Sometimes the people and things we love from our childhood turn out to have a disturbing side to them. This is the case with Dr. Seuss, an author whose books I loved as a kid and later as a new parent. (My little guy’s first birthday had an elaborate Cat in the Hat theme, as you can see in a picture in this post.) By reading the excellent work of both Pragmatic Mom and The Conscious Kid, I found out a couple of years ago about Dr. Seuss’ racist past and how that racism influenced some of his most popular books.
While the conversation about racism in Dr. Seuss’ books was swirling among school librarians recently during Read Across America Week, I’ve found that most parents and teachers have no idea this is an issue. In this post, I’ve gathered some of the most informative resources about racism and Dr. Seuss, as well as different ways we can respond as caregivers.
If this information is new to you and you’re a fan of Dr. Seuss, you might feel defensive. That’s understandable (I felt defensive at first too), but I hope you will use this information to learn and reflect.
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Research reveals patterns of racism in Dr. Seuss children’s books and political cartoons
In February 2019, Katie Ishizuka and Ramón Stephens published a study titled “The Cat Is Out of the Bag: Orientalism, Anti-Blackness, and White Supremacy in Dr. Seuss’ Children’s Books.” They examined every children’s book that Seuss published, and found that “every character of color is male. Males of color are only presented in subservient, exotified, or dehumanized roles.”
The authors and others who’ve studied Dr. Seuss’ work offer many specific examples of racism, including:
- A white male character holds a gun and is carried by Asian male characters in If I Ran the Zoo. A caption beneath the picture describes the Asian characters as “helpers who all wear their eyes at a slant” from “countries no one can spell.”
- 98% of the human characters in Seuss’ children’s books are white. None of the characters of color have speaking roles, and they are all portrayed in subservient conditions and/or in stereotypical ways.
- Asian characters are frequently shown in stereotypical clothing such as “rice paddy hats,” with bright yellow skin and slanted eyes. A mural from And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street that included such a character was taken down at the Dr. Seuss museum after prominent children’s authors including Mo Willems protested the image.
- Blackface images in The Cat In The Hat (which I talk about in more detail below)
- The only two “African” characters in Seuss’ books appear in If I Ran the Zoo. They are shoeless and wear grass skirts, and are shown subserviently carrying an animal to a zoo owned by a white male child.
Related Post: How I Failed to Be an Anti-Racist Parent in the Grocery Store Parking Lot
Was Dr. Seuss just a man of his time?
Some have argued that Dr. Seuss was simply a “man of his time” and wasn’t intentionally expressing racism through these images. That line of thinking reflects our confusion about what racism actually is, in my opinion. Also as a recent viral Facebook post said, “excusing someone’s past bigotry as ‘a product of their time’ erases everyone who fought against that bigotry while also living in that day.”
Dr. Seuss was also a political cartoonist, and his cartoons were blatantly racist against Japanese, Black, and Native American people. He regularly depicted Black people as monkeys, and often showed Japanese people with pig snouts and other animalistic imagery. During World War II he made anti-Japanese statements including “we’ve got to kill the Japs.” (Trigger warning: disturbing racist images. You can see some of those cartoons in this post from Pragmatic Mom.)
Other people have said that some of Dr. Seuss’ later works, including Horton Hears a Who! show that Seuss was sorry about the role that he played in stirring up anti-Japanese sentiment. The Conscious Kid pokes holes in this argument, and also debunks the idea that The Sneetches shows children how to be anti-racist.
Related Post: What does the word racism actually mean?
The Cat in the Hat and Blackface
Because of our family’s attachment to The Cat in the Hat (and how popular the book is throughout libraries, classrooms, and homes), the discovery about Dr. Seuss’ racism that disturbed me the most is the origin of the Cat character.
In his thoroughly researched book Was the Cat in the Hat Black? The Hidden Racism of Children’s Literature, and the Need for Diverse Books, Philip Nel explains the origins of the character.
