Juneteenth
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@approxinfinity To me that Atwater quote says everything we need to know about “overt racism.” Most people have figured out that doesn’t tend to work so well anymore and have made their racism so abstract that there will always be plausible deniability. That is the denial Kendi writes about as white supremacy and racist. That’s why I like to think of it like “Dr. Seuss’s books perpetuate racist stereotypes and are therefore racist” rather than “Dr. Seuss is a Racist!”
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I recognized the racist nature of GWTW in junior high when I first read it. I also recognized Huckleberry Finn as an attack on racism by the use of a racist narrator who is gradually becoming aware of the inhumane biases with which he is filled. Still, its language reflects Twain’s time when the N word was acceptable. Both can be read with an eye to what they reveal about changing cultural standards and racial identity, but it is absurd to think that they should be treated as racially neutral due to being “art”.
The world, especially my fellow liberals, seems to me to be too incapable of accepting the contradictions in life. There are good and bad in many things. Our job is to figure them out, and improve what we can.
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@mayjay I’m willing to accept the contradictions in life. Advocating non-purjorative language to describe racial bias is not the same thing as being accepting of racial bias, if that’s what you were suggesting. On the other hand, I agree
with your assessment that many people are not willing to allow things to be both good and bad in their assessment of it. I think we all 3 are saying the same thing there. And this black and white thinking is the exact reason why non perjorative language is essential, imo.I don’t remember Gone With The Wind very well so I can’t really assess other than to say I don’t remember it to be advocating racism.
Seuss on the hand, I would really like to hear the argument for calling him racist.
@benshawks08 I appreciate the logic you use regarding different standards when talking about things vs people being racist. It’s good to have a personal line like that and might be necessary to express up front to level set when discussing race, as I probably should express mine.
I see other nuances like this that I try to observe when calling someone something vs calling their action something. Acting racist is also different from being racist, for example. Acting can be changed and is therefore less perjorative.
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@approxinfinity Here is some more on the problems of Dr. Seuss from a really good website:
https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/its-time-to-talk-about-dr-seuss
and some more about how Seuss isn’t just one thing:
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190301-the-surprisingly-radical-politics-of-dr-seuss
I should add in my opinion there is nothing wrong with reading and loving Dr. Seuss as it was how I learned to read (perhaps the most empowering skill I’ve ever learned). But I also think there is something to be said for recognizing that now we have a greater understanding of the harm of racial caricatures and that it may be best to avoid those images with our children until they are more ready to have a more nuanced conversation about it.
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Jar Jar Binks seems like a Seuss caricature come to life, and, as many others pointed out when that miserable movie was unleashed on an unsuspecting fandom, has exaggerated features, speech patterns, and personality traits, all of which are often used as racial tropes. (See how careful I was there, 'Prox?
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@benshawks08 I don’t agree with the advice given in the tolerance.org link regarding Seuss, at least for me. I can see how some of caracatures are offensive. I’m not opposed to redrawing those characters tastefully tbh as I think his work is wonderful for kids, with the exception of the caricatures. I don’t think there’s much objectionable in the plot or dialog and I think criticizing The Sneeches for not digging into systemic power imbalance in racist societies is completely ridiculous. At that point theyre working backwards from their conclusions. Two reasons:
- It’s a kids book for young kids. Not a thesis on systemic racism.
- I’ve read that book a million times and I don’t think of it as even being about racism. It’s a warning about keeping up with the Joneses and wasting all your money and time pursuing status. Hence the non star bellied Sneeches buy their way into having stars on their bellies.
Crazy conclusion imo. But, as with any great work of fiction, it’s subject to interpretation and the authors have clearly projected what they wanted to see on a great story.
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@mayjay Jar Jar Binx is much much worse for these reasons:
- He talks
- He’s a main character
- He’s stupid and incompetent
- He was written in the 2000s (no excuse given the times)
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@approxinfinity My understanding of their criticisms of sneeches was that they were actually criticizing themselves for using it as an anti-racist text and that it didn’t actually fit their hopeful interpretation.
