure and beyond criticism. > > You can say that Seuss was generally quite progressive on racial issues by the standards of his times and deserves credit for that AND also acknowledge that a small portion of his stuff was hair-raisingly racist. > > He’s not on trial here. It’s not about him personally being a bad person. People aren’t divided into mutually exclusive categories of “good” and “bad”, I don’t think it’s controversial to think that it is better to be less racist than more racist, all else being equal. Thus, the debate about how racist someone is _is_ a debate about how bad they are. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2021, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/350 "2021-03-07T01:45:48Z")
Yes, we debate HOW racist someone is. It’s a continuum. It’s not a binary situation where people are either all good or all bad. That’s my point. We can say that someone said or did some racist stuff without having to totally condemn them as a worthless human being. Some people seem to feel that if we point out racism in some of an artist’s work, we have to totally disavow all of their work. The end result of that kind of thinking is that, since nobody wants to have to stop reading their favorite author (or whatever), they end up twisting themselves into knots arguing that those caricatures with the fat lips and the bones through the noses aren’t really racist at all. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2021, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/351 "2021-03-07T04:17:56Z")
there are about only a half dozen Seuss books I liked as a kid so the books there taking out doesn’t bother me… but what gets me is the way they announced it like they wanted a pat on the back for doing something that’s been complained about for years (the only reason I can figure they took so long is Seuss’s wife wouldn’t let them do it ) they could of just quietly took the books out of print and not cause an uproar … ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2021, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/352 "2021-03-07T05:19:35Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > but what gets me is the way they announced it like they wanted a pat on the back for doing something that’s been complained about for years (the only reason I can figure they took so long is Seuss’s wife wouldn’t let them do it ) they could of just quietly took the books out of print and not cause an uproar … ? Considering that the current “uproar” appears to have caused [a massive upswing in sales of Dr. Seuss books](https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/books/2021/03/04/dr-seuss-books-sales-spike-after-some-banned-racist-imagery/6917679002/), it might be possible to argue that the copyright holders Dr. Seuss Enterprises (a division of Random House) would have been failing in fiduciary duty to their stockholders had they not made an attention-getting public announcement about their decision. It was definitely a very profitable step for them. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2021, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/353 "2021-03-07T15:41:51Z")
Here’s the LinkedIn page for Dr Seuss Enterprises - [https://www.linkedin.com/company/dr-seuss-enterprises-l-p-/about/](https://www.linkedin.com/company/dr-seuss-enterprises-l-p-/about/) They’re listed as a privately held company in San Diego CA. While they may be also part of the publishing house they appear to operate independently, at least editorially. I took a look at their staff on LinkedIn, and none appear to mention Random House/Penguin. They seem to be a stand alone company with a strong business relationship with their publishing house for the website. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2021, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/354 "2021-03-07T16:39:21Z")
Without doing any research, I can almost guarantee you that the books are very tiny part of their revenue. Most of their money comes from licensing for toys, clothes, film, and TV. By eliminating a few potentially offensive and poor selling books, they are simply protecting their brand. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2021, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/355 "2021-03-07T20:17:59Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > what gets me is the way they announced it like they wanted a pat on the back for doing something that’s been complained about for years I’m not sure how much a deal they made in their announcement. In fact, I can’t even find an original article that comes from them about it under the tsunami of people complaining about it. > [@nightshadea](#): > > they could of just quietly took the books out of print and not cause an uproar … I don’t think so. The uproar was made by those who wanted to make a big deal about it, not them. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2021, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/356 "2021-03-07T20:46:43Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > In fact, I can’t even find an original article that comes from them about it under the tsunami of people complaining about it. AFAICT [this statement from them on March 2](https://www.seussville.com/statement-from-dr-seuss-enterprises/) is what the news articles are referring back to, including the article cited by the OP of this thread. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2021, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/357 "2021-03-08T11:26:48Z")
According to that statement, they are _clearly_ not Republic serial villains. They actually did it last year. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2021, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/358 "2021-03-08T14:50:06Z")
My kid, the librarian, and her family were over for dinner yesterday. She brought up “the Seuss Six” (her term). She said she did some research and found that sales of the 6 were a minuscule fraction of any other Seuss book. (IIRC, something like 700 vs 100k sales per annum - but I may be mistaken.) So my wife pulled 2 Seuss books off the shelf: The Cat in the Hat and One Fish Two Fish. As my wife read The Cat, my daughter to observe that complaints have been made online that the Cat is offensive because he resembles a blackface minstrel performer. What do you think? She wasn’t happy when we expressed our opinion that the comparison seemed pretty strained. I said the real problem by modern standards was child endangerment - leaving the 2 kids home alone, and having an intruder enter with no adult supervision. Made me question how much complaints of content should be considered by librarians. Should they remove books if 1 person on-line perceives racism? How about if patrons feel their religious beliefs/gender orientation is offended? I appreciate that librarians ought to strive to include all persons, but I can see some problems with viewing every complaint as worthy of action. And how do you consider some complaints legitimate and others not? So I opened One Fish, and noted that they called one fish “fat,” and another character had 11 fingers. I suggested that could be perceived as body shaming and intolerance of disability. Her reaction was such that we decided not to discuss further, to avoid marring a pleasant dinner. But that has really cause me to think bout how and how much libraries, at least, should respond to complaints about offensive content. A challenging issue IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2021, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/359 "2021-03-08T16:39:44Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > Her reaction was such that we decided not to discuss further, to avoid marring a pleasant dinner. A real life DFTT scenario! ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2021, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/360 "2021-03-08T21:18:33Z")
No it’s not challenging at all. If people don’t want to read Cat in the Hat then they aren’t compelled to borrow it from the library. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113.md?page=19)