When Dr. Seuss was at the office of publisher Houghton Mifflin, he encountered a Black elevator operator named Annie Williams. Later, he recalled her “leather half glove and secret smile.” He gave the Cat character her white gloves, her “secret smile” and her color, according to Nel.
Blackface and minstrel show characters also influenced the Cat. (Seuss was quite familiar with the genre, writing and performing in a minstrel show for his high school.) The Cat’s red floppy tie, his umbrella used as a cane, and his red and white striped hat all bear distinct similarities to specific blackface characters from the time.
Similar to how blackface characters in minstrel shows entertained white audiences, the Cat’s role is to entertain the white children and perform tricks for them.
In The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, the Cat leaves a ring of ink around the tub after he bathes. In the 1920’s there were frequent cartoons and ads that portrayed Black people as dirty and their blackness coming from ink.
Related Post: 7 inspiring ways that kid activists are challenging racism
How should we talk with kids about the racism in Dr. Seuss’ books?
If you’re a parent or teacher of young children, there’s a good chance that you’ve read Dr. Seuss books with your kids, and probably have at least one in your home or classroom. So what should we do about these books? Should we quietly remove them?
Danielle Slaughter, who writes frequently about race and parenting on her blog Mamademics, wrote a provocative post recently titled “Dr. Seuss’ Racist Past Isn’t the Problem – Your Refusal to Have Hard Conversations Is.” She criticizes white parents who simply get rid of their Seuss books without talking to their children so that they don’t have to talk about the racism in those books.
I absolutely agree with Slaughter that parents shouldn’t make these books disappear without a conversation. (She also says some things about Seuss I disagree with, particularly that he appears to have learned his lesson at an older age.)
Children can’t learn to identify and stand up to racism if we never talk with them about it.
Related Post: What is white fragility, and how does it impact parenting?
Children’s author Grace Lin suggests that we treat classic children’s books that are racist (such as Little House on the Prairie), like “out of touch relatives” who don’t think the way we do. You don’t have to cut that relative out of your child’s life, in Lin’s view, but you should keep our your eyes and ears open so that you can have a conversation with your child if the relative says something racist.
Saying goodbye to the Cat in our home
A few months after I found out about the racist images that inform The Cat in the Hat, I decided this was not a book I wanted my then 5 year old reading anymore. It helped that we already talk about skin color and racism pretty regularly.
Since he was so young, I simply told him that Dr. Seuss was making fun of Black people with the Cat character, and that is racism. We talked briefly about why I was getting rid of the book.
Related Post: What to do about classic children’s books that are racist
Off and on for the past two years, he would still watch the PBS show The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That. I reasoned that since the focus of the show was different than the books and one of the two children on the show was Black that it wasn’t the same as the book. [EDIT: Thank you to reader Yvette for pointing out to me that in the cartoon, Nick’s mother appears to have a South Asian English accent. I was making assumptions about Nick’s ethnicity based on his skin color. I apologize for my assumption.]
While working on this post, I decided to talk to our son (who’s about to turn 7.) I reminded him about the Cat character making fun of Black people, and I also told him that Dr. Seuss had drawn mean pictures and said racist things about Japanese people. He’s very interested in Japan, so this new information upset him. We agreed together that he wouldn’t watch the show anymore.
Related Post: 17 Funny Multicultural Children’s Books
Dr. Seuss at School
One of the reasons that many school librarians have been debating Dr. Seuss’ racism is that until recently, Read Across America Week, celebrated in most schools, was synonymous with Dr. Seuss. Some schools actually call the week Dr. Seuss Week.
In 2017, two siblings whose parents had talked to them about Dr. Seuss’ racist political cartoons decided they wanted to share this information during their school’s week celebrating Seuss’ books. The family had talked about the role that Seuss’ racist political cartoons had played in influencing American’s opinions about the internment of Japanses Americans.
Rockett and Zoe, ages 11 and 10, created informational flyers to pass out at school. The children said their goal was to show people that Dr. Seuss was not perfect, and that “everyone has a dark side.” At the instruction of the principal, teachers confiscated the children’s flyers.
