Note: Dr. Seuss had an IQ of 117. Are you smarter than him? Take this IQ test and find out!
You all know Dr. Seuss for his beloved children’s books such as Cat In The Hat and Green Eggs & Ham. But did you know about Seuss’ activities during World War II? From 1941 until 1943, Dr. Seuss worked as a political cartoonist for the socialist New York newspaper PM, producing cartoons in favor of the American war effort. During that period, Dr. Seuss was a very liberal opponent of racism in America, particularly racism towards African Americans. However, racism towards the Japanese was an entirely different matter, as these disgusting cartoons demonstrate:
1. (October 13, 1942) A pretty straightforward racial caricature of a Japanese person:
2. (December 5, 1941) A pre-Pearl Harbor cartoon featuring Japanese as monkeys:
3. (December 12, 1941) If we don’t win the war, an ugly racial caricature of a Japanese man will be carved on Mt. Rushmore:
4. (March 5, 1942) More of Seuss’ slant-eyed Jap character:
5. (April 23, 1942) Whites who support the Japanese ask for “slant-eye” plastic surgery:
6. (February 13, 1942) Questioning the loyalty of Japanese Americans just weeks before internment was announced:
7. (June 11, 1942) Uncle Sam removes the “racial prejudice bug” from the head of Americans (hypocrisy, anyone?):
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Dr. Seuss was not racist. Those are political caricatures of Hirohito. Are you telling me that every political cartoonist is racist because they all do caricatures? That’s how you tell who is being represented. Get a life or read a biography you morons.
I was with you Montague Richards until I looked at cartoon #6. If you can somehow manage to pull the wool over your eyes and not find that one any way offense, then more power to you. As for me, no fucking thanks.
Put this all in the context of history and what life was like then. Maybe you would not judge so quickly.
lr
I am amused that you called a political caricature of Emperor Hirohito, “A pretty straightforward racial caricature of a Japanese person.” It’s wonderfully egalitarian of you to refer to His Majesty The Emperor as simply “a Japanese person.” If only we could all be so guileless and see the world as through the eyes of a child.
You can EASILY tell he was racist:
Look at number (2). He’s clearly stereotyping Americans as being storks. That long-held “stork stereotype”. Damn racism! Every time I travel overseas, people point at me and whisper “stork-y American!” Yeah. It hurts my feelings.
Lets all grow up now.
– Theodore Geisel’s country had just been attacked.
– Most of these are merely caricatures of a particular person (Hirohito), not stereotypes of a whole race.
– Japanese often *do* have smaller eyes than whites (though not always)… is it racist to draw blacks as having darker skin? Clearly not. Then why are other physiological features “out of bounds”?
– As for #6, Seuss probably DID believe in a 5th column. Look around and you’ll find surveys showing an astonishingly large number of Americans believed in it back then. Some still believe that it was there to this day. There’s some racism to that. But a lot of people also believed that there was a German 5th column operating in the United States, too. Were those people “racist” against WHITES?
The chronology says it all:
—first—
Up until Panel 6, they are clearly just jabs at Emperor Hirohito himself. Not racist, but rather “anti-Hirohito”. Directed at a person, not a group.
—next—
I find it interesting that in February 1942, Seuss says: “[Beware of a possible fifth column attack ... possible spies within the United States.]” (PANEL 6)
—next—
Then the Japanese internment announcement comes out, and the U.S. government starts to lock up ALL Japanese, even little kids, rather than just investigating which ones might possibly be spies.
—next—
THEN, in response, in summer of 1942, Dr. Seuss is saying: “We need to get rid of these racist ideas, and eradicate racism.” (PANEL 7)
Panels 6 & 7 seem to clearly indicate that Seuss was worried about the military ramifications of a “second surprise attack”. But when he sees his government over-react with racist policies, he quickly changes course, as if to say “I worry for my country. I, too, am scared, but all of this has gone too far! We can’t treat people this way.”
When read in chronological order, and when examined closely, I find his views to be alarmist, but clearly not racist.
