Dr. Seuss Draws Anti-Japanese Cartoons During WWII, Then Atones with Horton Hears a Who!

I remem­ber sell­ing war bonds in the first grade 1946..the world had just closed a chap­ter that would for­ev­er be known as WWII..I had recent­ly accom­pa­nied my fam­i­ly to Union Sta­tion in Indi­anapo­lis where we await­ed the train that car­ried my uncle home… I remem­ber first hear­ing the shriek­ing of my mom,aunts and grand­par­ents who spot­ted him com­ing before I could see above the adults. He had been sta­tioned on an air­craft repair car­ri­er in the pacif­ic. He told us of a ship­mate who was on a deck gun…who was killed when a Japan­ese plane crashed near the deck of the ship..I new lit­tle about the rea­sons for the war and less about the peo­ple who were behind the rea­sons. I learned to read ear­ly and after a few years, my fam­i­ly had pur­chased a series of books that were about the war…published, I think, by Col­lier’s …The books had many pho­tos that war cor­re­spon­dents and oth­ers had taken…One pho­to was indeli­bly etched in my mind…a chub­by baby, face wet with tears, mouth wide, cry­ing. Alone, the baby sat in the midst of rub­ble and noth­ing­ness that was the after­math of the atom­ic bomb in Hiroshi­ma …a nuclear bomb that my coun­try had dropped on thou­sands of civilians…men, women and chil­dren. The dev­as­ta­tion was pal­pa­ble. As years have passed and I have wit­nessed the incred­i­ble destruc­tion and killing that men all over the world are able to rain upon their fel­low human human beings… I know that reli­gion plays a very large part in how active­ly a cul­ture accepts being the aggres­sor towards their neigh­bors. What is clear is there are three cur­rent­ly that jus­ti­fy any vio­lence that their fol­low­ers choose to ini­ti­ate. The irony is, that the three are actu­al­ly one snake with three heads…Judaism, Chris­tian­i­ty and Islam. Cur­rent­ly, Islam is seen as the most violent..but it real­ly is just the most raw. The oth­er two are more able to ‘san­i­tize’ their actions, mak­ing them appear less ‘bar­bar­ic’… Grand­moth­ers spun the chick­en by it’s head, twist­ing the neck before pluck­ing it clean of feath­ers …and mov­ing it through the process that put it on the table for con­sump­tion. We are “civ­i­lized” now …we let the process be done in an even less humane way (grand­moth­er’s chick­ens had a rel­a­tive­ly good life pri­or to the fate­ful moment). Today’s process, san­i­tized for our sen­si­bil­i­ties, is hor­rif­ic and brutal..and the life of the chick­ens are worse than the death that awaits them. We, who select the well pack­aged, clean and ready for pot offer­ing in the meat depart­ment of the super­mar­ket ..con­vince our­selves that we are not barbaric..that we are more civ­i­lized. War is like that. We have learned how to do our killing away from our backyards…out of sight…so that we do not lose a beat in our dai­ly lives. We are dis­turbed when we are remind­ed by a leg­less young man in a wheelchair…or one who has just tak­en their own life out of total des­per­a­tion.. We do no good or pro­vide no hope for the future by liv­ing in denial and claim­ing that we are the ‘good’ guys and the oth­er peo­ple are the ‘bad’ ones. The three Abra­ham­ic beliefs are con­structs of men..and are eas­i­ly manip­u­lat­ed to fit what­ev­er is desired to be qual­i­fied and val­i­dat­ed as ‘accept­able’… There is no ‘good’ belief.. There are humans who are humane and com­pas­sion­ate and do not rely on the adage, ‘well they did it’, or, ‘they are worse’… rather they rely on their own inner com­pass that seeks to find the good apples in the bar­rel …and even when there is a bad one, do not throw the oth­ers out with it. We will only sur­vive on this plan­et if we can con­tain and man­age our pri­mal instincts…as hair­less apes..chimpanzees who are war­like by nature …Reli­gions are dou­ble edged swords …Kali…“goddess” who is at one…the good and the bad..destroyer…restorer.. If we need myths, we should choose the ones that are more hon­est about their worth…and not the ones that give total con­trol over all…with a dis­claimer in the fine print.. (can do these things under cer­tain cir­cum­stances ..no refunds giv­en)

