Dr. Seuss?

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I don’t know, man.

Mr. Potato Head is going to just be called Potato Head now? 

There’s no more Aunt Jemima?

The Washington Football Team?

What is the baseball team in Cleveland called now?

And now they’re going to stop printing 6 Dr. Seuss books because there are questionable aspects to some of the words written down, or some of the photos?

I saw one example where two kids are being pushed up a hill by a creature who had to do all the work.

I guess that the people the creature represents are offended.

I would never look at that photo and think that Dr. Seuss had intentionally written it to offend a race of people, but who knows, right?

I have some experience with this. In one of my books one of the characters was a bit of a playboy, or thought he was. He made some racy comments about a young girl.

I was not trying to put down or objectify women. Rather, I was trying to show the man as sort of classless.

Ran into a reader...a young girl...she said:

“I hated the part where the woman was treated like an object.”

I was sort of flabbergasted. I didn’t have an agenda. I was just writing a story. A normal, man-woman exchange with the man being a jerk.

How would I write that differently?

And I get blatant racism, but writing is also a record of of the time.

Was Dr. Seuss a racist?

Maybe. I don’t ever think it occurred to me when I was reading it. Perhaps it’s no secret in the black community.

But how does Mr. Potato Head offend anyone?

I was on a construction site on Tuesday morning - I was listening to a crew of five guys who spend a lot of hours together.

They were verbally abusing one another in every way imaginable.

I heard a bald joke, a fat joke, a heritage joke, almost every curse word ever uttered, and a ‘your mamma’ joke.

I laughed at every insult. In fact, they all laughed. Not one guy was offended.

And my point is that most people aren’t so classically thin-skinned. In real life there are moments when people interact in what would be considered politically incorrect ways.

I guess just don’t fully understand all of it.

If there is intended racism or intended sexism then okay...

...let’s make some changes.

The Cleveland Indians?

I get that one. There may be people who are not comfortable with that name.

Okay.

But Mr. can’t be in place to identify a potato?

Aunt Jemima?

That was the only syrup we ever used!

I never thought it was disparaging anyone.

Perhaps, and stay with me here, maybe the world is passing me by a little.

‘Cause some of it seems strange.

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