Tag: literature

Virginia school system cancels Dr. Seuss, citing racial ‘undertones’ in writings

Celebrated American children’s author Dr. Seuss is now considered too controversial for one of Virginia’s largest school districts, a new report reveals. 

For over two decades, Dr. Seuss’s birthday has been celebrated in schools as Read Across America Day — a day dedicated to the importance of reading and literacy. The day falls on Dr. Seuss’s birthday in honor of the impactful author, whose books have helped countless children learn to read across the globe.

But folllowing pressure from activists, Loudon County Public Schools is reportedly dropping the annual Dr. Seuss celebration. 

“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,” Loudoun County Schools said in an announcement reported by the Daily Wire.

“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,” the school district continued.

Learning for Justice, a liberal education advocacy group, was reportedly behind the pressure campaign against the celebrated children’s author. The organization pegs itself as a group that seeks “to uphold the mission” of the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center, according to their website.

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They’ve Come for Shakespeare

A growing number of ‘woke’ academics are refusing to teach Shakespeare in U.S. schools, arguing that the Bard promotes racism, white supremacy and intolerance, and instead are pushing for the teaching of ‘modern’ alternatives.

Writing in the January issue of School Library Journal, Amanda MacGregor, a Minnesota-based librarian, bookseller and freelance journalist, asked why teachers were continuing to include Shakespeare in their classrooms.

‘Shakespeare’s works are full of problematic, outdated ideas, with plenty of misogyny, racism, homophobia, classism, anti-Semitism and misogynoir,’ she wrote, with the last word referring to a hatred of black women.

Apparently, what the world really needs is less Shakespeare and more woke lecturing from self-righteous educators who can’t grasp that a lack of moral perfection in people that died 400 years ago does not negate the importance of their work. By the flawed logic presented by the litany of teachers listed in The Daily Mail’s piece, you can’t teach George Washington either, which would normally sound insane, but that’s exactly what’s where we are already headed. This train has no end of the line. No one will ever truly be pure enough.

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Author Of Dystopian Classics Predicted ‘Use Of Face Masks To Enforce Conformity’ 70 Years Ago

Respected German author Ernst Jünger predicted the ubiquitousness of face masks to enforce conformity and uniformity in a dystopian future society in a novel called The Worker that was published nearly 90 years ago.

With face masks now becoming a mandatory part of the “new normal,” the enforcement measures to make people wear them, by both agents of the state and members of the general public, are becoming more dehumanizing and draconian.

This is precisely the scenario envisaged by enigmatic German author Ernst Jünger in his 1932 classic.

As Thomas Crew details in his article The Dystopian Age of the Mask, the “eradication of all individuality” is a running theme of all dystopian literature.

This is expressed by George Orwell in 1984 when he describes the masses as, “a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans…three hundred million people all with the same face.”

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