The racial ven­om in the car­toons is inex­cus­able, regard­less of the war con­text. Same things goes for the car­toons he drew mock­ing Africans and black Amer­i­cans. Mr. Geisel/Seuss deserves his kudos for his chil­dren’s books, but these ear­ly works can­not be sim­ply erased, and they are not above cri­tique just because he is a “beloved” chil­dren’s book author.

I’ve kept this tab open for hours just to keep com­ing back to this excel­lent com­ment. Well-stat­ed.

Blah blah blah. The Japan­ese Intern­ment was spear­head­ed by racism and hys­te­ria brought on by the attack on Pearl Har­bor. It was a shame­ful chap­ter of Amer­i­can his­to­ry in bla­tant vio­la­tion of the laws that gov­ern the Unit­ed States. To say oth­er­wise at this late date with decades of hind­sight to exam­ine the sit­u­a­tion is the pathet­ic delu­sions of a racist hid­ing in their own lit­tle warped ver­sion of his­to­ry. If I‑Right‑I insists on liv­ing with that view, that’s his (or her) deci­sion. But it isn’t the writ­ers or edi­tors demon­strat­ing a fool­ish under­stand­ing of WW2 or how the real world works.

Has any­one heard of the Niihau Inci­dent?!

Three Japan­ese Amer­i­cans, Ish­mat­su Shin­tani, Yoshio Hara­da and Irene Hara­da, almost with­out thought, helped a crashed Japan­ese Pilot escape a guard of a few Native men, col­lect weapons and tak­ing hostages.

After crash­ing his plane dur­ing the attack on Pearl Har­bor Japan­ese pilot, Shigenori Nishikaichi, came cap­tive to Haw­ila Kale­o­hano, who did­n’t know about Pearl Har­bor just yet, but did know the rela­tions between Japan and the US. They treat­ed him fair, but took his equip­ment.

Japan­ese-born Ishi­mat­su Shin­tani trans­lat­ed when need­ed and Nishikaichi was able to tell Shin­tani about the recent attack on Pearl Har­bor with­out the Natives know­ing.
After­wards the Haradas allowed Nishikaichi to stay with them.
On Decem­ber 12 Shin­tani offered Kale­o­hano $200 in exchange for Nishikaichis papers.
After being denied, Nishikaichi and Yoshio slow­ly took out guards while his wife Irene played music to cov­er the noise.
After omit­ting plent­ly of the sto­ry, the next day Ben Kana­hele and his wife Ella Kana­hele, oth­er Hawai­ian Natives, had been tak­en cap­tive. After some frus­tra­tion, Nishikaichi got flus­tered, which is when Kana­hele and his wife leapt at Nishikaichi while hand­ing Hara­da a shot­gun. Nishikaichi pulled his pis­tol while Hara­da held Ella away, Nishikaichi shot Ben 3 times. Despite his wounds he was able to stand and smash Nishikaichi into a wall. Ella con­tin­ued to bash his head in with a rock while Ben slit his through. Imme­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the death of Nishikaichi, Hara­da turned the shot­gun on him­self killing him­self.
Despite their crimes, Irene Hara­da spent 31 months impris­oned while Ishi­mat­su Shin­tani was sent to the Intern­ment camp with his fam­i­ly, where he attained a cit­i­zen­ship in 1960.
The behav­ior of Shin­tani and Haradas were includ­ed and direct­ly influ­enced the deci­sion for intern­ment camps.
The argu­ment was that if 2 Japan­ese women like them, hold­ing no loy­al­ties to any­one could rapid­ly choose the Japan­ese, why not again? This hap­pened Before war was declared too. These 3 Japan­ese did­n’t real­ly leave many choic­es.

The great­est gen­er­a­tion? What a pile of garbage.

