It has been a sweeping week for my childhood past.
Mr. Potato Head is just another potato in the five-pound bag.
Six of Dr. Seuss are gone too. (“And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” “If I Ran the Zoo,” “McElligot’s Pool,” “On Beyond Zebra!,” “Scrambled Eggs Super!,” and “The Cat’s Quizzer.”)
To be honest with you, I’m not sure how I feel about either.
First, let’s address the spud.
People are making too much of this. Mr. Potato Head’s name will still appear on the box. So will Mrs. Potato Head. The top billing will go to plain old Potato Head. We are all Potato Heads, really.
So I think people need to quit their whining about this. They are getting a 3-for-1 deal now. Sure. Sure. There are a lot of Misters in the world. A lot. With very mister genders. They like Mister things, like breaking large blocks of cement with jackhammers, putting on helmets, and chasing balls. They like Mister fishing. And Mister dancing, god help us. And none of that has gone anywhere.
We are just fine, people. If we want to buy and build a Mr. Potato Head with a mustache and hat, we are able. The same goes for Mrs. Spud. But if your girl potato likes wearing a bowler and smoking a cigar, there is now that option too. Relazzzz. Let potatoes be potatoes, for crying out loud. The eyes have it.
And on to Dr. Seuss.
I can only speak from experience on this, as is true for all of us. I grew up reading Dr. Seuss. If I didn’t have one of his books, I borrowed it from the library. We read Dr. Seuss to our grandkids. The pale green pants story was their favorite. The Sneetches were mine.
As a child, I thoroughly enjoyed “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.” I probably read it tens and tens and tens of times.
Have I become a racist as a result of reading these materials as a child? I would like to think not. Though, the whole definition of “racist” and “racism” shifts and bends, depending on who is holding the putty. I consider myself an advocate of human rights, and I try to find ways to support this belief, that all people should be afforded the same rights in this world.
But the other part of that? I am a white woman, living in a country run predominately by white men, who work very hard to protect white privilege. I don’t see those books through the same lens as other people do. Even still. The questionable “terms” and “passages” in the Seuss books have been pointed out to me, and I can now fully understand how they are offensive.
Here is the hard part for me, though. They were written in another time in history when the awareness of human rights was even further away than it is today.
Ironically, last week, I decided to read a few books by one of my favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut. I haven’t read him since I was in my early 20s, so I’ve been carrying around that stack of paperbacks for more than 30 years. Right now, I am reading “The Breakfast of Champions.” In it, Vonnegut uses the N-word frequently. I hadn’t remembered this about the book or his writing. And now, every time I read the word, I cringe. But in the book, he’s driving home some points about our society and how the world has evolved.
So. My question, my trouble with this, is, where do we start drawing the line? And where do we stop?
I think removing these racially slanted terms from our children’s teachings is a good thing. I think the more that they are exposed to the idea that humans are humans, no matter their skin color or the variety of potato, is a valuable thing.
But I also think we are missing the bigger picture somehow. There are people out there who have absolutely ZERO business bringing new humans into this world. They are not capable of being good parents. Just this week, a woman killed her six-year-old son in a park just ten minutes from my house. She took her three kids there to abandon them. But that little boy, full of innocence, grabbed the door handle as she tried to drive off. She kept going, and now he is dead.
My guess is, prior to that event, she didn’t concern herself all that much with raising kids with values or principles, let alone consideration for matters of racism.
I’m not sure starting with Mulberry Street is going to help. On the other hand, maybe it will. I’m just a Potato Head, after all.
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“To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.”
— Nelson Mandela
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“It means a great deal to those who are oppressed to know that they are not alone. Never let anyone tell you that what you are doing is insignificant.”
— Desmond Tutu
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“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
— Martin Luther King
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Mr. Potato Head on Mulberry Street
