knapplc
Active member
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Biden's America
- Thread starter Danny Bateman
- Start date
Redux
Donor
What does that even mean? Sure looked like it ended a year ago:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-51689443
That article reads like he tried but Mitch didn't want to (shocker) and that Biden plans on dragging his feet about finishing it. Guess we're going to split hairs here.
RedDenver
New member
You claimed he (Trump) ended the war in Afghanistan a year ago. He didn't. You can blame whoever you want, but Trump didn't end the war.
Enhance
Administrator
I had to stop listening when he got into the Biden rant stuff (pretty sure this whole Dr. Seuss situation significantly pre-dates his presidency) but I think he's asking fair questions and making some salient points about the book issue.
I don't think what's in the books and some of the issues people are pointing out about them rise to the level of them needing to be 'canceled.' Are there some problematic things in the books? I think yes to a degree. This is nothing new. They've been documented and talked about for decades. But, I think children are a lot smarter than adults sometimes give them credit. I never once read a Dr. Seuss book and walked away with a sweeping generalization about any of the characters or people referenced, and I read them habitually as a child.
I'm not a parent yet, but if I were, I think I would lean towards still reading these books to my children and perhaps teaching them that some of what they're seeing is not representative of the world as a whole. I think things like this can often be an opportunity to adjust how we teach and instruct, rather than doing what some districts are doing by just yanking them off the shelf.
Ulty
New member
Most of the movies and TV shows you watched as a kid contained racist, misogynistic, and homophobic content. Sometimes it was just insensitive, ignorant stuff. Sometimes it was the punchline to a joke. Your childhood books, Dr. Seuss or not, probably also contained a lot of questionable material by today's standards.
Sometimes I watch my old favorites with my kids, and then the inappropriate joke that I forgot about comes up. So we often pause it and have a discussion about why that was inappropriate, why we don't repeat those kinds of comments, and talk about why people used to think it was okay to include that stuff. You can learn from these things without necessarily throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Mierin
Donor
And that's not what's happening, so we're good. The company is simply no longer printing it.
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B.B. Hemingway
Donor
Or to ignore the double standard in Hollywood. The Mandalorian lady made a terrible comparison to the Holocaust and lost her job. Celebrities on the left have compared Trump to Hitler (also a comparison to the Holocaust, and equally as terrible/offensive) and they're celebrated.
B.B. Hemingway
Donor
Oh yeah. Public pressure and/or the current climate of cancel culture DEFINITELY didn't play a role here. (wink wink).
Enhance
Administrator
Glad you mentioned this because I thought I had read that one Virginia school district was going to be pulling them. Turns out that district has since denied the claim and says they will remain available. However, a number of other U.S. school districts are apparently 'reviewing' the issue. I don't think it's necessarily a foregone conclusion yet that they may not be pulled in some areas.
RedDenver
New member
It's not really cancel culture if the school districts are pulling the book after the publisher decided to stop printing it.
Mierin
Donor
I don't care if it's pulled from a school. That still doesn't make the term applicable. The way that term is used is stupid 99% of the time. But if cancelling means removing racist materials and putting them in a museum then it shouldn't be used as a bad word. Racism has a place in books as long as the books are merely portraying it. If they were trying to pull something like that, I would actually care.
The only time that term would ever actually make sense is if people were trying to remove history. a) these books aren't history and b) they aren't being banished from society. Anyone who owns one can continue to keep owning it. I don't know why there has to be such a push for everything to stay the same and eternally be exactly the way it is. Why do kids need to keep reading these 6 books, so much so that people are getting mad that the publisher made a decision that is completely within their rights to make?
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teachercd
Active member