Mr. Potato Head and Dr. Seuss

Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head are going gender neutral and Dr. Seuss, the most beloved children’s writer is deemed a racist and his books are being pulled because of racial insensitivities.

The cancel culture incites that of Dr. Seuss’s books will no longer be published due to the racist images depicted in the books.

The news came out on an educational initiative, Read Across America, which is funded and operated by the National Education Association (NEA)—largest teacher’s union in America. The NEA supports LGBT special rights, abortion, a borderless society, and has been a major outlet in advancing sexual rights for students. Oh, I almost forgot. Many delegates in the NEA have strongly advocated for “Drag Queen Story Hours” for kids. CBN News reported that in 2019, “The NEA partnered with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the United States' largest LGBTQ advocacy and lobbying group, to expose children to an array of LGBTQ-themed books.”

Back in 2019, a research paper entitled, “The Cat is Out of the Bag: Orientalism, Anti-Blackness, and White Supremacy in Dr. Seuss's Children's Books” was published. The findings revealed that only 2% of the characters featured in Dr. Seuss’s books were “people of color.”

What’s absurd, is critics of Dr. Seuss insist that children will be influenced by Dr. Seuss’s racial bias. How do they know that? For the past 50 plus years that’s not been the case. There’s no hard data that shows Dr. Seuss books have not only advanced racism but indoctrinated kids to become racists. Now, all of a sudden, in 2021, we’ve become more enlightened and realize the dangers of Dr. Seuss? Remember, in the world where cancel culture is the king or queen (or however it self-identifies) as the conveyor of free speech—it calls the shots. It determines what free speech is and what it isn’t. Again, notice that the Dr. Seuss enterprise states that Dr. Seuss’s books “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.” Portray is very ambiguous.

Expunging anything remote viewed as offensive will not benefit society in the long haul.

Response #1

Cancel culture is rooted in the postmodernity. A philosophical belief system that asserts all truth claims are individual and subjective. Of course, you ask them is it absolutely true that truth is relative?

But notice something. It is cancel culture’s definition of truth that matters most and what it considers to be offensive or not. Once again, people who embrace and toot cancel culture believe there is no objective truth only subjective truth—but if you don’t objectively accept cancel culture than you will be cancelled. If truth is nothing more than subjective feelings, then there is no absolute truth! And if there is no absolute truth, then it doesn’t matter how Dr. Seuss portrays his fictional characters. Why? Because his truth is his truth. It’s subjective, not objective. But the truth is, cancel culture recognizes his portrayal to be more than that and feel the need to object to his right to freely express his creative side. Therefore, what cancel culture does is objectively silence his subjective expressions.

Mr. Potato Head

Following the controversy over dropping the “Mister” in Mr. Potato Head and making only a gender-neutral spud, Hasbro, the company that makes Mr. Potato Head—has now come out saying they are keeping Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head but will be adding a ‘Create your own Potato Head Family. One report stated that the “line will be launched in the fall, and celebrates the many faces of families – allowing kids to imagine and create their own Potato Head family from 2 large potato bodies, 1 small Potato Baby, and 42 accessories.”

The company initially did this because they didn’t want to be promoting gender norms or gender binary restrictions on children. Hasbro also mentioned they didn’t want to be forcing on children a family structure that is limited to them.

The say they just want to be “with the changing of the times.”

Response #2

People are moving away from a standard to a personal belief that will gain notoriety in the cultural as the new "ideal" for humanity. They are reconstructing their identity by extracting from the culture. Dr. Christopher Yuan writes in his book, Holy Sexuality and the Gospel, “We live in a new world that not only embraces same-sex marriage as legitimate but also conflates heterosexuality and homosexuality with who we are. Using a term that confuses our true identity is unwise, and embracing such a broad category that includes sinful behavior should be roundly rejected. In our culture of confusion, ambiguity is no longer an option. Instead of affirming what’s generally normal, common, or usual, we must look precisely at what’s biblical.”

Essentially, what we are seeing with the neutralizing of Mr. Potato Head is an attack on humanity and biblical marriage. This is about transgenderism.

Despite being born biologically and genetically a male or female (chromosomes), transgenders give into their feelings, which (in their mind) overrides the natural reality of their gender. A trans can feel they are a different gender other than their biological gender, but that in no way validates they are genetically that other gender. 

Remember, the American Psychological Association defines the term “transgender” “is an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression, or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth.”

So, in a way, by neutralizing a toy like Mr. Potato Head, Hasbro Company is teaching kids that they can change who they are into whatever they want to be just like they can with Potato head.

MEDICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DANGERS: Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital and its current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry, said that transgenderism is a “mental disorder” that merits treatment, that sex change is “biologically impossible,” and that people who promote sexual reassignment surgery are collaborating with and promoting a mental disorder. Transgender surgery is not the solution for people who suffer a “disorder of ‘assumption’” – the notion that their maleness or femaleness is different than what nature assigned to them biologically.