Did you know that Dr. Seuss’s books are secretly racist? Prof. Philip Nel has been reading between the lines, and brings the news to woke parents. Excerpts:
Cont....Fattal: You argue that there is an imperative to keep reading these problematic children’s books. What would you say to those who ask why we wouldn’t just stop reading them?There is actually a very strong case for not reading them. Racist books inflict real damage on children of all races. So there’s a very strong argument to be made for that, and I don’t want to diminish that at all. The reason that I am not making that argument is that I don’t think that ignoring the symptom cures the disease. People need to learn that this is one place that racism comes from. They need to learn it in context. You definitely shouldn’t only teach racist children’s books. There’s a wealth of really thoughtful, historically oriented and carefully written books that can help us think about colonialism or racism or sexism more thoughtfully, and you would only want to teach these books in that context.
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