Elkhart Community Schools has recently chosen to remove and destroy six books by Dr. Seuss. Those titles are:

o  If I Ran the Zoo

o  And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street

o  On Beyond Zebra!

o  McElligot’s Pool

o  Scrambled Eggs Super!

o  The Cat’s Quizzer

This decision was undoubtedly made to avoid offending some people by removing the books from the school libraries. This petition seeks to convince Elkhart Community Schools to refrain from destroying the books at this divisive time in history.   Once the books are destroyed it will be impossible to replace them. 

The nature of this petition is not to argue whether or not Seuss’s books are racist, that would be an irrelevant argument. As we know, everyone’s perspective in life is their own reality. Instead, the concern of this letter pertains to a greater issue: censorship.

There is no denying that we are currently living in the midst of the biggest cancel culture our nation has ever experienced, furthering the toxicity and divisiveness of our country. However, it does not take much searching through history to see the dangers of censorship on peoples and societies. Whether we agree or disagree with a person’s thoughts, ideas, values, beliefs, or self-expression--the willful acceptance of the censorship of one can easily become the censorship of all. If we start down the road of censoring and cancelling everything that offends, hurts, or is considered wrong in the eyes of someone else, it won’t be long before nothing is left. Books are a reflection of our history, the good and the bad. We don’t cancel them, we learn and grow from them.  Show us a book and we will show you someone who is offended by it. Historically, there have been famous groups of peoples and ideologies that burned books out of offense. If allowed to stay on course, such acts inevitably lead towards cultural genocide and worse. It's just six books, you might say, but erosion is a powerful force even if it is slow and subtle. The censorship of books is an attempt to erase memories rather than preserve them and continue to learn from the lessons they present. The preserved and uncensored literary world is a shield that helps us defend against oppression, racism, and ideas that devalue human life.  

Dr Seuss’s works are a part of our society. To reject them (beyond the scope of individual readers choosing to reject them personally) is to reject the love that many readers hold for these books. There are children who love If I Ran the Zoo (as one example) who are now left wondering if they did something bad by enjoying the book. In the first place, it is not wrong to enjoy the books. In the second place, if any book contains concepts that are offensive to some people then that is an opportunity to teach. We navigate the present best when we remember the past.    If you MUST remove the books from the library shelves, DO NOT destroy them.  Rather pack them up, for now, in hopes that someday we can share these books with the students of Elkhart Community Schools.  Taxpayers have paid for those books and they belong to the taxpayers of Elkhart Community Schools.  

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