Dr. Seuss books are ‘racist,’ new study says

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And, according to a new study from St. Catherine University, that should be away from Dr. Seuss books. A new study analyzed 50 Dr. Seuss books and found significant use of racist stereotypes and notions of white supremacy.



The study, published in the journal for Research on Diversity in Youth Literature, analyzes 50 books and more than 2,200 characters created by Dr. Seuss. Of those characters, only 45 are of colour.

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“The presence of anti-blackness, Orientalism and white supremacy span across Seuss’ entire literary collection and career,” say researchers Katie Ishizuka and Ramon Stephens.

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In the book If I Ran the Zoo, a white man says he would “put a person of colour wearing a turban” on display.

Ishizuka and Stephens call this is an act of “dehumanization,” which is “to treat someone as though he or she is not human.”

Researchers also found that Dr. Seuss only ever wrote about two human black characters, and both are depicted as monkeys.

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Researchers say the treatment of non-white characters in Dr. Seuss stories encourages “the development and reinforcement of racial bias in young children.”

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