Daily Verse | Deuteronomy 32:47
They are not just idle words for you—they are your life.

It’s the day before the first Friday in March. Let’s make Friday Eve a thing.

Theodor Seuss Geisel—otherwise known as Dr. Seuss—was born on March 2, 1904. An artist with a unique drawing style and a witty writer of simple verse, Dr. Seuss helped millions of children learn to read using whimsical stories like The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham. He still does, even though he died in 1991.

Dr. Seuss is an American icon.

But Dr. Seuss and his books have come under increasing criticism in recent years because some of his drawings are claimed to be racist and allegedly have “racial undertones.” Learning for Justice, a radical left-wing educators group that operates as “a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” (and formerly known as “Teaching Tolerance”) is the organization advocating against Dr. Seuss.

Citing a new paper written by Katie Ishizuka and Ramón Stephens, Learning for Justice says,

The researchers surveyed 50 Dr. Seuss books and concluded that, “of the 2,240 (identified) human characters, there are forty-five characters of color representing 2% of the total number of human characters.” Of the 45 characters, 43 exhibited behaviors and appearances that align with harmful and stereotypical Orientalist tropes. The remaining two human characters “are identified in the text as ‘African’ and both align with the theme of anti-Blackness.” It’s also important to note that each of the non-white characters is male and that they are all “presented in subservient, exotified, or dehumanized roles,” especially in their relation to white characters.

What to do? Cancel Dr. Seuss, of course! Make way for diversity! And so they did (my emphasis).

Loudoun County Public Schools, one of the nation’s most affluent school districts, announced that it will no longer recognize Dr. Seuss on his birthday. In an announcement obtained by The Daily Wire, the school district said that Dr. Seuss’s children’s books contain “racial undertones” that are not suitable for “culturally responsive” learning.

“Realizing that many schools continue to celebrate ‘Read Across America Day’ in partial recognition of Dr. Seuss’ birthday, it is important for us to be cognizant of research that may challenge our practice in this regard,” the announcement reads. “As we become more culturally responsive and racially conscious, all building leaders should know that in recent years there has been research revealing radical undertones in the books written and the illustrations drawn by Dr. Seuss.”

There is certainly some stereotyping in some of his books, but how “harmful” his stereotyping is, is actually not quantitatively proven. The authors cite other authors whose research allegedly supports or provides a basis for their conclusions.

For instance, they write that “Children’s books provide impressions and messages that can last a lifetime, and shape how children see and understand themselves, their homes, communities, and world (Santora).” Sure. But exactly how did Dr. Seuss books “harm” children?

Frankly, the study that the cancellation is based on isn’t what you’d call a scholarly paper. It’s written by two self-professed “critical race scholar-activists” (p. 36) who excuse their own biases: “Our professional research and personal experiences have led us to conduct this study. We do not consider this predisposition to critical literacy a biased deficit” (p. 10).

Even Michelle Obama hosted a “Read Across America Day” and read Dr. Seuss to a group of children.

Canceling Dr. Seuss is part of our present cultural milieu. It’s unfortunate but the junior commies are ascendant and going after anything that White American Culture considers important or iconic to its identity. That’s why we see the anti-American cultural Marxists and their Democrat enablers pulling down statues of Washington, Lincoln and Columbus in addition to those of Robert E. Lee.

Are there some images that have not aged well in Dr. Seuss books? Yes. But do we need to cancel Dr. Seuss? No.

We all need to stand our ground and refuse to give in to the woke brigades.