When considering whether to read books like The Cat in the Hat and other books with racist stereotypes in the classroom, teachers of young children need to remember that kids begin forming racial stereotypes as young as age 3. While high school teachers can have critical conversations with teenagers about racist themes in books, this is much harder to do with a group of young children.
Related Post: 8 ideas to celebrate Read Across America that don’t involve Dr. Seuss
In 2017, school librarian Liz Phipps Soero wrote an open letter to Melania Trump, rejecting the First Lady’s donation of Dr. Seuss books to her Cambridge, MA school. She rejected the books both because she thought books should be sent to a school with fewer resources, and because “Dr. Seuss’s illustrations are steeped in racist propaganda, caricatures, and harmful stereotypes.”
If you’re a parent who knows your child’s teacher has The Cat in the Hat or other Seuss books with racist stereotypes in the classroom, you may be wondering what to do. I recommend starting a conversation by letting the teacher know that you recently learned new information about Dr. Seuss. Share this blog post or one of the articles I link to in the post. Ask if you can have more conversation, since you know that supporting diversity and challenging stereotypes is important to the teacher.
Related Post: 5 surprising ways white children learn racist ideas
Rethinking Read Across America Week
In 2019, the National Education Association, which sponsors Read Across America Week, removed all references to Dr. Seuss in their promotion of the event and suggested booklists.
I noticed on social media that many preschools and elementary schools, at least in my community, still had Seuss themed events during the week. They likely have not heard anything about the controversy, and were repeating popular events from previous years.
The Tutu Teacher provided these book themed ideas for each day of Read Across America week, which I love. (Teachers, follow her for all kind of good diverse book info!) Here are her themes, paired with book lists from my blog that match the daily theme:
Day 1: Read a book about immigration. Find books about immigrants and refugees here and here.
Day 2: Read a book about a famous American. Find books about famous Americans here and here.
Day 3: Read a silly story. Find silly and funny books here.
Day 4: Read a book about different cultures. Find multicultural books here and here
Day 5: Read a book you love. Want to see my favorite book? Go here.
6 responses to “How should we respond to racism in Dr. Seuss books?”
Thank you for this thorough and extra eye-opening article. I had already heard about the illustrations but had assumed Cat and the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham were free of racism. And thanks for acknowledging why it’s hard to get rid of these once beloved books.
Hi Rebekah, I appreciate your post and I’ve been trying to figure out an accessible way to share this terrible news with my kid’s school and all the educators I’ve met in the past few years. I also appreciate your blog because it offers multiple perspectives from a parental point of view. And not to sound racist but because you are and pass as white, I’ve noticed that white folks are generally more accepting of taking your perspective versus my own (I’m Chinese.) So your blog offers an accessibility to for example, good intentioned teachers who can get defensive when I try to suggest more diverse reads at school. Additionally, I want to say that I believe the character of Nick in The Cat in the Hat Knows A lot About That is actually South Asian Indian and not black. Or perhaps they are mixed race. There’s no real way to know but Nick’s female parent figure that shows up once in a while seems to have a South Asian Indian English accent from what I can hear. Of course, this is also problematic because the same actress, a white woman, plays the voice of both Sally and Nick’s female parent. Anyway, just some thoughts. Thanks again for all your words!
Thanks for correcting me about the Nick character; I appreciate it. Good luck talking with your school! Are there any others at the school who could strategize with you about starting these conversations?
So, I’ve debated saying anything, but there are a few parts of your blog post that I really feel should be talked about and addressed. Yes, Dr Suess books have racism in them and yes, this very much needs to be talked about and addressed with our kids, but what I am struggling with is your complete dismissal of him as a person and the significant role his books have played in children’s reading, just because he portrayed racism in his books and cartoons.
Much like the little house on the prairie books, dismissing and getting rid of them all together also erases history (and our need to learn from others past mistakes and failures and help our children understand how to deal with their own mistakes and failures in regard to showing bias and racism.) Our children need to know that racism exists in the world and that every culture has been influenced by racism and prejudice and bias. And they need to know how far we have come and how far we still have to go.
