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Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

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Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#781

Post by tim333 »

ttt0 wrote: post #353
Azeralthefallen wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company I work for did something similar at the end of last year. We had consultants who went over everything, and made a massive document of all sorts of things they deemed "problematic". Along with a week long of seminars/training/workshops on sensitivity/inclusion/etc. - Everyone had to list what pronouns they wanted people to use. In slack / our email footers everything. This was not optional. We were also to…

> Words such as "master", "owner", among some other ones were deemed problematic and needed to be changed. This is slippery slope happening right before your eyes. For those who claimed that slippery slope is just a fallacy and never ever can be true. When did Github change the default branch name from "master" to "main"? Few months ago? Now it's "owner" too, and using this word probably could get you in some real tr…

I believe the words 'is' and 'the' have been used in the past by slave owners. Probably the next to go.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#782

Post by thaumasiotes »

benlumen wrote: post #759
thaumasiotes wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I watched the movie, through, and it seemed to me to be a very anti racism message. The book is required reading for most American students for basically that reason.

I think people really need to realise that this isn't some kind of paradox or contradiction, it's actually consistent. These are the same people who are trying to repeal anti-discrimination legislation because it stands in the way of their agendas. They're undoing decades of actual progress.

I don't agree; I think this is basically a case of different people trying to do different things. There's one longstanding and well-organized interest group promoting the idea that blacks shouldn't be treated badly just because they're black. That group's goals are advanced by making people read To Kill a Mockingbird.

There's another interest group promoting the idea that they should have the power to denounce other people and objects. Their goals are advanced by denouncing To Kill a Mockingbird; if it works, it's evidence that they really do have that power. The more they can denounce, the stronger they are.

The first group is concerned with the content of the book; the second group has no particular reason to be.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#783

Post by __s »

Wanting to see what these are offensive for,

Cat's Quizzer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yeNj1akz30

Which contains the question "How old do you have to be to be a Japanese?"

Meanwhile https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/books-nix-boo... lists reasons:

> In “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street," an Asian person is portrayed wearing a conical hat, holding chopsticks, and eating from a bowl. “If I Ran the Zoo” includes a drawing of two bare-footed African men wearing what appear to be grass skirts with their hair tied above their heads.

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

Goes over all 6

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#784

Post by dx034 »

sossles wrote: post #173
major505 wrote: post #96

I don't know any culture that banned books independent of their content that people didn't regret in the future. A few months ago I was reading about schools banning the book "To Kill a Mockingbird" because it contains basically the "n" word. I'm not american, and and havent read that book. I watched the movie, through, and it seemed to me to be a very anti racism message. I think instead of banning, schools should w…

I've read a few older books with my kids that contained mildly questionable things, like a boy saying that girls can't do certain things, but I much prefer having that awkward conversation about how things used to be, over tossing it all out and pretending things were never any different.

The problem is not all parents have that discussion with their kids. But those explanations can also be added to a story so that kids can understand them. I don't think it would've destroyed Seuss' legacy to change a handful of illustrations in some of his books.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#785

Post by dx034 »

runsWphotons wrote: post #692
kstenerud wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upvoted you to counter the downvotes since this actually does add to the discussion. It's important to remember that the power of Mein Kampf lies in its status as a symbol, not its actual contents. Nobody actually reads Mein Kampf, nor have they ever (just like nobody actually reads the Bible unless they're actual preachers). It was (and still is) about the personality cult of a strong man and his message of power vi…

Lots of non-preachers read the Bible. Less people read mein Kampf but I know of some (some friends at school, some teachers at uni, some people on YouTube). I think Dr. Seuss was a bit of a symbol before, but now is definitely a symbol. I don't think your distinction here is very clean and your comment is elitist.

How is Dr. Seuss a symbol comparable to this? The stories themselves aren't even offensive (apart from one line in "If I ran the Zoo"). Are the illustrations alone enough to be a symbol?

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#786

Post by [deleted] »

marshmallow_12 wrote: post #430

Dr Suess was undeniably a racist, but i think at this stage people are looking to find stuff that may be offensive to someone, somewhere and then ban it. What next? Mr Potato Head has gone gender neutral. i think we are overestimating children.I doubt the next Suess free generation will be less racist as a result. What they will have is no appreciation of one of the most talented childrens writers ever. The only auth…

[deleted]

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#787

Post by mcv »

enriquto wrote: post #674
4ggr0 wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two things I can't quite comprehend as someone who's not from the US. * Why exactly the n-word is exclusive to black people. In my mind, either no one uses the word if it's offensive, or everyone can use it in a neutral way. I don't know of any other single word which is gatekept. I mean, I never want to use it, so it's not about that. I guess it has to do with pride and being able to use a word which was o…

> Cultural appropriation This. I'm as left wing as they come, and agree wholeheartedly with 99% of the current far-left discourse. But some of this "cultural appropriation" stuff is just nuts.

As far as I can tell, the only case where "cultural appropriation" is legitimately bad, is when people turn another culture's symbols of accomplishment into a fashion accessory. This is the case with the Native American headdress, where every feather represents a milestone or accomplishment, and Maori life tattoos, where every tattoo represents an event out of that person's own life. Turning that into your own fashion statement without any respect for the cultural meaning, is like wearing a Purple Heart you didn't earn, except that that purple heart doesn't have the same spiritual/cultural meaning.

But stuff like yoga, jazz/hip-hop, or even food? There it turns into an argument for cultural segregation, where minority cultures are effectively not allowed to become mainstream.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#788

Post by dabbledash »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #648
lgleason wrote: post #562

As dis-heartening as this story is, compared to a couple of years ago, it is encouraging to see lots of comments from people beginning to wake up to what is going on with this craziness and not being modded here. Free speech is about protecting the right of the un-popular and views that some may find utterly repugnant. Why? because, as we are seeing with all of the woke craziness, when you don't stand up for everyone…

There's two kinds of freedom: freedom from and freedom to. These are some children's books that contain illustrations that some people find offensive and the publisher (and sellers) are deciding they no longer want to be associated with and sell to children. There are internet forums where the images are available and people can view them without the police knocking your door down, and I'm sure these are available in…

I never found this a very useful analytical framework, especially once you define “the freedom to interfere with third parties” as a “freedom from.” It’s too easy to move things from category to category by describing them differently. And I just don’t see what you get out of it anyway. It doesn’t affect the importance of the relevant interests.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#790

Post by Siira »

growse wrote: post #687
Aeolun wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is forced to sell it, but ebay is a website that consumers list their stuff on. They’re clearly going out of their way to remove it. I don’t think that falls under ‘freedom to’, because nobody can list it going forward either.

So you think eBay should be forced to host ads selling it?

Yes.
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