You've probably heard that some of Dr. Seuss's books have recently been "canceled" -- will no longer be published -- because of they supposedly "portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong." This sort of thing is hardly news these days, and I'm certainly giving it several orders of magnitude more attention than it deserves -- but, well, I've certainly never let that stop me from posting anything!
One of these libri non grati (the only one I shall bother to discuss; life is, in the last analysis, short) is And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, originally published in 1937. Its crime is the inclusion of "a Chinaman who eats with sticks" among the other improbable things (a zebra, a brass band, the mayor, a man with a ten-foot beard, etc.) the main character imagines seeing on that street. This was apparently deemed offensive even back in 1978, when Seuss amended it to "a Chinese man" and altered the illustration slightly. Now even this bowdlerized version is deemed "problematic," so the whole book has been junked.
Why the changes in 1978? Okay, I guess Chinaman had somehow become offensive and was replaced with the more up-to-date Chinese man, even though the change messes up the rhythm a bit. (Did you know that technically "Chinese" is a racial epithet, which I'm pretty sure is bad, while "Chinaman" is a much less hurtful-sounding racial substantive? Not that anyone asked us grammarians. It's also still more common than the PC alternative, unlike other passé demonyms.)
But, setting the vocabulary to one side, why the changes to the illustration? The Chinese haven't worn queues (a style forced on them by their Manchu overlords) since the revolution of 1912, so that's just more updating -- but why is his skin now white instead of yellow?
Was it offensive to show him with yellow skin? Is it insulting to say or show that Chinese people aren't white -- you know, because white is the best skin color, and not having white skin is bad? Is that the logic here? Because I'm not sure what other explanation there can be.
Anyway, after those changes -- now that the gentleman from China is a proper post-revolutionary queueless one in whiteface -- what's the objection? Maybe the New York Times can explain it to us.
In “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” a character described as “a Chinaman” has lines for eyes, wears a pointed hat, and carries chopsticks and a bowl of rice. (Editions published in the 1970s changed the reference from “a Chinaman” to “a Chinese man.”)
Okay, lines for eyes. First of all, you might have noticed that the (non-Chinese) "big magician doing tricks" also has lines for eyes, as do most of the people on this page, because Seuss has drawn them as if they all have their eyes closed. But supposing he had drawn the person of Chinese ethnicity with less-round eyes than the other characters, why would that be offensive? Chinese people do in fact have epicanthic folds that make their eyes look narrower than those of Europeans -- is that bad? Is it ugly? Are European-looking eyes the best sort of eyes, so that to portray anyone with any other sort is an insult?
(Ironically, most of the Chinese women I know do think it's better to have round eyes and pale skin. Eyelid jobs are the most popular form of cosmetic surgery among the Chinese, and there's even a saying, 一白遮三醜, "one white covers three uglies.")
Pointed hat. Such hats really are worn by some Chinese (and other Asian) people, and I often see them even in modern-day Taiwan. Is there something shameful about wearing non-European headgear?
Chopsticks and a bowl of rice. I know it may come as a shock, but nearly every Chinese person I know eats rice from a bowl with chopsticks every single day. Is that a barbaric thing to eat? A barbaric way of eating it? Something to be ashamed of?
Look again at Seuss's Chinaman. Has he been made to look ugly? Sinister? Uncivilized? Animal-like? Does he have anything of the Yellow Menace about him? Is there anything at all negative in the way he has been portrayed? No, he simply looks different from the white characters -- a member of a different race and a different culture, wearing different clothes, eating different food in a different way. You know, diversity. That's what was found offensive.
If Mulberry Street were written today, the parade would feature people of a variety of skin colors, and perhaps sensitively subtle hints of other physical racial differences (nothing cartoonish, of course! Seuss's four-color palette would have to go), but these racial differences would not be allowed to correlate with any visible differences in culture, clothing, profession, or lifestyle. Perhaps the magician or one of the aldermen would happen to be Chinese, say, or black, but would be otherwise indistinguishable from a white magician or alderman. Oh, and at least one person would be in a wheelchair. This kind of superficial diversity is laudable. Failing that, the second best option -- as seen in Seuss's non-canceled books -- is for everyone to be white. Any diversity beyond the cosmetic, though? That's offensive, man.