But more than anything what I get from this post is that if someone has made mistakes and failed and wasn’t a “perfect” person, then we have every right to dismiss them from our lives. As of yet, I have never met a perfect person who has never failed in some sort of way. I have never met a person that didn’t have some sort of prejudice, and while I know many people try really hard, we all have bias and prejudice that we need to constantly be working on. Dismissing someone because their racism and prejudice is more known, is the same as saying that person doesn’t matter (which is what racism does). When in reality Dr. Suess’ books and legacy are important and don’t need to be dismissed altogether, but rather learned from.
The fact that you disagree with a much believed notion that Dr. Suess changed over time and realized his mistake also shows us that there is no room for grace and learning a lesson; so ultimately changing isn’t the end goal. You can’t possibly know if this is true or not, unless you have actually met Dr. Suess, but that stance clearly says to me that learning a lesson and changing is not good enough, but perfection and no racism is the only standard by which to live. You are choosing to believe that he was racist to the end and did all these things purposely and with malicious intent. When I think the truth is probably somewhere in between.
I want my children to understand all cultures and understand racism and prejudice and bias and be able to recognize it in themselves and others. I also want my children to understand that it exists in the world and that just because someone displays racism and made mistakes in how they portray the world, doesn’t mean we should treat them in the same way that they treated others, by dismissing them altogether. In the end, we must love everyone in the same way we love ourselves. We cannot love someone when we dismiss them and believe the worst in them.
Danielle’s comment on restorative justice says it all: “Justice is not always about canceling someone and their body of work. Sometimes it looks like providing room for restorative justice to take place.” And also notes that dismissing his work does more harm than good. I think the stance you are taking in deleting his work from your children’s lives is just as harmful as the cartoons and racism that Dr. Suess showed.
Lindsay, I can tell you put a lot of thought into your response, and I appreciate that. I worked hard to provide several different responses parents and educators have taken in this post, not of all of which involve removing racist books from a child’s library. Then I shared what I choose to do with my own family. I find it presumptous for you to tell me what I should do with my own family. My 6 year old does not want to read Dr. Seuss anymore, because I openly discussed with him the racist things Dr. Seuss has done.
Just because Dr. Seuss and Laura Ingalls Wilder are famous and helped many children develop a love of reading does not mean I am obligated to give them a place on my children’s bookshelves. There are many, many other authors, including authors and illustrators of color whose work has been marginalized, who can and are helping my youngest develop a love of reading and learning.
Racism does not have to be intentional or malicious to be racism, and I believe all white people, including me, say and do racist things on a regular basis. Most racism is not intentional on the part of the person that perpetrates it, but that doesn’t lesson the harm it causes. Imapct matters more than intention. I’m not sure if you read my blog regularly, but I would encourage you to read the other race related articles, especially my recent post on white fragility. We each have opportunities to apologize, make amends, and do better. I look for those opportunities in my own life, and I encourage other white people to look for them in their lives as well.
Restorative justice requires that the offender acknowledge the harm they have done and work to repair it. Dr. Seuss gave no such acknowledgment of that harm, including fanning the flames of anti-Japaneses hysteria that led to the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans, calling for Japanese people to be killed, his use of the n word, etc. I encourage you to read Ishizuka and Stephens article (https://sophia.stkate.edu/rdyl/vol1/iss2/4/) which outlines how anti-Blackness, Orientalism, and white supremacy span Seuss’ entire career, not just his early years of writing. Late in life, Dr. Seuss decided to review his entire literacy legacy, and withdrew only one book that he disliked, leaving behind highly problematic books including If I Ran the Zoo and To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street.
Brilliant “Some have argued that Dr. Seuss was simply a “man of his time” and wasn’t intentionally expressing racism through these images. That line of thinking reflects our confusion about what racism actually is, in my opinion. Also as a recent viral Facebook post said, “excusing someone’s past bigotry as ‘a product of their time’ erases everyone who fought against that bigotry while also living in that day.”” and this really supports how life is “Children can’t learn to identify and stand up to racism if we never talk with them about it.”