Thread by @cmclymer

Hi, it's me, your neighborhood reasonable adult. I heard Dr. Seuss books were "banned" in a Virginia school district, which surprised me! So, I did what any reasonable adult would do with internet access: I looked it up to get official details. (thread)

There's this remarkable tool for verifying claims that isn't yet more widely known. It's completely free. You don't even have to sign up with an email subscription. It's called "Google". So, I went to the Google, and typed in "Dr. Seuss ban Virginia" to see what I could find out.

That brought me to a CNN article written about the "banning" that led with this paragraph stating... oh, so, they weren't banned. They weren't removed. Students can still check them out as freely as they did yesterday. cnn.com/2021/03/01/us/…

But maybe this is "fake news" misreporting on the actions of a local government led by the people -- the best kind of government, social conservatives tell us. So, then I went to the Google and typed in "Loudon County Public Schools", clicked, and... oh. bit.ly/3q5fLpn

"What the hell are racial undertones?", someone might ask because it doesn't really commit to a definitive framing on the clear harm of something blatantly racist. So, I went to the Google and typed "Dr. Seuss racism" and... ah, interesting. slj.com/?detailStory=n…

Because this centers in an annual commemoration on reading and literacy, I took the time to read this study, written by two researchers who went through Dr. Seuss' entire catalogue out of curiosity. You can read their full study here: sophia.stkate.edu/cgi/viewconten…

They point out: "Before ​and during​ his career publishing children’s books, Dr. Seuss also published hundreds of racist political cartoons, comics, and advertisements for newspapers, magazines, companies, and the United States government."

The authors asked: "Our study sought to evaluate the claims that his children’s books are anti-racist, and was shaped by the research question: How and to what extent are non-White characters depicted in Dr. Seuss’ children’s books?"

I won't spoil the ending for you, but it's clear that even in Dr. Seuss' more "evolved" days, he still had some issues with racist depictions in kids books.

I don't know, maybe someone really can evolve significantly and still not quite be where they should?

Given the clear evidence that Dr. Seuss' kids books still used racist depictions--even if they're not obvious to white people like me--maybe continuing to tout them as the gold standard of anti-racism in early childhood education isn't the best way to go here?

So, Loudon County Public Schools kept the books, still display them, still allow kids to check them out, but simply don't want to hold them up as THE central gateway to childhood literacy because of demonstrable racist depictions.

That seems... pretty damn reasonable?

But wait, I've heard that schools DO ban books. Those filthy liberals with their cancel culture. So, I went to the Google to look up a list of the most banned books last year because that's a thing anyone with internet can do.

And I found out that for the most recent year for which we have data (2019), of the 10 books most challenged and banned, *EIGHT* of them were solely because of LGBTQ themes.

It seems social conservatives have worked overtime to, uh, "cancel" LGBTQ books.

nytimes.com/2020/04/21/boo…

So, it appears that there is a "cancel culture" crisis in our libraries, with blatant attacks on freedom of thought, and it's being led by social conservatives.

Anyway, try out the Google! Oh, the places you'll go!

/thread