# 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:** 19
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2021, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/361 "2021-03-08T21:27:05Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > But I don’t think caricatures of different groups, in the style Dr. Seuss did, are inherently racist Well, yeah, they’re different from you, right? ---
**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, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/362 "2021-03-08T21:37:31Z")
That’s an odd thing to say. I’m not sure why you are personalizing that statement inaccurately. ---
**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 10, 2021, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/363 "2021-03-10T16:01:21Z")
Well, about the 11 fingered guy, the narrator reacts the same way I and any other little boy would; “I wish I had eleven, too!”. But my wife, who is very sensitive to body-shaming issues, did skip over the fat fish when she read it to our kid. I don’t remember anything about the book at all, but I remember when I was about 6, foreshadowing my destiny to be an annoying contrarian hipster, I strongly held the opinion that _On Beyond Zebra_ was Seuss’ best book. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2021, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/364 "2021-03-10T16:29:22Z")
Is the fat fish shamed for it, or is it just a fat fish? I don’t have the book handy. ‘Fat’ can be a value neutral term, or even a positive one. Note ‘The Secret Garden’, in which every time the protagonist is described or describes herself as ‘getting fatter’ this is clearly a good thing. (The book has other problems; but fat shaming isn’t one of them.) ---
**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 10, 2021, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/365 "2021-03-10T17:02:39Z")
It was used neutrally. I am not prepared to defend my wife’s choice in this particular matter. ---
**Author:** ![peccavi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peccavi/32/388_2.png) [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2021, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/366 "2021-03-10T18:14:47Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > I don’t remember anything about the book at all, but I remember when I was about 6, foreshadowing my destiny to be an annoying contrarian hipster, I strongly held the opinion that _On Beyond Zebra_ was Seuss’ best book. I can just picture you as a six year old lording it over the four year olds “Man, I was into Seuss before he want mainstream. It’s all marketing and hype now, man…” ---
**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 10, 2021, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/367 "2021-03-10T18:26:43Z")
‘What are you, a _baby_?’ (Words guaranteed to enrage any 4yo.) ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2021, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/368 "2021-03-10T19:12:25Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Is the fat fish shamed for it, or is it just a fat fish? The page first said something like “This fish is thin…” Then it said, “This fish is fat. The fat one has a yellow hat.” [Here](https://seuss.fandom.com/wiki/Fat_Fish) is a pic. ---
**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 10, 2021, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/369 "2021-03-10T19:30:31Z")
fwiw, I read that book as a child and didn’t think any less of the fat fish for being fat. I read it as a neutral description. And today I am a fat woman who is generally pretty happy with her body, unless something is aching. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2021, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/370 "2021-03-10T19:56:36Z")
Yes, that looks rather like my dim memory: ‘fat fish, thin fish’ presented as no different that ‘red fish, blue fish’. Seuss is just teaching the words, and what they look like in print; there isn’t any connotation of its being better to be a fat fish than a thin fish or the other way around. There’s nothing wrong with the word in that sort of context. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2021, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/371 "2021-03-10T22:23:09Z")
Nothing wrong? Yes and no. Personally I would avoid books that may cause my child to loudly proclaim in a grocery store “Look at that fat man!” while pointing to someone unusually overweight. The “loud proclamations when seeing something unusual” are hard to avoid with most children. The term “fat” for someone large is more easily avoided (though not easy), starting by not including them in repeated reading of children’s books using the adjective. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2021, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/372 "2021-03-10T22:34:20Z")
If you don’t find them something to read in which it’s not a negative, though, they’re likely in the current society to encounter it only as a negative. – I don’t know whether there’s a racism-expurgated version of Secret Garden around. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2021, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/373 "2021-03-11T01:31:17Z")
Doesn’t that make it more of an issue? ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2021, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/374 "2021-03-11T01:39:19Z")
