Leo Terrell slammed cancel culture in a Tuesday interview with Fox News’ Martha MacCallum.
The civil rights attorney’s remarks were in reference to Dr. Seuss Enterprises’ announcement that it would stop publishing at least six books that some people said included “racist and insensitive imagery.”
Later on Tuesday, he spoke with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, where he blasted a fellow guest over the controversy.
What are the details?
Defending the books, Terrell, a former teacher, said that the images “reflect the time in which the books were written.”
“I am not offended by those pictures because it talks about the evolution of this country and how we are now,” he said. “You cannot ignore history, you cannot eliminate history. There’s worse pictures than that. But taking in context, those that want to cancel these books, those that think those books are racist, show me the harm to victims today. They can’t!
“They use this argument of racist as a gimmick, a talking point to basically cancel people out,” he added. “I think it’s wrong as a teacher. … We cannot eliminate our history. Some of our history is bad but the majority is great. Both sides need to be taught.”
MacCallum admitted that some of the images in the book are not how “we depict people today,” and noted that a majority of the images with which people took issue were based on the conditions of an entirely different era.
“Cancel culture is going to backfire, because it denies history,” he agreed. “No person in American history is perfect, from George Washington to Abraham Lincoln. We don’t cancel people. We need to embellish the good parts, criticize the bad parts, but grow and learn from it. I think that’s something that we need to do and speak out about it.”
What else?
On Tuesday night, Terrell spoke with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, where he
exploded at fellow guest liberal professor Dr. Omekongo Dibinga — who advocated for the books’ cancellations.
“I support the decisions of a company making a decision on its own that it didn’t want to offend a group of people, so I’m all about supporting this,” Dibinga told Hannity and said that myriad examples of racism in Seuss’ books gave him reason to believe that the company was “making the right decision to respect how these people are viewed.”
Terrell snapped back, “Those books are historical books. Those books talk about the weaknesses, the flaws in this country, and how this country has grown. … You name me one person, first and last name, who’s been harmed by any of these books! You cannot do it!”
“I can name the black community that has harmed by those books,” Dibinga said.
“No you don’t!” Terrell shouted. “Don’t say that! You do not represent the black community!… You don’t represent me! For you to sit here and say that is a lie!”
As the segment ended, Terrell added, “Show me the systemic discrimination! You’ve got nothing to say!”