How Would We Deal with Dr. Seuss’s Racism in Today’s Context?
If you’ve only known of Theodor Seuss Geisel for his work in producing some of the most popular children’s novels of all time under the pen name Dr. Seuss, then, like me, you might have idolized him for his strong moral compass. Even a half-century later, his books continue to offer important lessons for children and adults. Yet, when we understand the context in which he wrote, his contributions are even more extraordinary.
In the 1950s, as American consumerism became synonymous with patriotism, Geisel wrote How the Grinch Stole Christmas! criticizing the materialism of the Christmas season. During WWII, he was outspoken in his condemnation of Hitler and the initial isolationist stance taken by the United States; in 1958, he portrayed his critique of fascist authoritarianism in Yertle the Turtle. In 1961, when racial discrimination in employment was still legal, he wrote The Sneetches about recognizing racism as a tactic to pit people against each other for corporate gains. During the Cold War, he wrote The Butter Battle Book to warn against the existential threat posed by the arms race. And in 1971, when there was a widespread disregard about the dangers that industrialism and consumerism pose to nature, he wrote the Lorax.
Given his seemingly impeccable ability to see through the harmful dominant ideologies of the time, I was dumbfounded when I learned of an enormous dark stain on his record. During WWII, Geisel supported the internment of Japanese Americans and called for the annihilation of the Japanese in Japan. And he didn’t just say it in an off-the-cuff sound-bite. During the war, he worked as a political cartoonist. In this position of power and influence, he wielded his pen to relentlessly dehumanize the Japanese, depicting them as an evil monolith. He is even quoted as saying: “If we want to win, we’ve got to kill Japs, whether it depresses John Haynes Holmes or not. We can get palsy-walsy afterward with those that are left.”
Geisel’s stance against the Japanese is even more alarming when we consider the other political cartoons that he was producing at the time. In two years he drew over 400 political cartoons for the left-leaning New York City daily newspaper, PM, many of which took an extremely progressive stance against antisemitism and in support of equal rights for African Americans.
Perhaps more confusing is that after investing so much time in producing anti-Japanese propaganda, he had a complete reversal in his views after a single visit to Japan. In 1953, he published Horton Hears a Who! — a book about recognizing the value of all human life, especially those who we can’t see — as an apology to the Japanese.
So how are we to think of Dr. Seuss? For me, this is an uncomfortable reminder that all humans are fraught with deep contradictions. As an activist, I’ve spent my whole life trying to find people with a reliable moral compass who I could look up to and learn from. And in every case, I’ve been let down. I’ve had co-workers, whose vision for social justice I’ve deeply admired, behave viciously towards me and their other colleagues. I’ve felt crushed when I’ve learned that scholars whose work is fundamental to my research had exhibited sexist or racist behaviors.
In arriving at the sobering realization that we can’t avoid these contradictions, I’ve struggled to understand how we can deal with them in a constructive way. It’s pained me to see people who I respect being called out for their actions because I know they are so much more than that one transgression. But in all honesty, it would pain me even more if they weren’t held accountable and if they were allowed to hurt or harm more people with their actions or ideas.
Obama said in a recent interview that calling people out isn’t real activism. He’s wrong. Identifying and stopping harmful behaviors and dangerous views is real activism. But it can be more effective activism if we are smarter about how we do it. In my opinion, calling people out is useful as long as we don’t also cast them aside. For this to work, our critiques must be grounded in two fundamental beliefs — that no human is perfect and no human is disposable.
The transformational justice movement, which is concerned with addressing the root causes of violence, offers important lessons in guiding us towards a path in which conflict and difference are generative. Activist and author adrienne maree brown explains, “The scale of division…on our planet is overwhelming. Finding the places of healing and transformation, moving towards a world beyond enemies, is work that has to be done for our survival.” In her book Emergent Strategy, brown offers several approaches for ‘calling out’ constructively. Of them, I think the most important one is to “Listen with “Why?” as a framework.”
brown rightfully explains that the percentage of psychopaths in the world is just not high enough to justify the ease with which we attempt to label that condition to others. It makes sense to feel anger, pain, confusion, and sadness when we experience or hear of something that is completely out of alignment with our values but to move immediately to punishment means that we stay on the surface. For real transformation, we have to ask ourselves and each other “Why?” In every conflict, there are lessons to be learned to help us improve our humanity. Asking “Why?” reveals those lessons. And at the same time, it rehumanizes those we feel are perpetrating against us, providing them with a pathway to learn from and change their behaviors and views.
What if you are the person being called out? What might a transformational justice response look like? It seems to me that there needs to be a critical reframe around anger. Too often we hear things like, “they have no reason to be angry” or “they just want to cause a commotion.” With these comments, anger is dismissed as an expression of irrationality. However, in a complex world with so many layers of individual and collective experiences of violence and trauma, we should expect to not readily comprehend the anger of others. Instead of avoiding anger, what would happen if we truly tried to understand it?
As writer and activist Audre Lorde said, “When we turn from anger we turn from insight.” She explains that it’s hate, not anger that is the problem. Hatred is coupled with ill will. Anger is a passion of displeasure and can often be a useful guide. Lorde writes that anger between us will not kill us, especially if we can articulate it with precision. For the accused, she suggests listening to the content of what is said “with at least as much intensity as we defend ourselves against the manner of saying,” adding, “We cannot allow our fear of anger to deflect us nor seduce us into settling for anything less than the hard work of excavating honesty.”
There is no doubt that this is hard work. But at this historical conjuncture, with accumulating economic and environmental crises that threaten all human life, we have no choice but to find ways to generatively work with people who we would be more inclined to dismiss as being “problematic.” We no longer have the time to keep on casting people aside, especially when we realize that these contradictions exist to varying degrees in all of us.
If there’s one important lesson that we can learn from the life of Theodor Seuss Geisel, it’s that people can change. Even when they’ve made horrible mistakes, they can learn, heal and transform. But to do so they must feel safe enough to let down their defense mechanisms. If they feel like they will be taken down by admitting to wrongdoing, any chance of change is already foreclosed. In accepting the belief that no human is disposable, we can present each other with the type of criticism that calls out harm while allowing for introspection and growth.