You’ve got to watch these things embedded in history. Since you seem to be so young you know little of it, they will always catch you out.
This guy was not a racist.The only reason he made these pics was
because Hirohito was allied with Hitler.He hated the the bad apples in the basket,not all apples.
I definatly think he wasn’t racis at all, you have got to think about life at the time, the word racist is over used these days.
Good sentiments in the comments, but bad history-those are not caricatures of Emperor Hirohito, but of then Prime Minster Hideki Tojo.
These and racist cartoons by other respected people of the time are especially funny in hindsight with all we know now about the so-called Pearl Harbor ‘attacks.’
It all goes to show that inciting bloodlust in a nation through propaganda, whether it’s done by ‘our side’ or ‘their side’ makes people show the worst of themselves and their culture.
haha im chinese n i love this. hahah
did you forget that there was a world war going on
oh no, being racist agaisnt someone who attacks you how wrong u are just a bunch of sissies that really wish the whole world would walk all over the US. At least no one would get offended that way. Ill bet the pictures of us over in Japan were 100x worse back then. We gotta stop worrying about offending every single little culture especially when theyre are enemies and thats why well lose the war on terrorism if it stays like it is today, we fight them and support them
what the hell – saying these arent racist??? Just because they were drawn/written in a period of history where tension was high it doesnt make them any less racist. yes its easy to look back and wag the finger now, but thats the point, we have progressed and come on as people. Racial stereotypes ARE racist, in their very nature, thats the point of them.
Propoganda byt both sides was appaling, so im not here to say the US was bad and the Japanese were guilt free. It happened everywhere and te fact of the matter is it shouldnt have, except you still see propoganda today, and it still streams out of the US, unfortunately affecting more people than some people realise.
They’re caricatures – they’re not as racist as this page makes out! Look in any satirical paper, or even in the editorial of papers like the Times and you’ll see similar caricatures of our own politicians – they are supposed to be grotesque representations of someone’s facial features – Hideki Tojo in this case.
It’s not a portrait, but that doesn’t make it racist!
Also, the cartoons are regarding a war in Japan, hence the Japanese appearing in them. Do cartoons about terrorists go down as being racist today? Just as terrorists are the enemy of the US today, the Japanese were the enemy of the US then. We can’t judge these cartoons on today’s standards.
I don’t think these caricatures are racist. They seems rather mild even in comparison with our current political cartoons. Many Americans were much more prejudiced against Japanese even years after WWII, angered by Pearl Harbor and the nation’s traditional anti-Caucasian prejudice.
The only cartoons that gave me pause were those about a fifth column. I wonder if he did anything about the German-American Bund who was supportive of Germany.
The 5th cartoon I believe referred to the French Nazi collaborator Laval who had French Vichy troops fight a Brith led action against Madagascar that was designed to prevent a strategic port use by Japanese submarins. (Based on a little web research–I’m not sure on this).
The only one that would be offensive is the 6th one, accusing Japanese Americans of being spies. I don’t see why its alright to caricaturize hitler and the Germans but not the Japanese. Both were our enemies, so I think its perfectly fine to draw them in an unpleasant manner.
#6 is the only offensive one. The rest are political caricatures.
#6 was drinking the Liberal Kool Aid.
These comics aren’t about race, theyre about pointing fingers at political “enemies” (you political views may differ, but this is the perceived enemy the artist wished to portray) in caricature style. In this case, one of the opponents happens to be Japanese, so the result of the caricature will obviously include an exaggeration of his eyes, as well as the rest of his features.
The bottom line is that caricatures are MEANT to exaggerate human facial features. Would anyone accuse this caricature of Nicole Kidman as being racist towards Australians? (http://www.hemmy.net/images/celebrities/celebritycaricatures01.jpg) No one would say so, because she happens to be white, and it’s rendered in the conventions of the style. It’s not fair to claim racism just because the person characterized in this example happens to be Japanese. Throwing out the race card at any available opportunity (even when it doesn’t apply, like in this case) will not alleviate racial inequalities. It will only cause more divide.
