Research on Diversity in Youth Literature Volume 1 Issue 2 Article 4 February 2019 The Cat is Out of the Bag: Orientalism, Anti-Blackness, and White Supremacy in Dr. Seuss's Children's Books Katie Ishizuka The Conscious Kid Library Ramón Stephens* University of California, San Diego Follow this and additional works at: https://sophia.stkate.edu/rdyl Recommended Citation Ishizuka, Katie and Stephens*, Ramón (2019) "The Cat is Out of the Bag: Orientalism, Anti-Blackness, and White Supremacy in Dr. Seuss's Children's Books," Research on Diversity in Youth Literature: Vol. 1 : Iss. 2 , Article 4. Available at: https://sophia.stkate.edu/rdyl/vol1/iss2/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by SOPHIA. It has been accepted for inclusion in Research on Diversity in Youth Literature by an authorized editor of SOPHIA. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Ishizuka and Stephens*: The Cat is Out of the Bag: Orientalism, Anti-Blackness, and White Introduction Theodor Seuss Geisel, also known as Dr. Seuss, has sold over 650 million children’s books in seventeen languages and ninety-five countries (Wilkens, “Wildly Inventive”). Of the 650 million books, over 450 million have been sold in the twenty-seven years since Dr. Seuss died (Bukszpan). Bill Dreyer, Collections Curator for the Art of Dr. Seuss' touring exhibitions, told CBS News, “Dr. Seuss is more popular now than he was during his lifetime” (Reynolds). In spite of his first children’s book being published over eighty years ago in 1937, Seuss continues to be widely celebrated in American culture, homes, and classrooms as “the most popular children’s author in America” (Nel, “Dr.