Con­text is so impor­tant in this debate. No one in any of the Allied coun­tries who lived through WWII would point a fin­ger of shame at the anti-Axis pro­pa­gan­da car­toons of the time. Those who were not “there” should be care­ful how they weigh in with their sanc­ti­mo­nious opin­ions.

No-one is born racist– “You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear,” as the song from “South Pacif­ic” says. Look at near­ly any cul­ture in his­to­ry and you’ll find evi­dence of racism, big­otry, even geno­cide, because peo­ple are peo­ple and some­times our fears of ‘the oth­er’ are irra­tional and we can find all kinds of rea­sons for jus­ti­fy­ing treat­ing them bad­ly.

We can unlearn our hatreds and fears but we have first of all to rec­og­nize how irra­tional they are. We have to stop dehu­man­iz­ing peo­ple whose cul­tures we don’t under­stand and teach chil­dren what Dr. Seuss taught: “A per­son­’s a per­son no mat­ter how small.”

That was not a car­i­ca­ture of mis­cel­la­neous Asian stereo­type A. That was a car­i­ca­ture of Tojo. Note the mus­tache, hair­line, glass­es, and the sub­tle nod to his Samu­rai class sta­tus.

Note also that the Hitler car­i­ca­ture is not an exact like­ness, either, but a car­i­ca­ture.

This par­tic­u­lar car­toon is only “racist” to peo­ple who think all Asians look alike. And that belief is racist.

(In try­ing to research the pub­lish dates of Suess’s above works [both 1942] to see if “pro­ceed­ed” was accu­rate I inad­ver­tant­ly hit the sub­mit but­ton. Any­how..)

While that might be true, he ALSO, cre­at­ed that sec­ond piece in which every­one looks..

1) alike
2) like his “car­i­ca­ture” of Tojo

These com­ments are absolute­ly cringe to read. G

When the Japan­ese Empe­r­i­al Army land­ed on your shore in the morn­ing, it was going to be a very bad day. If you look at a map of the Pacif­ic from 1942–43, all you see is red on which lands the Japan­ese had con­quered. Of course, they met lit­tle resistence. Peo­ple on New Guinea had no weapons…nore the Phillipines…nor Indonesia…even the Chi­nese will ill equipped to deter Japan­ese impe­ri­al­ism. And the sol­diers were absolute­ly bru­tal. Mass killings, rap­ing women and chil­dren … as men­tioned before, look at what hap­pened at the Chi­nese cap­i­tal at the time, Nanking. Tru­man warned the Japan­ese lead­er­ship at Pots­dam there was a new weapon com­ing. We actu­al­ly killed more Japan­ese cit­i­zens the months before in the bomb­ing of Tokyo. We sent out leaflets to civil­ians. We warned them again. Bomb went off on Hiroshi­ma. Hun­dreds wiped out. Did the Japan­ese lead­er­ship sur­ren­der? NO! We told them there was anoth­er one…they did not fold. Nagasa­ki is total­ly on Hirohito…he saw what hap­pened in Hiroshi­ma, yet he allowed Nagasa­ki to hap­pen. They final­ly quit…but even then, there were fac­tions in the Japan­ese hier­ar­chy who did not want to sur­ren­der. if we invad­ed, a mil­lion US ser­vice­men would die. Japan­ese civil­ians would have killed Amer­i­cans, who their gov­ern­ment told them Amer­i­can sol­diers would eat their babies if they came into their vil­lage. How could Tru­man look a wife and moth­er in the eye at the funer­al of her hus­band, who died on the beach­es of Japan, ‘I could have stopped the inva­sion, but I did­n’t use the bomb.’ His job was to pro­tect AMERICAN lives. What the Japan­ese Empe­r­i­al Army did in Oki­nawa — falling on their swords rather than sur­ren­der and demand­ing women and chil­dren do the same — was a pre­cur­sor of what would happen…and, btw, both Hiroshi­ma and Nagasa­ki were select­ed tar­gets based on their war-mak­ing plants and indus­try. Am I sad 400,000 Japan­ese cit­i­zens died in the A‑bomb events…you bet. But if it saved a mil­lion Amer­i­can lives, and brought the war to an end, Mr Tru­man has noth­ing to apol­o­gize for.

