Yeah, this is sort of good news
someone taking personal
responsibility to make sure that
kids aren't exposed to things that
might predispose them to
think things that are toxic and not
compatible with the modern society.
6 Dr. Seuss books will no longer be
published because of their use
of offensive imagery.
According to the business
that oversees the estate of
the children's author, and
illustrator, we're going to give
you all the details.
First off, just a first glance.
This so far as I can tell is not
the result of some massive
campaign.
The company is choosing to do this
and why,
what's the offensive content?
Well, Dr. Seuss enterprises said
that it decided last year to end
publication and licensing of the
books including the first book that
Dr. Seuss wrote under that name.
And to Think That I Saw It,
Mulberry Street, If I Ran the Zoo
as well and then things like
McElligott's Pool, On Beyond Zebra,
Scrambled Egg Super which I've
never read and The Cats Quizzer.
So why, what's in there?
Well, in And to Think That I Saw It
and Mulberry Street a character
described as a China-man has lions
for eyes wears a pointed hat and
carries chopsticks and
a bowl of rice.
In addition is published in
the 1970s changed the reference
from a China-man to a Chinese man,
one of the early instances of
canceled culture.
[LAUGH].
In If I Ran The Zoo, two characters
from the the African island of
Eureka are depicted as shirtless,
shoe less and
resembling monkeys but really fast.
Like, you won't be able to see
these very soon in the actual books
that we published, but
I want you to know what we're
talking about here.
So this is just two images.
From If I Ran The Zoo.
So here is the depiction of Asians.
And then here is the actual one
from the African island of Eureka.
These are not edge cases,
these are not sort of questionable.
These are if you had Steve Bannon
draw different races.
This is what he would produce if
what Tucker Carlson dreams
as those images.
This is the most explicit
racialized stereotypes you can
imagine.
We're going to have more
on this but JR, what do you
think about their decision
to stop selling these books?
>> I keep, I don't know, I avoid
tweeting sometimes just because
it's a bit of a tiring exercise but
I was going to point out yesterday
when all this was going down and
people were upset Dr Kane canceling
Dr. Seuss.
I have a nine year old kid and
when she was a lot younger I read
a lot more Dr. Seuss to him and
he was reading it and stuff, I've
got the the Mulberry Street one and
I think the zoo one.
I already have them.
They are there, people who love Dr.
Seuss and
love all the things that he did.
And the stories and
the childhood memories of reading
it when you were growing up,
you still have the books.
So calm down number one.
Number two Dr.
Seuss is long decomposed corpse
does not care about whether or
not you're canceling him.
because death cancelled them much,
much longer ago than you can ever
imagine.
So it's okay it's fine.
He's already gone.
He's not sitting there mad
about this situation.
So you had the.
>> 30 years ago.
>> Yeah, and if you want to go
ahead and be upset, be upset but
to make this some kind of thing
like somebody's coming after Dr.
Seuss when he came after people
then I don't get it.
What's going to happen is your kid
then realizes that an author from
some books that some of the things
that they read that they enjoyed
and maybe learn something, learn
some kind of reading literature
from, that they got that, and
they could still know what that
author wrote and authorized
horrible things, that's fine.
What's your kid going to do now?
Or if your kid doesn't learn about
Dr. Seuss, that's fine too,
because there's children
that haven't learned about Dr.
Seuss and they're fine, is it?
The outrage over this,
is way overblown, it's fine.
What's going to happen to you,
have six of his books,
not all of his books.
Six of his books that have explicit
racial overtones in them.
>> Yeah.
>> Are not going to be published
anymore.
That's a problem now.
>> Yeah, there's still plenty.
I personally think one additional
thing it doesn't seem like anyone
has considered this option.
Why not change the books?
Why not like do different art and
different characterizations and
stuff like update them,
why not update them?
There's new Dr.
Seuss stuff being made,
look what Jim Carrey did.
[LAUGH]. I mean there's stuff
that's being done.
But anyway, so you pointed out your
people who already love it
already have the books and if
you didn't buy them up until now,
you didn't really love it.
>> Exactly >> I also say some
people don't think they don't get
what the big deal is.
They look at that and they don't
get how it's offensive and I can
say from my own personal history,
I read many of these books growing
up including some of these ones and
I never got how offensive it was
and that's the problem.
>> Exactly.
>> I was a kid being given these
books and thinking, this is totally
acceptable, there's no problem with
this, that's not good.
That's not, no,
you don't want that and so absent.