However, I DO agree that comic #5 shows questionable taste…
C’mon guys look at every single CURRENT Japanese anime out there, all Anglo persons are portrayed with eyes as big as saucers! OOOOOH so should I, as an Anglo be all upset, and cry out racism??? NO!!! Get over it. The guy drew cartoons to make a living, it was his job. Have you ever had to do anything for your job that you didn’t neccesarily agree with, or enjoy? I know I have. My family immigrated from Ireland, my forefathers were forced to fight in the civil war, was that racism?? NO!!! By the way, my kids can’t get funding from the “United Negro College fund”, should I cry out racism??? No!!! Get over yourself you bleeding heart, whiny, little pissant. It’s history, you can’t change it. Why don’t you concentrate on doing something to change the future!!! If you’re always looking back at things that happened behind you, you may stumble, and fall over what’s right in front of you.
#1 is the most offensive because government bonds have a terrible return on equity – often less than real inflation!
Considering that the World was at war,I think the governments and propogandists of Axis or Allied countries would have used every trick in the book to influence their own people.Dr Seuss was only doing his duty for his country during a tumultuous period of world history. It is easy to look back and criticise their actions in times like ours when the majority of nations are not being threatened by large scale offensive actions.
I would like to add that dr seuss is not refering to the Japanese as monkeys but as being bossed around by the Germans. Second of all the person that made this article should find a better hobb and learn about a thing called context.
well, this is a year old, but since there are recent comments, i’ll comment anyway:
anyone who thinks these representations aren’t racist are not japanese. neither am i, but i do know that for one, emperor hirohito DIDN’T LOOK ANYTHING LIKE THAT. if you think that he does look ‘kinda’ like that, you aren’t seeing his face, but only his japanese-ness. and hey, that is what (one particularl form) of racism is.
historical racism is still racism. if you look into the history of it, americans were interred for being of japanese descent. so tell me, commenters, if you were jailed here for having an irish grandma, or a german father, would that be racist? and isn’t it interesting that people of german descent were largely -not- interred during world war 2? history my ass. people -at the time- thought this shit was racist. because it -is-. i mean really, if we were talking about the racist depictions of jews in german propaganda of the time, would you be saying ‘well, you have to think of the historical context’? uhuh.
and 5 and 6 have nothing to do with hirohito and only to do with a- the idea that if you think japanese people shouldn’t be interred you must want to be japanese (and not just, you know, stand for social justice) and b- racist logic.
no japanese americans were found spying for japan during world war 2. if dr. seuss thought they were all ‘awaiting orders from home’, that was racist. because that wasn’t home. they were americans. just like my mom, who was alive during world war 2, and had 2 immigrant parents (who, luckily for her, weren’t japanese).
and additionally, you might notice that -all- of the japanese people depicted in look not only the same as eachother, but specifically look like -the- standard prevalent racist caricature of asian people and oh, look, exactly like seuss’s take on emperor hirohito.
This is a perfect example of the softness that this country has evolved into in the last 60-70 years. Do you remember Pearl Harbor? Wasn’t it them that attacked us? Why no Hitler racism remarks if you want to be fair about it? Take your soft ass to Japan
and leave this country that so many have given their lives for so you didn’t have to learn Japanese or German. Fuck you !!
34: really? did you even read any of the comments here? it’s not racist against hitler, becuase those caricatures -look- like hitler. have you ever seen hirohito? and can you explain the one where it has all the same face on japanese AMERICANS and implies (or explies) that they are waiting for orders from japan to move against their own country? you are aware that many japanese americans gave THEIR lives so you could be free to spew stupid (and i mean that literally, because you are not intelligently racist) racist shit in these comments?
and by the way, who died so so all the native americans would have to learn english? oh, right native americans did.
japan did horrible things during that war. horrible. the very very least of which were perpetrated on americans. calling out racism is very different than forgiving horrible shit. you of course can’t tell the difference because you are stubbornly ignorant.
oh how the times have changed. well… not in this country anyway.
lmao those cartoons were fuckin hilarious
How come nothing is mentioned about the way he portrayed Hitler?