I will say it’s been a while since I’ve read the book but that was my understanding of what the link O provided was saying.
I do think the stuff I provided showed Seuss was an advocate against anti-semitism but had a blind spot in his use of people of color, specifically Asian characters. We all have blind spots and unintentional biases and the only problem is when we refuse to examine those. More conversation on the problems in literature, policy, art and everything else is the best way to shed light on that in my opinion.
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@benshawks08 yeah I don’t understand why they looked to Seuss for anti-racist messaging in the first place. I think this speaks to the problem of “with us or against us” whitewashing that threatens to engulf anything it can consume in the war on racism.
This passage I think shows that they still miss the point:
But when we re-evaluated, we found that the story is actually not as “anti-racist” as we once thought. And it has some pretty intricate layers you and your students might consider, too.
They still want to teach an antiracist message by using The Sneeches. They need to leave that book alone. It isn’t about race and kids shouldn’t be forced to find racial messaging in a book that is not explicitly about race.
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@approxinfinity Yeah but the thing is kids are finding racial messaging in books and everything in their world whether explicitly intended or implicitly. This is where implicit bias starts and the research is showing it starts as young as age 3. So if we aren’t going to explicitly talk to our kids about race they will form their own opinions mostly based on their parents implicit biases. Then the much more difficult work of unlearning has to happen.
Also, I saw no “with us or against us” message anywhere in the articles I shared. Maybe if you saw that you could point it out to me?
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@benshawks08 I think you miss my point. The Sneeches has nothing to do with race imo. Putting a book in front of a child that doesn’t have to do with race and then saying, “can anyone tell me what this teaches us about racism?” And then engaging with only the children in the classroom that project racist themes on a book that is not about race is bad for the children and without a doubt fosters an implicit bias.
And that bias is what I’m referring to when I say anti-racism is threatening to whitewash and engulf everything in this war.
Read Sneeches again. See for yourself.
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@benshawks08 you said you learned to read on Seuss. Do you think you’re biased against people of color?
You said maybe we should wait to read Seuss until the kids are old enough where we can discuss implicit bias with them. I would argue that if they are capable of garnering a bias from a book they are just as capable of beginning to garner a bias from an explanation of that book’s bias. I most certainly paused to discuss books or inject commentary with my boys from the outset of reading with them, likely to too great a degree (I also suffer from sideline coaching).
I’ve seen many modern kids books that aren’t worth the paper they are printed on. Stupid books would be worse for children than Seuss, and being that Seuss is canon for many, I’m sure that would leave a void not easily filled. I’m much more in favor of tastefully redrawing caracatures, while leaving the soul of the books intact.
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From the sneeches “when the star belly children went out to play ball, Could a plain belly get in the game? No, not at all”
Later,
“They kept them away, never let them come near and that’s how they treated them year after year”
I know I am of the opinion we should talk more about race not less, but please explain to me how this is not a direct reference to segregation. It’s literally baseball and lunch counters.
Oops. Left out the quote about the plain belly sneeches not being allowed to eat with the star belly ones. But it’s there.
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@benshawks08 as i said earlier, ive always seen this as a story about keeping up with the Joneses and nowhere is race mentioned in the story, with the fact that they can remove or add a star being a direct indication that there is mobility. The logical conclusion is that their differences are financial, not racial.
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@approxinfinity And to answer your question, yes, I have had to unlearn a lot of biases I have for all sorts of things and continue to learn and unlearn every day. I grew up in west Wichita and had very few people of color in my classes or as teachers k-12. I grew up hearing about “the bad part of town” and “the wrong side of the tracks” and “those bus kids.” We had one black guy in our church and he was the janitor. I remember one prominent adult in school that was black and she was the security guard all us white kids called “busta” because her last name was Rhymes. I had one Asian friend through middle and high school and one Jewish friend named J.D. whom we affectionately (probably not to him) called Jew Dog. Do you honestly believe you hold no unconscious bias?
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@benshawks08 no. I never said i hold no bias. I should have been more clear. I was suggesting that the Seuss books had no negative impact on your biases. All of the things you mentioned were much more concrete, real influences on your biases than orientalist caracatures in Seuss.