I’m not sure that ignoring the word “fat” makes it less of an issue. It’s in standard neutral use in English in a number of contexts; it’s not as if it works to say ‘we never use that word!’ ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2021, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/375 "2021-03-11T14:43:45Z")
And even then, “fat” as a descriptor for overweight depends on a specific species basis. When it comes to real fish, to say that a tuna is fatter than a minnow isn’t really the best adjective, it’s not some sort of value judgement that the tuna is too big. ---
**Author:** ![epolo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@epolo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epolo)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2021, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/376 "2021-03-11T16:06:16Z")
The only exotic dancer I’ve ever met lived in Boston (at the time) and was Asian. Does that cancel out? ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2021, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/377 "2021-03-16T23:04:23Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > – I don’t know whether there’s a racism-expurgated version of Secret Garden around. We always wondered about the disjointed nature of “The far distant Oxus”, the really excellent 1937 children’s novel written by Katharine Hull and Pamela Whitlock when they were still in school. Ahhhhhh. It’s disjointed in the version we admired because the racist joining content has been expurgated. Anyway: objecting to role models, content and characterization in Seuss is one thing. Objecting to specific individual caricatures _in Seuss_ is a particularly American form of racism, indicative of the way you view everything through the prism of race. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2021, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/378 "2021-03-16T23:20:45Z")
Unless something has changed recently, the QOP has been allowed to promote the narrative that says SJW liberal snowflakes had something to do with the cancellations, when it was just a business decision. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2021, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/379 "2021-03-16T23:37:10Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > […] the narrative that says SJW liberal snowflakes had something to do with the cancellations, when it was just a business decision. To be fair, recent discussions of Dr. Seuss among so-called “SJW liberal snowflakes” doubtless had something to do with making that business decision in the first place. As I mentioned in a concurrent thread: > [@Kimstu](#): > > [Here](https://indy.education/2018/03/11/2018-3-11-read-across-america-day-should-not-be-celebrated-on-dr-seuss-birthday/), for example, is a 2018 post written by a Black teacher and education blogger: > > > [@](#): > > > > In 2017, conversation about Geisel’s earlier career was brought to light. Many people were unaware of the racist cartoons he drew. This led to some educators, including myself, questioning whether or not we should use his books due to his racist past. […] I wrote the blog post, “[The Use of Dr. Seuss Text – Should his racist cartoons stop us from using his books?](https://educatorbarnes.com/2018/03/02/the-use-of-dr-seuss-text-should-his-racist-cartoons-stop-us-from-using-his-books/)” where I concluded using his books is not problematic as long as you are not hiding Dr. Seuss’ racist cartoons. […] > > > > > An educator I know pushed back on my blog post and told me she didn’t think Read Across America Day needed to take place on Dr. Seuss’ birthday especially with the knowledge of his past. I agree. […] Indeed, [Read Across America Day has been pivoting away from Seuss’s birthday and its former focus on Seuss’s works](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2021/03/01/read-across-america-day-dr-seuss-diversity-racism/6878454002/). My personal guess is that by publicly announcing that they are going to cease publishing the “Problematic Six” Dr. Seuss titles, Dr. Seuss Enterprises was seeking to re-entrench the rest of the Seuss booklist as approved wholesome classic children’s lit with no discomfort about having to explain weird racial caricatures to the kiddies. And as it turned out, of course, the announcement and the subsequent “cancel culture” publicity foofaraw resulted in a massive spike in Seuss book sales, as consumers rushed to buy more copies under the mistaken impression that they were “sticking it to the libs” and/or acquiring a future rarity for investment purposes. I don’t know if the publicity team at Dr. Seuss Enterprises actually foresaw all that, but I bet they’re still nursing the champagne hangovers! ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2021, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-to-think-i-cant-see-it-on-mulberry-street-six-seuss-books-retired-for-racism/934113/380 "2021-03-17T00:08:57Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I don’t know if the publicity team at Dr. Seuss Enterprises actually foresaw all that, but I bet they’re still nursing the champagne hangovers! Right wing freakouts are so predictable, and so toothless, that at least some companies have got to have started deliberately courting them. I half suspect this was the case with Disney when they “fired” Gina Carano - certainly, I’ve been seeing the word “Mandalorian” in headlines an awful lot for a show that’s not currently airing new episodes. [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=18) [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=20)