How come you didn’t point out that he’s trying to say that all German’s have small mustaches, defined chins and dark hair?
What made you focus on JUST the Japanese characters?
Do I sense a bit of Japanese racism in the fact that you are trying so hard to point out his “racism”?
I don’t think he was racist at all. I merely think he was proving a point and trying to make both characters look recognizable to anyone who saw the picture.
dear The Lord[ess],
from comment 35: “it’s not racist against hitler, because those caricatures -look- like hitler. have you ever seen hirohito? and can you explain the one where it has all the same face on japanese AMERICANS and implies (or explies) that they are waiting for orders from japan to move against their own country? you are aware that many japanese americans gave THEIR lives so you could be free to spew stupid (and i mean that literally, because you are not intelligently racist) racist shit in these comments?”
it doesn’t seem like seuss gets that the actual carvings on mount rushmore can be seen as offensive also.
Is it wrong if these don’t offend me?
I AM SO disappointed in Dr. Seuss! What a shame.
Dr. Seuss was not racist. For proof check out these cartoons he drew in the 1940s:
http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/dspolitic/Racism.html
drawing cartoons against one form of racism while propagating another form in other cartoons doesn’t make you ‘not racist’. thinking racist things about asian people and not black people doesn’t make you not racist. it’s not an all or nothing situation.
Anyone old enough to actually remember the reasons for isolationism in America during the Great Depression, and all the pre-World War Two years, an America between two oceans when air travel was practically impossible except for a very few, and radio-telephone connections were not too reliable, knows better than to dwell too much on this “racism” thing. Don’t judge these cartoons by today’s standards. That’s much too easy.
America in 1941 was in a very vulnerable, militarily unprepared, financially weak position. Certainly there was a racist background.
But, remember context, read history. The early months after the Japanese attack on America’s Hawaiian Islands were fearful, and the future in doubt. Read about the era, and remember the importance of context. Don’t jump to conclusions.
Dr. Seuss would probably say the same thing.
Additionally (to #45), look up “East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere” and “Japanese Racism” for the pre-World War II period which is more specific. Look up “Yasukuni” war shrine. Racism is apparent today in modern Japan, in their more quietly promoted xenophobia. This originates from the sense of entitlement and superiority in the Japanese mythological past. Here will be seen part of the “context” of that era.
unfortunately, charles, a lot of americans who are old enough to remember that period are of japanese descent, and maybe don’t remember it quite how our white authored history books explain it.
as for japanese xenophobia, that is totally irrelevant. an irish person (from ireland i mean) could hold horribly racist beliefs and that wouldn’t change the fact that the irish suffered under the british for centuries. and i’d also posit that it’s irrelevant because japanese people in japan are -not- americans of japanese descent and to conflate the two is in itself problematic.
you can judge history from our perspective for several reasons, not the least of which is that people -at that time- thought it was racist and unfair. japanese-american people suffered because of the ideas being endorsed here, and you are naive to think that people at that time didn’t know that. especially when you include japanese-americans in your definition of “people”. besides, if it was so hard to communicate, how were the (stereotypically drawn) people in panel 6 supposed to be receiving their “signal”?
You still have cartoonist with seeming good set of morals and then something happens and they are convinced that a little racism is OK.
In 2005 Danzinger created an editorial cartoon showing scientist unearthing a roulette wheel at an Abenaki archaeological site. Examining the “artwork” carefully one finds in very small print “Sweat Lodge Casino.” This racist portrayal of Indians heritage as casino operators outraged Native Americans across the country. Previously a respected editorialist, he currently is seldom featured in any of Vermont’s newspapers.