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@approxinfinity Or the adding of the star is that all are now equal (at a cost) and so those who were on top now have to change the rules to maintain their power.
Just because you don’t see the discrimination based on appearance doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
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@approxinfinity I’m saying I grew up in a, to use your word, whitewashed world and Seuss was a part of that. I never had to think about race as a child because I was in an almost entirely white environment similar to that of the world created by Seuss.
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@benshawks08 discrimination based on appearance doesn’t mean racism. This is a great example that this is subjective. It’s art and you are interpreting it the way you want to. It absolutely does mean that it’s not there if I don’t see it, just as it is there if you do.
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In my mind, I equate the discrimination to a kid wearing nice clothes and looking down on a kid with inexpensive clothes. Or whatever expensive accessory. And then the reverse. It becomes cool to not have a star, in order to be different.
Maybe the point of the book is that you shouldn’t define yourself by what others are and what they think of you, but figure out who you are yourself and be you?
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@approxinfinity I just feel like that interpretation is so narrowly YOUR interpretation. I would be interested to see how many people of color reading that story would see it as an allegory for racism vs. how many white people.
The distance between discrimination based on appearance and racism is in no way a giant leap.
And to be clear I’m not saying this book is a good tool to teach kids about race, in fact the opposite, but it does baffle me how a person can read that story and not think about Black people being denied the right to eat certain places, play baseball with white players, and participate in society as a whole.
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@benshawks08 but just because you grew up in an almost entirely white world, that doesn’t mean you aren’t sensitive to any human’s feelings and conditions now.
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@benshawks08 I don’t think my interpretation is narrow at all. I think yours is narrow because you think it unbelievable that anyone would not see the discrimination towards Black Americans in that book. I can accept that someone might see race in it, I just don’t think it’s the most logical conclusion. People don’t pay someone to make them a different race. I think you are ignoring the McBean element entirely because it’s not convenient to your narrative.
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@approxinfinity https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/global-currents/profiting-from-the-skin-lightening-trade
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@approxinfinity I’m focusing on the central conflict in the story because of its obvious connection to race and segregation. The McBean element is part of why the story is problematic. I’d liken that character to major corporations pitting the lower class folks against each other based on race to continue to line their own pockets while not honestly caring about any of them.
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@benshawks08 said in Juneteenth:
@approxinfinity I’m focusing on the central conflict in the story because of its obvious connection to race and segregation. The McBean element is part of why the story is problematic. I’d liken that character to major corporations pitting the lower class folks against each other based on race to continue to line their own pockets while not honestly caring about any of them.
You said the magic words here. Pitting lower class folks against each other. This is a book about class, not race.
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@benshawks08 said in Juneteenth:
@approxinfinity https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/global-currents/profiting-from-the-skin-lightening-trade
Lol, yes I know. I didn’t think you’d go here. So that’s what this book is about?
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@approxinfinity said in Juneteenth:
@benshawks08 said in Juneteenth:
@approxinfinity I’m focusing on the central conflict in the story because of its obvious connection to race and segregation. The McBean element is part of why the story is problematic. I’d liken that character to major corporations pitting the lower class folks against each other based on race to continue to line their own pockets while not honestly caring about any of them.
You said the magic words here. Pitting lower class folks against each other. This is a book about class, not race.
In the US how do you talk about one without the other?
And how are those classes being pitted? Appearance they were born with.
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@benshawks08 I appreciate you caring deeply about black Americans. I really do. But it IS possible to talk about class without race. If not in the abstraction of a kids book with fuzzy creatures with star bellies that they pay to remove and add back then where?
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@approxinfinity said in Juneteenth:
@benshawks08 said in Juneteenth:
@approxinfinity https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/global-currents/profiting-from-the-skin-lightening-trade
Lol, yes I know. I didn’t think you’d go here. So that’s what this book is about?
No it isn’t. I’m just saying ignoring the racial undertones of the conflict of the story seems like purposefully pulling the wool over ones eyes.