Dun­no why I’m fight­ing the trolls, maybe for the author’s sake. But the point of this is that GEISEL HIMSELF changed his opin­ion once he met Japan­ese peo­ple. So the per­son you should be angry at is Dr. Seuss not the writer of this arti­cle …

This arti­cle is com­plete bs. First, the Japan­ese were depict­ed the way they were because they made no attempt to hide the the atroc­i­ties they com­mit­ted in Chi­na, the pacif­ic and Bur­ma. It was open­ly required as part of their bushi­do Code. Sec­ond, an equal num­ber of Ger­man Amer­i­cans were interned as well, and many had been interned dur­ing ww1 as well so quit mak­ing this a race issue. Third, fire­bomb­ing in Japan was done because Japan used wood as a pri­ma­ry build­ing source as opposed to stone and con­crete in Europe. Fire­bombs were more effec­tive then HE and plus the war effort was geared towards Ger­many and Europe with Japan being an after thought so much of the ordi­nance in the pacif­ic was left over or deemed not as effec­tive to use in Europe. Also, 3.5 to 5 times more Ger­man civil­ians were killed in allied air raids than in Japan. Last, the atom­ic bombs were intend­ed for Ger­many. Sev­er­al Ger­man cities had been pre­s­e­lect­ed as tar­gets but Ger­many sur­ren­dered before the bombs were ready. Japan was the only axis coun­try left and peo­ple were grow­ing weary of the war. We had to find away to avoid a cost­ly inva­sion of the home islands which could have wiped the Japan­ese race entire­ly off the face of the plan­et based off of their will­ing­ness to die for the emper­or and see­ing how Japan­ese civil­ians react­ed in Oki­nawa and Saipan. And with mil­lions of occu­pied peo­ple and POWs still being held and tor­tured by the Japan­ese mil­i­tary, a pro­tract­ed embar­go or nego­ti­a­tion peri­od wasn’t an option either.

This shit is hilar­i­ous. It’s fun­ny to see a bunch of peo­ple fight­ing over their views. I won’t say my views on the top­ic, since I don’t need some­one to pick a fight with me and to form an inter­net debate rival­ry, since I’m not des­per­ate for human inter­ac­tion.

Um, the man in the top car­toon next to Hitler is indeed Tojo. The round glass­es give it away. But even if he was just “a pig-nosed, slant­ed-eye car­i­ca­ture of a Japan­ese guy”, so what? If there’s one time it’s per­mis­si­ble to indulge in racial stereo­typ­ing, it’s when your coun­try is at war, a war that your ene­my brought upon you with the sav­age unpro­voked attack on Pearl Har­bor, an utter­ly bar­bar­ic ene­my that thought noth­ing of treat­ing its pris­on­ers of war as slaves. Try­ing to go around see­ing if you can enforce 2010s val­ues on a coun­try at war in 1942 seems the most stu­pid thing imag­in­able.

I love how that fake LBJ quote and Robert Byrd were men­tioned for no appar­ent rea­son by the right-wingers in the com­ments fur­ther above LOL. Still mad the neeeeeeeeeee­groes aren’t pick­ing cot­ton on Dinesh’s plan­ta­tion with Clarence “High-Tech Lynch­ing” Thomas?

As for the ear­ly Geisel car­toons in ques­tion, yes, they are pret­ty bad. The fact they exist­ed was already known to any­one who did a basic Wikipedia glance cir­ca 2006, so the sup­posed back­lash of recent years seems more than a bit forced. I don’t agree with the notion of some com­ments that the war “jus­ti­fies” these car­toons, but it seems a bit rich to “can­cel” a man who died in 1991 over it when hatred of Arabs and Mus­lims are still aggres­sive­ly pushed by the main­stream media. Geisel is best asso­ci­at­ed with his post­war works in any case.