The withdrawal of books by Dr. Seuss, sacred monster of children’s literature, unleashes passions in the United States

If the goal was to avoid controversy, the least that can be said is that it was not achieved. The company which manages in the United States the patrimony of a sacred monster of children’s literature, Theodor Seuss Geisel, alias Dr. Seuss, is accused of sacrificing to the “Cancel culture” since she announced on March 2 that she will no longer offer six of her works for sale.

Written for the majority of them before 1955, “They portray people in a wrong and hurtful way” according to this company, which alludes to characters presented as Asian or African.

The American conservatives systematically wave this accusation, which designates a form of cultural purification that would be imposed, according to them, by the “Radical left” in the name of ideological conformism. Dr. Seuss Enterprises for its part defended a measure “Aimed at ensuring that the catalog” by this author, who has around sixty books, “Represents and supports all communities and families”.

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Racial stereotypes

All week long, the Fox News channel sounded the general mobilization to save a national treasure presented as threatened. The alarm was raised on February 26 by a conservative polemicist, Ben Shapiro. The latter had assured that a county of Virginia wanted ” wipe off “ Dr. Seuss on National Reading Day, March 2, which coincides with the birth date of this prolific, often-screened author. The county reacted by ensuring that its books remained available in its libraries and classrooms, but that it did not wish to make it the only reference of this annual meeting given the racial stereotypes present in its works.

Fox News host Harris Faulkner then interpreted the absence of the author’s name in the statement, released by the White House on the occasion of the day, as a departure from tradition. According to her, he betrayed the will of the Democratic president to “Remove it with a wave of a magic wand, and not just those six books.”

National Reading Day was actually created in 1998, and Democrat Barack Obama was the first to mention Theodor Seuss Geisel in his proclamations. Donald Trump did not even publish any in 2017. The National Education Association, which organizes the day, has ended an exclusive partnership with the company that manages the books written by Dr. Seuss in 2018 to celebrate at the help other authors “A nation of readers of all origins”.

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