Being a little bit racist is like being a little bit pregnant
I don’t find these racist. They are out of taste and style now. The US was at war… with Japan… Hello why would there not be unflattering caricatures of Japanese people. It is like all the cartoons that came out after 911 about middle eastern people. I’m not saying it is right but since it was published in a paper it couldn’t have been that controversial at the time. I think that pulling it out of context is wrong and it is intentionally making it look racist. Everything you read about the late Dr. Suess says that he was against racism. Even cartoon number six if put back in context of time and event that was the feeling of most americans.
brtjson: you can’t be serious? those caricatures of middle eastern people are -also- racist. and the US was -not- at war with japan during this time. somehow the pictures of german people actually -look- like the people they are portraying. again i have to ask, have you ever seen hirohito? the pictures of hitler are recognizable as hitler, no matter what context you put it in or whether you say who is in the picture. if you saw that racist caricature of hirohito and it said ‘jackie chan’, you’d think it looked like jackie chan. if you just saw it with no caption, you wouldn’t guess it was anyone in particular.
I am deeply offended by these cartoons, as I do not believe they are insulting enough of Japanese people. The caricatures appear to only depict Hirohito, when in fact they should have been directed towards all Japanese people! And, not just during the war, but the Japanese today!
I think it’s almost quaint how many people on here bend over backwards to cry these pictures of the Japanese aren’t racist, or at least “racialist,”–giving the most bizarre apologist defenses. Look, Dr. Seuss was a man of his time. He did not live in some magical bubble. During his era, it was rather mainstream to draw upon racial caricatures to depict non-white (or at least non Anglo Saxon) peoples—blacks, Jews, Asians, Irish, etc. He was no more immune from that than anyone else. Does that make him a card carrying member of the Aryan Brotherhood? Doubtful. JRR Tolkien hated Aryanism, yet his works are filled with dubious references with “racialist” (perhaps not *racist*) overtones. For Dr. Seuss, these cartoons simply make him a complicated figure who, despite a genius with cartooning and numerous social issues, was affected by “whiteness” and the every day racism that was part of mainstream Americana culture–just like the rest of us. Perhaps instead of telling others to “get over it” we should just accept his complications and (judging from the comments on this board) deal with our own.
amen, #52.
While obviously these cartoons are racist and this is a bad thing (not only for the dehumanization of the enemy but also in distracting from the real reasons to fight way) I believe them to be largely forgivable in light of the context. All except for #6, that is. With that cartoon Geisel was betraying American people and making the battle one of racial, rather than national or political lines. Unforgivable, considering the appalling treatment of Japanese Americans that Geisel and his ilk helped legitimize.
As much as I would like to believe that Dr. Seuss was not a racist, he was. All those people who keep on saying that it is simply a sketch of Hirohito are full of it. Look at a picture of Hirohito during WW2, he looked nothing like what Dr. Seuss has drawn.
While the California cartoon could be racist, it’s just as racist as the actual internment policy–therefore nearly everyone in the US Government was a villain. The other cartoons are caricatures of the enemy and they’re meant to be insulting. They’re offensive to the rest of us now..not then. If we were at war with Sweden, you can bet hot looking blondes would have been turned into caricatures and fifty years after we pulverized them we’d be embarrassed by our insensitivity. We were at war, the Japanese were the bad guys. In modern America the sensitivty pendulum has swung so far the other way that few if any would make a cartoon depicting a terrorist for fear of offending the non-terrorist members of the same religion or background. And there are plenty of organizations that make a business out of being perpetually offended.
frank, you obviously haven’t seen a satirical political cartoon in the past 10 years. there is so much overt racism against arab people. the ‘sensitivity pendulum?’ yeah, god forbid we (and your we is clearly white folks, i mean, you do know that japanese americans existed during world war 2 right? you do realize that they found that shit offensive -at the time-. does it not count because they’re “japanese”?) anyway, our own freaking president was portrayed as a muslim terrorist (and his wife as a ‘miltant black person’, which reads as terrorist to most folks). god forbid we should pay any attention to how innocent people feel about being caricatured as terrorists and spies just because of their ethnicity. how ‘sensitive’.
my favorite part of your comment was “Therefore nearly everyone in the US Government was a villain”. on the nose! and entirely the point.