> I haven't seen a good summary of what parts of the withdrawn books were considered inappropriate, but my understanding is that the stronger objection has been to political cartoons that Theodor Seuss Geisel created.

This is the first link I could find, but I've seen the same content elsewhere: https://nationalpost.com/entertainment/books/here-are-the-wr...

Two of the books have traditional racist caricatures of Chinese people, and another one has something that seems like a caricature of an Arabian.

However, the other three are kind of a stretch, IMHO. One has "Eskimo fish" with parka-like manes. Another has a group of people in a boat at the North pole, which are being interpreted as being Inuit, but the text doesn't say so and they just look like people in parkas to me. And the last just has a Japanese person in traditional garb next to the nonsense question "How old do you have to be a Japanese?." I guess the sin is just referencing any non-Western ethnicity in any context, which is kinda nuts.

Is it racist to depict a citizen of a country in that country’s traditional national garb? Simplified to cartoon form for children?

I guarantee no actual Chinese are offended by this.

Chinese-born or American-born? My guess is that American-born Chinese would be more likely to be offended, because they've been acculturated to the American culture around this kind of offense, and a lot of it is reasoning by analogy to the black experience (e.g. if similar caricatures of blacks are offensive to them due to centuries of pervasive racism, then other groups should be able to claim offense at caricatures of them)

I remember reading something years ago about an Asian-American frat (I think some pledge died during a hazing ritual). Part of the pledge process was to read a bunch of stuff about anti-Asian racism in order to build a shared identity.

Born in Europe actually, so I don't know where I fall on that spectrum, haha. But probably closer to the US than to China.

https://nationalpost.com/entertainment/books/here-are-the-wr...

However, I have seen some disagreement among different news sources about what exactly led to the bans.

It all started with the gluten intolerant choosing the lunch location

So while literal gut reaction is serious and exists, people claiming gluten intolerance are much more likely to be confusing something else.

But no, I don’t expect them to sit there and watch. Most restaurants have some gluten-free items so there is something to eat.

But I would expect there to be some fair rotation where every once in a while we go to a special gluten restaurant, and also the bbq guy’s favorite, etc etc

What happened was the veto power of allowing a single person who thinks they are gluten intolerant to have an undue power in selecting the restaurant.

It seems similar here as it’s really someone’s feeling but the response is not proportional. The response to some people feeling gluten intolerant shouldn’t be to never eat at pizza restaurants. Similar to some people feeling sad from reading a Dr Seuss book shouldn’t result in banning Dr Seuss books from ever being bought or sold.

The argument is “well it’s not that bad to avoid gluten” and that’s true. Skipping gluten isn’t the end of the world. It’s not a major problem. Just like missing out on a few Dr Seuss books doesn’t directly ruin ones life.

But it lessons it a little bit and the act of accommodating all these little changes puts culture in a downward spiral where very small groups limit experiences.

The challenge I have is that there are serious social justice needs that must be fought and worked on to make society better. Systemic racism, bias against the poor, systemic poverty, etc.

These kinds of things are thematically similar to this Dr Seuss stuff, but while Dr Seuss isn’t important, systemic injustice is important.

It’s like how health inspections for restaurants are important, but unrelated to gluten in the restaurant. I can be for restaurant hygiene but against banning gluten.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_I_Ran_the_Zoo#Criticism

I've owned copies with these pages. It's depressing to me that some people think that we should keep teaching this stuff to kids.

It did provide a lot more insight for me than the superficial coverage I found in most places.

I'm not sure if we'll ever come back to that book (it's part of an anthology) but if we do it'll be when he's old enough to understand a conversation about why it's not okay. And then we'll skip the pages, because the book is better off without them anyway.

Perhaps that is why they sloughed off making the films.

When he does get old enough to watch movies, I can't reasonably expect to keep him from watching or reading things. If he doesn't see them with us, he'll see it at friends' or grandparents' houses, but either way we'll have to talk with him about what he's seeing.

Disney movies are a great example of something a lot of people seem to remember as harmless and fun, but they pretty much all contain at least some problematic and/or scary elements to varying degrees.

The concern is not that people want to continue using I ran the Zoo as a educational tool.

The concern is ebay is weighing in to say they know better than parents how to educate their children. OR that eBay is weighing in that they know better than collectors what books are suitable for purchase.

Some people find it presumptuous, patronizing, and concerning that eBay wants to make these decisions for individuals.

How do you teach a child what's wrong if you can't show them examples and articulate to them why it's wrong?

Do you just not teach them and hope that one of them doesn't grow up to be the next Hitler instead?