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Opinions are fun, but sometimes facts help. According to Wikipedia, Dr. Seuss expressly stated that The Sneetches had its origins in his opposition to anti-Semitism (quoted in fn 4). It was even distributed in Bosnia by NATO to try to encourage tolerance between Serbs and Croatians.
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@mayjay good looking out.
Ok. A simpler time. Where all he had to fight was outright persecution and not systemic racism, economic disparity, and implicit bias, etc.
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@mayjay said in Juneteenth:
Opinions are fun, but sometimes facts help. According to Wikipedia, Dr. Seuss expressly stated that The Sneetches had its origins in his opposition to anti-Semitism (quoted in fn 4). It was even distributed in Bosnia by NATO to try to encourage tolerance between Serbs and Croatians.
Were the stars on the Sneetches the dead giveaway? EL EM AY OH
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@approxinfinity said in Juneteenth:
@mayjay good looking out.
Ok. A simpler time. Where all he had to fight was outright persecution and not systemic racism, economic disparity, and implicit bias, etc.
Just checking my snark meter here. You are not disputing that all of those things were still present in that simpler time, right?
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@mayjay said in Juneteenth:
Opinions are fun, but sometimes facts help. According to Wikipedia, Dr. Seuss expressly stated that The Sneetches had its origins in his opposition to anti-Semitism (quoted in fn 4). It was even distributed in Bosnia by NATO to try to encourage tolerance between Serbs and Croatians.
So…racism. At least for me and my current understanding, anti Semitism and racism go hand and hand as almost but not quite exactly the same thing. I may be wrong there as I haven’t explicitly studied the connection between the two. But from what I’ve seen anti-Semitism is often under the larger umbrella of racism, similar to anti-Blackness.
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@benshawks08 Do I think that the persecution of Jews in this country was equivalent to the systemic racism that black Americans have experienced? No, not even close. Do you? I misspoke. What I meant was that the thought process when writing a children’s book back then probably could be more straightforward. Take an idea for a catchy story and run with it. Don’t sweat how much it applies.
Being inspired by the fight against antisemitism when writing a children’s book with fuzzy creatures that are divisive and then inclusive after they get swindled is a far cry from attempting to write a book that specifically addresses the state of systemic racism against black Americans half a century later.
Where Seuss landed with the plot doesnt address any real problems or solutions around antisemitism either, and I don’t think he was specifically trying to. His book imo is only directly applicable when addressing class differences in school aged children, and not being a shit. Why does it have to be more than a parable about being inclusive and being comfortable in your own skin?
I don’t understand the incessant need to make everything about modern racial strife. It’s emotionally suffocating. I don’t see anything wrong with this book at all.
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@approxinfinity Where I’m coming from big picture is that the teaching of most history, art, etc. tends to take your approach of not making it about race even when as @mayjay pointed out, the author was actually trying to address it. I think it is irresponsible to read a fictional book about discrimination and not connect it to the very real discrimination that has been going on in our society. Just as I think it is irresponsible to teach the amazing accomplishments of the founding fathers, triumphs of american spirit, etc. without acknowledging and investigating the faults.
I think the preference for many people to talk about class while ignoring race is equally irresponsible.
I think it is easier for most people to assume things aren’t about race, than to actually confront the racism baked into our lives.
To me that’s where this whole Dr. Seuss extravaganza we just went on started and where I end up with it.
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@benshawks08 Did Seuss write a book about race or a parable about not being divisive? Just because he was inspired by it doesn’t mean that it’s what the book was intended to convey. I think the book was generally about not being a shit. Not interpreting it the way you do does not make me irresponsible. That’s not how literature works.
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@approxinfinity And to me part of not being a shit is recognizing that systematically excluding a group from society on the basis of their appearance is racist and bad.
And while you can interpret texts however you want, “literature” does not mean any interpretation is valid. To be clear I’m not saying your interpretation is invalid, but rather incomplete.
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Long, but really interesting read on how language and thought has changed over the last 5ish years. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/media-great-racial-awakening
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@benshawks08 said in Juneteenth:
@approxinfinity And to me part of not being a shit is recognizing that systematically excluding a group from society on the basis of their appearance is racist and bad.