⁂
By the way, these are the three jackasses responsible for starting the campaign to make sure all Dr. Seuss characters are white. I know they're functionally just interchangeable pseudopods of the Blob, but it's worth keeping in mind that they do in fact have names, faces, and moral agency.
 |
| Mike Curato, Lisa Yee, and Mo Willems hate the Chinese. |
12 comments:
My understanding is that Dr Seuss is a person who lived in the past? Obviously, therefore, his books ought to be cancelled - unless there are strong reasons why they should be spared... for a little longer.
Aside - wrt 'Native Americans'. When I was a kid (in England) we were intensely interested by American Indians, and wanted to 'be' Indians in our playground and countryside games - silently stalking through the forest, bows and arrows etc. They had a similar appeal to the English Folk Hero Robin Hood.
Present day English kids know nothing and care even less about 'Native Americans' -- indeed, worldwide, it seems that the name change (and the associated PC minefield) has culturally-erased this group (except among a handful of SJW careerists).
As usual, as Always, the effect of leftism is long-term destructive; and now there is (approximately) nothing-but leftism, worldwide.
You mean kids don't play "cattle transportation workers and indigenous peoples" anymore?
Bruce is right. I don't think modern children know much about 'Native Americans'. But as an English boy growing up in the early 1960s I often played Cowboys and Indians with my friends and would happily be either one of them. In fact, I preferred having a bow and arrow to a gun and though I did have a (purple!) cowboy hat I also had some kind of Indian costume and once made a mini totem pole (or whatever those are called now). We were also very interested in the various tribes which, being part Scottish, I associated with clans.
I don't know about totem poles, William, but "tribes" is definitely out. Back when I was on WordPress, that site's PC spellchecker suggested that I reword a biblical reference to "the ethnic groups of Ephraim and Simeon."
As for your scandalous history of dressing up as a member of another race -- i.e., the unforgivable sin of blackface/brownface -- well, I just can't even!
I'm afraid I may even have smeared my face with war paint once or twice. However, I am presumably descended from English 'tribes' who covered themselves with woad so that must be culturally permissible.
But you have reminded me that I must object next time I see anyone of non-European/white American origin wearing a suit. Not to mention availing themselves of modern medicine, electricity, a decent sewer system, etc, etc.
The Inuit/Eskimo graph highlights the wonderful wisdom of our time. Not all Eskimos are Inuit and no word has properly replaced it (because, you know, Eskimo HAS to go. It's like the N word!)
It's only a matter of time before all of Dr. Seuss is cancelled. He was a liberal democrat who inserted leftist politics into children's books, which they should love, but he drew much worse than those banned books. And of course it doesn't really matter what he did— the monster flattens everyone eventually.
Right, I'm sure the Yupik Eskimos are feeling a bit left out. I'm surprised no one's come up with some gradually expanding acronym in the spirit of BIPOC or LPGABBQ. We could start with YIGAC (Yupik Inuit Greenlander Aleut Circumpolar), with more letters to be added later as new and improved Arctic identity groups are discovered.
It should come as no surprise that two of the Seuss books on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum are in for Eskimo-related offences. McElligot's Pool features "Eskimo fish"; and Scrambled Eggs Super, while it doesn't actually use the E-word, has a deeply shocking picture of Arctic canoists who, though they look white and even have mustaches, are wearing "stereotypical" fur-lined hoods. The narrator even refers to them as "some friends" -- like we haven't heard that one before! As if he can't possibly be a racist just because "some of his best friends are" whatever those people are!
"As if he can't possibly be a racist just because "some of his best friends are" whatever those people are!"
Yeah right. Nearly as bad as those "but I'm married to" types...
The image caricatures the Chinese and their ancient cultural traditions of catching and eating live rabbits and other exotic animals with pliers. The Chinaman is also wearing Japanese footwear, a clear case of cultural appropriation.
Seuss's own comment on the modification of the Chinaman:
"I had a gentleman with a pigtail. I colored him yellow and called him a Chinaman. That’s the way thing were 50 years ago. In later editions I refer to him as a Chinese man. I have taken the color out of the gentleman and removed the pigtail and now he looks like an Irishman."
Something Shavian about that comment, I think!
As usual, the Bee nails it:
https://babylonbee.com/news/ebay-finally-pulls-mein-kampf-upon-discovery-hitler-doodled-chinese-man-with-chopsticks-in-margins
"Other major distributors quickly followed suit, with Amazon additionally stopping all sales of chopsticks to people with Asian-sounding names. After seeing what corporations were doing, the Biden administration bravely denounced Hitler’s drawing and said it will be issuing executive orders imposing restrictions on Chinese restaurants so no one will ever be exposed to the harmful sight of an actual Chinese person eating with chopsticks."
Post a Comment