So Now Cancel Culture is OK I Guess

A school district official in Ohio interrupted a discussion of a Dr. Seuss book when a third-grader observed that it offered a lesson on racism. The book was The Sneetches, in which Plain-Bellied Sneetches are looked down on by Star-Bellied Sneetches. In response, the Plain-Bellied Sneetches buy stars for their bellies, only to have the Star-Bellied Sneetches remove their stars to continue differentiating themselves from the less-favored group. 

“It's almost like what happened back then, how people were treated … Like, disrespected ... Like, white people disrespected Black people, but then, they might stand up in the book,” a third-grader said of the story. Moments after that is when the district official jumped in.

“I just don't think that this is going to be the discussion that we wanted around economics,” said Olentangy Local School District assistant communications director Amanda Beeman. “So I'm sorry. We're going to cut this one off.”

The exchange, including the children’s confusion and desire to hear how the book ended, was captured by NPR, which was recording a Planet Money podcast about economic lessons in children’s books, which was presumably the reason a district official was sitting in on a third-grade class to begin with.

Ohio hasn’t even passed the kind of ban on discussing race in schools that a number of other states have passed, though Ohio Republicans introduced a copycat bill. But after a couple of years of constant screeching about how it’s racist to acknowledge that racism has ever been a part of U.S. history, and that acknowledging racism oppresses white kids, educators and administrators have gotten the message to steer all the way clear of the topic. 

Oh the irony!  In 2021, Republicans were beyond outraged when the company that publishes Dr. Seuss' books decided to stop publishing six racist ones. It was a private business decision made because those six books “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong,” but then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy claimed it “outlaw[ed] Dr. Seuss,” and Sen. Marco Rubio described it as “an example of a depraved sociopolitical purge driven by hysteria and lunacy.”