We’re old enough to remember when local school boards reflected the culture and sensibilities of the surrounding community providing the students.
Those days are long gone.
Now all too many school boards reflect the latest intellectual fads and fashions of the Harvard School of Education faculty lounge.
Take the great minds inhabiting the Loudoun County, Virginia school board.
Fox News informs us the Loudoun County board has banned Dr. Seuss books from Read Across America Day. That’s the day "dedicated to the importance of reading and literacy. The day falls on Dr. Seuss’s birthday in honor of the impactful (sic) author, whose books have helped countless children learn to read across the globe."
Not this year.
Learning for Justice, a racial grievance and division–mongering group, claims the children’s books are chock full of "orientalism, anti-Blackness and White supremacy."
Fox adds, "The group also claimed that the characters who were not White in the books were 'subservient' to White characters."
The spineless fad-followers in Loudoun fell right into line:
"Realizing that many schools continue to celebrate 'Read Across America Day' in partial recognition of Dr. Seuss’ birthday, it is important for us to be cognizant of research that may challenge our practice in this regard.
"As we become more culturally responsive and racially conscious, all building leaders should know that in recent years there has been research revealing radical undertones in the books written and the illustrations drawn by Dr. Seuss."
Hmmm. . . .
All we ever detected was general hilarity and borderline chaos in the Seuss’ books.
Half of this writing duo was formerly a regular volunteer for Read Across America Day. He would visit a nearby majority–minority elementary school and read to three or four classes. His only stipulation was the book he read was always "Green Eggs and Ham."
That just happens to be the best selling of all Seuss’ books. In it we have "Sam-I-am" who is trying to convince the picky-eating protagonist to try green eggs and ham.
Sam is whiter than a cracker floating in a bowl of bleach, but he’s anything but the recipient of "subservience."
Sam spends the entire book begging the protagonist to just try green eggs and ham.
The case could be made that "Sam-I-Am" is a dietary stalker, since he pursues our reluctant diner all over the landscape, but that wasn’t why the fools in Loudoun banned him.
The protagonist, and person running the show, is a species unspecific creature who is yellow. Prior to last week he would have qualified as a minority, but now Asians are said to be "white-adjacent" and that evidently isn’t a good thing.
And what our co-author’s audience during Read Across America Day think of the book?
Were they sullen attendees at a disguised white supremacy workshop that rhymed?
Not on your life.
The book was a call-and-response extravaganza as the children eagerly filled in the blanks the reader left. In fact, he often wondered how the teacher was able to return the room to normal after his reading concluded.
It’s obvious one has to have an advanced degree and a penchant for gullibility to believe Dr. Seuss is anything but a fun collection of books for early readers.
Wanting to deprive children of the Dr. Seuss experience requires a level of vindictiveness and indifference that we find shocking.
We hope parents will rise up between now and next year’s Read Across America Day and demand that Dr. Seuss be kept in the lineup or returned to the lineup.
Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Reagan, is a Newsmax TV analyst. A syndicated columnist and author, he chairs The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Michael is an in-demand speaker with Premiere speaker’s bureau. Read Michael Reagan's Reports — More Here.
Michael R. Shannon is a commentator, researcher for the League of American Voters, and an award-winning political and advertising consultant with nationwide and international experience. He is author of "Conservative Christian’s Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with addedhumor!)" Read Michael Shannon's Reports — More Here.