Tonight I made a rare Friday appearance with Tucker Carlson on Fox News. The subject was a Massachusetts school librarian's decision to reject a gift of children's books from Melania Trump because Dr Seuss is "racist propaganda":
According to Steyn, the letter that Massachusetts librarian Phipps Soeiro wrote was "incredibly moronic" and "part of the dumbing down of American society." After disputing one of Serio's complaints, Steyn lamented that "we are making ourselves a society too stupid to survive."
Steyn specifically took issue with Soeiro's complaint that the main character in "The Cat in the Hat" had a bowtie intended to evoke imagery from racist, minstrel shows. In response, Steyn ran through a list of cartoon characters, such as Mickey Mouse and Porky Pig, who wore bowties. "Cartoon characters wear bowties. That's nothing to do with minstrel shows," Steyn argued.
Also Snagglepuss and Magilla Gorilla and Jerry from Tom & Jerry. More from Breitbart:
"The piece argues that the Cat in the Hat's bow tie is meant to be an evocation of 19th-century racist minstrel shows," he continued. "Now just off the top of my head, cartoon characters who wear bow ties — Porky Pig, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Huckleberry Hound. Yogi Bear doesn't wear a bow, he wears a tie like me, but his boy sidekick Boo Boo the Bear wears a bow tie. Ambrosia, I think the name is, in 'My Little Pony' wears a bow tie. I'm not one of the many men in the western world who are obsessed with 'My Little Pony' and have 'My Little Pony' parties, but I happen to know this one character in 'My Little Pony' wears a bow tie. Cartoon characters wear bow ties. That has nothing to do the minstrel shows. We are making ourselves a society too stupid to survive, as that California student demonstrates, if we go down this path."
More here:
"We are making ourselves as a society too stupid to survive," Steyn said, calling the education system the biggest structural defect in the country.
"If everything is racist, nothing is racist," he said, calling attacks on American institutions "cultural totalitarianism."
Click below to watch:
I criticized Tucker's Dr Seuss-esque verse for a few wobbly anapestic tetrameters. De-racey-racist-racifying "Green Eggs and Ham" to make it safe for Massachusetts social-justice librarians is trickier than it looks. I quit after a quatrain:
I do not like you, Trump-I-am
I think you are a racist ham
I think you are not bona fide
I do not like your Slovene bride...
Etc.
As always, Mark Steyn Club members who dissent from the above should feel free to go full Grinch in the comments.
I'll be back on the air on Saturday, live with Judge Jeanine on Fox News, coast to coast at 9pm Eastern/6pm Pacific - and back on Sunday for another live-performance edition of our Song of the Week. If you can take me in the flesh, I'll be live on stage at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis this coming Monday, October 2nd, for an evening with the Center of the American Experiment. More details here. If you're in the Minnesota area and would like to attend, please click here and enjoy a $25 discount on the ticket price by entering the promo code steynclub.
We understand The Mark Steyn Club is not to everyone's taste, but, if you're minded to give it a go, either for a full year or a three-month experimental period, you'll find more details here - and don't forget our new gift membership.