The majority of my childhood memories from elementary school are filled with colorful images of Dr. Seuss's illustrations and poems. The silly language and tone of his poetry made his books incredibly appealing to a young child. But upon reading his poems after years of maturing, and of course language development, all of the life lessons woven into catchy poems have become much more evident.
One of my personal favorites, "The Sneetches" satirizes issues of discrimination in society. Across the nation, the dialogue on college campuses has shifted to social rights activism. Many students are speaking out and sharing their feelings of marginalization on campus. After racism on the University of Missouri campus was brought to light, and students were able to get the president to resign through peaceful protests a ripple effect created a call to action from college administrations everywhere.
When thinking of important issues like social justice, it can be helpful to simplify your perspective. It's not just students of color that have felt isolated and discriminated on their own campus; this feeling has extended to LGBTQ groups, women, people with disabilities and lower class students. This encompasses such large subsections of our communities that in order to reach a solution to these problems and really help as many people as possible to be more comfortable on campus we must identify the common thread. Dr. Seuss outlines this ideal perfectly in "The Sneetches" highlighting how important it is to celebrate differences and similarities rather than excluding people who aren't like you.
This is one of the many life lessons children are taught. But why do we forget these things as we get older? Can't our personal view of others regress to the childish state where appearance and sexuality didn't matter? I think adults have a lot to learn from children and their behavior is influenced by this type of positive and inclusive thinking. As you read the poem about the sneetches, you begin to sympathize with the "starless sneetches" and might even view the star bellied sneetches as mean.
The lesson, although simplified for younger children, is one that many adults are not capable of understanding. It might be impossible to change the inadvertent judgment we pass on strangers we do not know, but if we recognize and address this inherent discrimination the problem is more likely to be solved.
It is more beneficial for society as a whole to look at others and see similarities rather than differences. Although the preference to be around people who look like you helped our ancestors to survive, we no longer need to concern ourselves with which tribes might be out to kill us.
For instances of similarities, we share the same ancestors and the same species name. There will always be ignorant people in the world, disliking others based solely on their beliefs, or appearance. Reminding stubborn racists or sexists of the lessons we learned through the colorful drawings of Dr. Seuss when we were children might help them to be more accepting. To quote Dr. Seuss, "The Sneetches got really quite smart on that day, The day they decided that Sneeetches are Sneetches and no kind of Snitch is the best on the beaches." If we as a society can acknowledge the fact that we are all humans, and that dwelling on our differences only contributes to a separated and less effective community, then perhaps we too will learn and grow just as the Sneetches did.
