> This therefore means that the millions in America and around the world that have read these childrens books as children, or who had these books read to them by their parents are racist and sexist now.
No, in the same way that not everyone who has been exposed to a potentially lethal environmental hazard is dead.
User aylmao wrote: "Children don't have the same context or critical capacity to decide if a view is good or not. If a child encounters some sexist commentary, the child will absorb and imitate it."
Do you agree with this? Would absorbing and imitating this make them sexist or give them sexist views?
If someone who was exposed to a hazard damaged in some way, even if most would not be dead?
> Would absorbing and imitating this make them sexist or give them sexist views?
Not necessarily, just as absorbing virus particles of a potential deadly sort doesn't necessarily make you dead, even if you express symptoms.
Kids, especially at the age Dr. Seuss content primarily targets, absorb and imitate lots of stuff without any initial understanding or with what would be, to adults, very bizarre understandings, it tends to take multiple exposures to different content with a given message before a pattern is recognized, and even more for that to be firmly internalized.
Each additional exposure increases the risk, but exposure = durable racism or even exposure = necessary transitory impact on racial views is far too simplistic.
No, in the same way that not everyone who has been exposed to a potentially lethal environmental hazard is dead.