Regina Smith: The whole story matters

Mar. 10—Mr. Potato Head is now just Potato Head and Dr. Seuss was a racist.

There. Did that get your attention? That's what headlines are supposed to do — grab your attention. But somewhere along the way, we've lost the part where it grabs your attention in order to get you to read the story.

Both of those things are true, but neither of them tells the whole story.

Mr. Potato Head — the oblong guy with all of the interchangeable parts — and his counterpart Mrs. Potato Head have not lost their genders. They are still Mr. and Mrs. and happily married — at least when Mr. Potato Head listens to Mrs. Potato Head and keeps his eyes in his Head, where they belong.

Hasbro, the company that makes Potato Heads, simply dropped the Mr. from the brand name. A few key facts: 1. Hasbro owns Mr. Potato Head. They get to make changes — for whatever reasons they want. 2. This move doesn't emasculate or degender — or any of the other terms floating around social media — Mr. Potato Head. It just recognizes that, although he was the beginning of the brand, he is no longer alone. Mrs. Potato Head exists.

P.S. if you want to get really upset about changing genders, think about the fact that there really is no difference between the potatoes and a few changes of accessories makes Mr. Potato Head into Mrs. Potato Head. Or maybe it doesn't. Maybe Mr. Potato Head likes to wear floral earrings and high heels. (But for those who were upset about the name change, that probably goes a little too far.)

Dr. Seuss

The company that owns and prints Dr. Seuss books has decided that some of the illustrations in the original books are insensitive, in their own words they "portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong" and therefore will not be published anymore.

This is not censorship. It is not the government telling a private company what they can and cannot publish. Just like Hasbro, Dr. Seuss Enterprises has the right to decide what they will and won't print.

Nobody is coming to get your copy of "Mulberry Street." You can still read it to your children and grandchildren. Maybe its a good opportunity to point out how pictures can make people feel bad and that people can change.

Speaking of change, that part where I said Dr. Seuss was a racist: 100% true. (And yet, not the whole truth.) Some of his early cartoons were anti-Black and anti-Semitic. He depicted Black people as monkeys and used the N word to describe them. Even in his children's books, there are images of Asians that are clearly caricatures of their ethnicity.

But he also wrote "Horton Hears a Who" and "The Sneetches" which are inarguably about inclusion and seeing the value in others who are different from yourself. While some of his anti-racist work was created in the same era as his offensive political cartoons, there is clearly a change in thinking.

In today's cancel culture, we seem to want to throw out the baby with the bath water. Instead, let's appreciate the journey that he made and keep in mind that the images we find offensive today were common and accepted at the time.

It is simply unfair to judge the work of yesterday based on the things we know today.

Maybe he didn't make it all the way to "woke" as it would be described today, but I think if he were still alive, Theodore Geisel would not have a problem with the company pulling these books from production. Perhaps he would redraw the images to represent various peoples in ways that are not hurtful or stereotypical.

In fact, Geisel himself changed the words in "Mulberry Street" years after it was first published because he thought it could be offensive to some.

Perhaps someone at Dr. Seuss Enterprises will decide to do that with the illustrations on his behalf.

As Dr. Seuss himself once said, "It's not how you start that counts. It's what you are at the finish."

Or in today's parlance, "Know better, do better."

You have a few more of the facts now, if you didn't already. There's a lot more to the story than the headline or the social media post. Don't be that guy who reads 10 words and then comments about the story and fans the flame of hatred and mistrust without knowing what it really says.

Read the whole story. It matters.

----Let me know what matters to you at rsmith@crestonnews.com, 641-782-2141 ext. 6433, or c/o Creston News Advertiser, 503 W. Adams St., Creston, Iowa 50801.