And that by the way, they also,
the right, and we're going to get
into the right soon, they don't
like disclaimers either, so if
you added a page to this book that
said, hey, some of this imagery and
totally offensive now for,
like a modern sensibility.
So, bear that in mind,
they would hate that too.
So the issue fundamentally is that
they don't have a problem with
racism.
That is the only actual explanation
for what they're doing >> Absoutely
>> But really fast JR,
in terms of what he did and
what he thought it's interesting
because before he was a giant
of children's literature.
The author known as Dr. Seuss, he
drew political cartoons including
some that had stereotypes character
in Japanese and Japanese Americans.
Decades later,
he said he was embarrassed by
the cartoons which he said were
full of snap judgments that every
political cartoonist has to make.
And so he was embarrassed.
So in theory,
he's in support of not continuing
some of these things.
>> Well, I mean, Dr. Seuss
apparently was, he's been taken
over by the left in this country.
They pressured him in his grave.
[LAUGH].
To speak out against this.
No, it's the way it always is.
They'll take many people,
especially ones who aren't here.
Give them their own voice and
tell them what they really would
have believed in how they would
have thought about things.
Finally, this isn't like
a one off thing.
Plenty of cartoonists and cartoons
and things became political
statements that were very racist,
very based on all these things,
especially in the 40s and
we're fighting world wars.
That's the way it was his
propaganda push to make sure that
we have this disdain for certain
people that we're fighting against.
It's just the way it was.
I mean, if you didn't know that,
just take a cursory search,
read a little bit,
you know what's been cancelled.
Bugs Bunny has been canceled.
Tom and Jerry has been cancelled
because guess what was in those
a lot of times racial overtones,
that when something exploded
in someone's face,
they end up looking like a dark
charred human being with big lips.
That was that happened in all
those cartoons.
And if you turn on Cartoon Network
or Boomerang right now, and
you find yourself some old
Bugs Bunny cartoons, they won't
have those episodes on there.
The had the other one on there, or
the other that had those they
edited those parts was it
cancelled?
That's what has been happening
since I was a kid.
>> Yeah. >> So is this a new cancer
costing or
is this just eliminating absolute
disgusting racism in old cartoons.
And with the sign and
the time you can even write it like
that if you would like.
Or just the way people thought or
it was something that we just did.
We didn't realize how bad it was.
Fine. Sell that stuff, but
don't show it to me now.
If you want to find it,
you can go find the racial stuff.
You can go find it.
It's perfectly fine.
One more thing.
If you watch.
Like Coming To America.
I'm thinking of a couple of
Eddie Murphy movies from the 80s.
And they have some nudity scenes in
there every once
in a while where boobs are out.
Those things are cut out if you're
watching it on TNT,
is that getting canceled?
No, the explicit parts of these
movies that we don't want to see or
want our kids to catch and
see are eliminated from the movies.
Crazy how that works.
>> JR. I remember the first time
and it wasn't that long ago that I
watched Trading Places like on
Amazon.
I was like, I did not realize these
scenes were- >> Never seen the real
movie, you've never seen it- >> And
I've seen that movie 1000 times.
So anyway, before we move x
section, I just wanted to briefly
remind people that because as JR
pointed out he did this,
this political stuff, here's one
cartoon, that the right is not like
how dare that cancel him in which
Dr. Seuss implied that there was
like that the America firsters and
the Nazis shared a beard.
[LAUGH].
I don't know.
I think that's interesting.
Here's what the stats show,
of the 2,240 identified human
characters across 50 different Dr.
Seuss books.
2,240, there are 45 characters of
color that is 2% of the total
number of human characters,
but as I continue,
you'll probably end up wishing
that it had been lower than 2%.
Because of the 45 characters,
43 exhibited behaviors and
appearances that align with harmful
and stereotypical or
orientalist tropes.
The The remaining two human
characters are identified in
the text as African and both align
with the theme of anti-blackness.
It's also important to note that
each of the nonwhite characters is
male, all of them, and they are all
presented in subservient exotifed
or dehumanized roles, especially in
their relation to white characters.
There is no non white female
character in any of the books.
And maybe it's for the best that
there wasn't because God only knows
what it would have looked like.
>> Yeah.
Yeah.
>> Anyway, that is fascinating.
And as a kid, I didn't notice that
and that's the problem.
And a kid that doesn't notice
that isn't told about what reality
is will grow up, lacking a complete
entire realm of reality.
It's just and then we call those
people conservative.
Sorry, I'm sorry, that's too far.
[LAUGH] >> My God,
I'll take it back.
>> Okay. [MUSIC]