Dr.Seuss.

I have to say, I'm quite sad that the family of Theodor Geisel has decided to no longer publish six of his books due to racist portrayals of people.

I'm a little divided on this. I see that those images are from another era, when this was not seen as racist because there was no hatred involved, but they are stereotypes of other cultures. I can see how if children are raised with these visuals, they might have a skewed view of those cultures.

Yet, I grew up with those books, and I still managed to look past those images to get a more balanced view of people.

To lose those books forever seems drastic.

There are a lot of things that would seem racist now, like episodes of MASH, LOTS of old books (some just pulp fiction, some literature), are products of their time. Is it impossible to see them as such?

It's not the same as condoning it. Could we acknowledge the racism for what it was? Is it possible to do that without perpetuating stereotypes?

As for Mr. Potatohead becoming just Potatohead, somehow that doesn't bother me, because it wasn't important to me.

As to updating Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben, I can understand that. Even if they were meant to be kind portrayals, they are based on Jim Crow era stereotypes.

I'm feeling a little weirded out at the rate of change right now. Is it all for the best?

Friday, March 5

Today I am grateful for:

Gorgeous spring like weather. I don't really know if this is truly spring, March can be tricky. We'll likely still get some colder weather, and maybe one more big dump of snow. Today though, I spent about an hour just sitting on a big rock in the goat/pony pen, smelling the air, looking at the tree branches, listening to the changing bird calls (geese!), and taking it all in.

We finally took down the Christmas tree. I had left it up because I really didn't know where to put it. I didn't want to take it upstairs again because that was way too much work, and I have things spread out all over the place up there for my bead work now. We decided to take it outside to the sea can that we have all our other stuff stored in (because the basement isn't done).

I just felt really tired today. I didn't sleep well. I decided to have a nap that ended up being a fairly serious one.