{"id":328226,"date":"2017-09-29T14:40:42","date_gmt":"2017-09-29T13:40:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/dr-seuss-is-racist-propaganda-first-ladys-book-donation-rejected\/"},"modified":"2017-09-29T14:40:42","modified_gmt":"2017-09-29T13:40:42","slug":"dr-seuss-is-racist-propaganda-first-ladys-book-donation-rejected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/dr-seuss-is-racist-propaganda-first-ladys-book-donation-rejected\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Dr Seuss is racist propaganda\u2019: First lady\u2019s book donation rejected"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A Massachusetts librarian has been criticized for rejecting a donation of children’s books by Melania Trump, because she thinks the author, Dr Seuss, is \u201cracist\u201d and a \u201ccliche.\u201d<\/p>\n

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To coincide with National Read a Book Day, Cambridgeport Elementary School, Massachusetts, was chosen to be the recipient of 10 copies of Dr Seuss books from the first lady.<\/p>\n

School librarian, Liz Phipps Soeiro, rejected the donation in an open letter to Trump, however, saying that her school didn\u2019t need the books and that the author was racist.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou may not be aware of this, but Dr. Seuss is a bit of a clich\u00e9, a tired and worn ambassador for children\u2019s literature,\u201d<\/em> Soeiro wrote<\/a>. \u201cAnother fact that many people are unaware of is that Dr. Seuss\u2019s illustrations are steeped in racist propaganda, caricatures, and harmful stereotypes.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cOpen one of his books (If I Ran a Zoo or And to Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, for example), and you\u2019ll see the racist mockery in his art,\u201d<\/em> she added.<\/p>\n

Soeiro\u2019s comments did not go down well in Seuss\u2019s hometown of Springfield, where Mayor Domenic Sarno branded them \u201cridiculous.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI think her comments ‘stink’,\u201d<\/em> Sarno said, as cited by Mass Live<\/a>. \u201cHer comments that this is ‘racist propaganda and that Dr. Seuss is a bit of a cliche and a tired and worn ambassador for children’s literature’ is ‘political correctness’ at its worst.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Sarno thanked the first lady for her donation and extended an invitation to her and the president to visit the city\u2019s Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum.<\/p>\n

A grandnephew of Dr Seuss also criticised Soeiro.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know one thing for sure \u2014 I never saw one ounce of racism in anything he said, or how he lived his life, or what his stories were about,\u201d<\/em> the Boston Herald quoted Ted Owens as saying.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have grinches and sneetches and all his other characters, how can you say that\u2019s racist? His characters are based on made-up characters,\u201d<\/em> he added.<\/p>\n

Dr Seuss, real name Theo\u00addor Seuss Geisel, was born and raised in Springfield and is the city’s foremost son. He was a vocal anti-fascist critic during WWII, drawing cartoons warning of the threat posed by the Nazi regime before the Americans entered the war in 1942.<\/p>\n

He also drew anti-Japanese cartoons during WWI, which prompted some academics to call for a reassessment of some of his works. Suess later admitted he regretted<\/a> doing this.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Via RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published time: 29 Sep, 2017 12:41 A Massachusetts librarian has been criticized for rejecting a donation of children’s books by Melania Trump, because she thinks the author, Dr Seuss, is \u201cracist\u201d and a \u201ccliche.\u201d To coincide with National Read a Book Day, Cambridgeport Elementary School, Massachusetts, was chosen to be the recipient of 10 copies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":328227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-328226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}