Can you be racist against glasses wearers? How about racist against people in sports cars? Racist against people that wear leather? Racist against everyone who sings in public? Racist against everyone who hikes? Racist against people that shop at Kroger?
Are you suggesting that by not interpreting the book as being specifically antiracist, I am in fact a racist? That seems to jive with the “with us or against us” vibe around this whole discussion.
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@approxinfinity Ah yes. All those times people weren’t allowed to eat, visit beaches, play sports and generally associate with the rest of society because of their glasses
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@approxinfinity Hitler killed Jews because he believed they are an inferior race. While that may not comport with modern sensibilities of religion versus race, the fact remains that much of anti-Semitism is based on the believe that Jews are a race. The period when Dr. Seuss wrote this story was the '50s, when the Holocaust’s causes and effects were very much on people’s minds. I doubt it was divorced from the burgeoning civil rights movement.
In the Anne Frank House website, you will find this valuable lesson:
“Conclusion: Jews are not a race, and categorising people according to race is wrong and dangerous. Even so, some people still believe in the concept. If it is the basis for their hatred of Jews, it is undoubtedly racist.”
Your continued effort to draw distinctions about racism is a throwback, in my mind, to our dispute about HEM. I am reminded of the Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s discussion of hard-core pornography. He said he would not try to delineate all the things that might be entailed in that phrase, “But I know it when I see it.”
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@approxinfinity said in Juneteenth:
@benshawks08 said in Juneteenth:
@approxinfinity And to me part of not being a shit is recognizing that systematically excluding a group from society on the basis of their appearance is racist and bad.
Are you suggesting that by not interpreting the book as being specifically antiracist, I am in fact a racist? That seems to jive with the “with us or against us” vibe around this whole discussion.
Anywhere where I called you a racist? Said it was one way OR another? My entire point has been yes AND. I continually point out that I prefer not to call any person A Racist and focus instead on using the term as an adjective as I feel it’s more productive that way. And even in this discussion have I labeled any of your actions as racist?
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@benshawks08 not being invited to a Frankfurter party is not the same thing as not being allowed to eat.
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@approxinfinity said in Juneteenth:
@benshawks08 not being invited to a Frankfurter party is not the same thing as not being allowed to eat.
Perhaps my grammar was unclear. That with was working for all the List before it. Eat with, play sports with etc.
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@mayjay yeah. The Holocaust was bad. I didn’t dispute that. What I said was that racism toward black people in this country has been much worse that what Jews have experienced in this country. More systemic,more implicit bias, longer, etc. I think that’s a pretty safe statement all things considered.
Also, yes i tried to make distinctions about the label of racism being bandied about so freely then when discussing HEM, as I do now, and I am no less convicted now as I was then, that people must be careful in their language and considerations regarding anti-racism if they actually want to make lasting positive change.
If we just want to argue endlessly, then by all means, lets continue to try to eradicate distinctions.
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@approxinfinity No real reason that I can see to think Seuss’s intent was to deal with American discrimination. The lessons are universal, which is clear from his use of non-identifiable cartoon characters.
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@mayjay ok well i wasnt attempting to argue that American racism towards blacks is worse than the Holocaust. In my mind a genocide is a whole different monster than racism. It would be a whole different discussion to debate that. That just wasn’t my intent.
I don’t think the message of the Sneetches was to not exterminate another race. Sneetches was written in 1961 so I consider any inspiration to address antisemitism on Seuss’s part to be as it existed at that time.
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@benshawks08 said in Juneteenth:
@approxinfinity Ah yes. All those times people weren’t allowed to eat, visit beaches, play sports and generally associate with the rest of society because of their glasses
Actually, there were times I was on the receiving end of prejudice because I wore some thick glasses and crappy clothes as a kid. I definitely was excluded from activities, wasn’t welcome to eat with certain people at school, and got bullied at time because of my appearance. So yeah, the book resonated with me there.
Am I not allowed to relate to the book on my terms? Does the book have to be about another group because that’s my responsibility? Seriously?
