Roberto Clemente Banned in Florida

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Mark17

Way back in 1959, the Stratemeyer Syndicate, owners of The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew serial books, began revising these books. One reason was to reduce the size by about 40 pages, and to "modernize" the stories, but another big reason was to remove some pretty flagrant racial stereotypes and slurs. I have complete sets of these books, including almost all variations, and while the original stories are more interesting, some of the racial stuff is really blatant. Like, having a black servant barely able to speak English, and so on.

So, revising books to stay current with evolving social norms goes back at least half a century. The question will always be, how heavy should the hand be that pushes the revisions, and in what direction should the force be applied.

Yeah, my fear is that the cure may be worse than the disease, once censorship becomes a norm. But that said, there is some horrifying stuff in early Disney for sure. Even Aladdin 1992 was awful in how it stereotyped Arab people.