WASHINGTON. For the nation’s woke educators, Theodor Seuss Geisel is an enemy of the people. You may know him best as Dr. Seuss, the author of such children’s books as “The Cat in The Hat.” The Oval Office usurper, former Vice President Joe Biden, removed all mention of the author’s prodigious works from the annual White House “Read Across America Day” proclamation.
He most likely did so out of deference to one of the Democratic Party’s largest benefactors, the National Education Association (NEA). They contributed $225,881 to the Joe Biden campaign.
Cat’s got their tongue
Theodor Seuss Geisel in 1957. Photo: Al Ravenna via Wikipedia, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ted_Geisel_NYWTS.jpg.
According to the NEA:
“The titles and resources featured by NEA’s Read Across America include books that students can see themselves reflected in, as well as books that allow readers to see a world or a character that might be different than them.”
And among the NEA’s recommended children’s tomes is “I am Jazz,” which is supposedly written for transgender tikes *and non-binary students, it’s personally validating and academically engaging to see themselves and their life experiences reflected on the pages of books.”*
NEA recommended children’s books. NEA website screen capture.
But a study by the UCLA School of Law, Williams Institute, finds that a paltry 0.7 percent of kids between the ages of 13 and 17 identify as transgender. That is hardly reflective of society at large, and an oddly specific fetish to pass off as reflective.
And speaking of fantasy, you might not know that Dr. Seuss is accused of inserting racist messages subliminally in his books. How, you ask? By expressing what the nation’s woke educators call “color-blind racism.” That is to say, refraining from making “race” a prominent factor in storytelling.
Racist cats in hats
2015 NEA Dr. Seuss endorsement. NEA screen capture.
In his book “Was the Cat in The Hat Black? The Hidden Racism of Children’s Literature, and The Need for Diverse Books,” Philip Nel writes:
“What happens when race gets displaced, re-coded, hidden. It is about how racist ideologies persist in the literature and culture of childhood, frequently in ways that we fail to notice on a conscious level. It is about how race is present especially when it seems to be absent… White people – the people who hold nearly all positions of power in children’s publishing, and who write the vast majority of children’s books – are much less likely to see structural racism.”
And then there’s this remarkable statement,
“Blackface’s legacy lives on in the character of the Cat [in The Hat], and racial stereotypes continue to emerge in Dr. Seuss books – despite the fact that Ted Geisel was a liberal Democrat whose anti-poll tax cartoons appeared two decades before…”
When President Obama praised Dr. Seuss
On March 2, 2016, The Obama White House on YouTube posted the following video wherein President Obama says that “pretty much everything you need to know can be found in Dr. Seuss.”
So white
In the end, the problem with Dr. Seuss is not his beliefs, not his words, and certainly not the supposed menace posed by his illustrated Cat in a Hat. The singular bone of contention for these woke wackos is that Geisel was white.
A trait in skin pigmentation the good doctor just happens to have in common with the nation’s decrepit Pretender-in-Chief.
Dr. Seuss once said:
“Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope.”
But for the left, fantasy is more than a wistful relief from everyday life. It’s a perpetual way OF life. One lived constantly on the “wrong end of a telescope.” A world where the strange and abnormal are anything but.
An imaginary world where China and Iran are partners in peace and a children’s book author and illustrator is a threat to social order.
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*Top Image: Still from 2003 from “The Cat in The Hat” with face of Joe Biden.*
