9 Investigates: Racist, antisemitic books found in Charlotte’s ‘Little Free Libraries’

CHARLOTTE — “Hate has no place in the Little Free Library community.”

That is the stance of the nonprofit Little Free Libraries – but in Charlotte, hate has found a home in the birdhouse-like huts that can be found in neighborhoods, parks, churches, and other community centers.

Experts say materials found in some of Charlotte’s miniature libraries aren’t just controversial, it’s outright racist propaganda.

Channel 9 Investigates found several copies of a racist book titled “The Breeds of Sneeds & The ABCs of CRT,” written by an anonymous author under the pseudonym Doktor Süss.

Channel 9 visited 37 Little Free Libraries across the Charlotte-Metro area over several days and found six additional books. One other neighbor spoke to Channel 9 after finding one in their neighborhood – bringing the total to eight.

It is not exactly a book, it looks more like a magazine, and is written in the style of Dr. Seuss, but the content is not for kids.

The book promotes Nazi theories, pseudoscience, and other racist tropes, not just in words, but the illustrations in the book contain racist and antisemitic caricatures. Channel 9 is choosing not to show the more extreme images inside the book.

Experts in racism, extremism, and antisemitism agree the anonymously authored book is another instance of a growing trend of racism and antisemitism.

Vlad Khaykin works for the Anti-Defamation League’s Center for Antisemitism Research. He came to America as a refugee from the Soviet Union fleeing the country’s ‘state-sponsored antisemitism.’ As someone whose own family tree was severed by the Holocaust, the words and images in the books are painfully familiar.

“Our team at the center on extremism has tracked a more-than-600% increase in white supremacist propaganda since just 2018,” he told 9 Investigates.

On the surface, the book might not immediately strike someone as problematic because it looks like a Dr. Seuss book.

“Everything is sort of wrapped in this, you know, cheap imitation of a Dr. Seuss book. If you know what you are looking for you will find antisemitic, racist, white supremacist, neo-Nazi symbols,” he said.

Khaykin said the choice to imitate Dr. Seuss isn’t unusual. He said it is a calculated way to spread controversial messages.

“They know that the majority of people find this kind of stuff repugnant, so they try to package it within things that people are already familiar with, beloved cartoons or TV shows [or] other pop culture references. It’s a way to sort of sneak it past the censors,” he said.

‘It’s shameful’

Lisa Kitterman first put up a Little Free Library in her yard nine years ago, and she hasn’t had any problems with the content of books in her library until now.

“I have not seen anything like this. I’ve seen other people say they’ve gotten something that was racist or something that was super political that they didn’t agree with, religious tracts -- but not like this, nothing like this before,” Kitterman said.

Having the book end up in her front yard, in the library she has tended to for nearly a decade, was a blow for Kitterman.

“It was shocking to me when [Channel 9] told me you had found this in my library. I’d hate to think for anybody to walk up and think that I had anything to do with this,” Kitterman said.

Kitterman takes a similar stance as Little Free Libraries. She doesn’t take books out of her library that have views she might disagree with. But in this case, she said this book crosses the line.

“The words are terrible, the ideas that it’s trying to convey are terrible,” Kitterman said. “‘Mein Kampf’ is one of the books that they suggest you read. I can’t understand that somebody would take the time and energy and money to produce something like this and distribute it this way. It’s shameful.”

The Jewish Federation of Greater Charlotte brings together and works with nearly 50 different groups and agencies in the Jewish community. One of the ways is through the Outshine Hate project, which works to end antisemitism by uniting the community and fighting back against hate.

Tair Giudice works for the organization and said Outshine Hate isn’t just for Jews, adding that this kind of hate affects more than just Jewish people.

“Antisemitism is not a Jewish problem. It’s a community problem. It’s a society problem, and we need people to really educate themselves so they can know how to counter it, [how to] fight it,” she said.

Eugenics and ties to Nazi ideology

While the book contains sections written in a Seussian style, it is extremely dense, filled with charts, graphs, and even footnote citations. It relies heavily on purported science to make arguments like someone’s race determines their IQ.

Besides the racist implications of the book, experts say there is a problem with the science.

“Race Theory has no scientific, biological legitimacy, but it’s still something that people like this embrace,” Khaykin said.

Khaykin is not alone. Others we spoke to also called these theories ‘debunked,’ ‘pseudoscience,’ and ‘hogwash.’

Although the book refers to the theory as hereditarianism, experts said it’s based on eugenics.

“Eugenics is the scientifically inaccurate theory that humans can be improved through selective breeding of populations,” according to the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).

Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich espoused the theory of eugenics, but the origin of the now-debunked science predates WWII.

“There were prominent figures in political and social and cultural life that promoted the Nazi Party in the United States; that lobbied the US government to not get involved in the war. And there’s repercussions from all those actions. This is absolutely a throwback to the original kind of fascism that we saw in the 1920s and ‘30s,” said Mark Bochkis, communications director of Carolina Jews for Justice.

Eugenics also has a history in the United States, particularly in North Carolina. The state practiced eugenics through government-mandated sterilization when an estimated 7,600 North Carolinians were sterilized between 1929 and 1974. In 2014, the State Center for Health Statistics estimated nearly 3,000 victims of the practice could still be alive at the time.

Taking aim at CRT

Over the past several years, the concept of Critical Race Theory (CRT) has become a flashpoint in schools, businesses, and government. “The Breeds of Sneeds” attempts to discredit CRT and ultimately blames the movement on the Jewish people.

Britannica defines CRT as, “[An] intellectual and social movement and loosely organized framework of legal analysis based on the premise that race is not a natural, biologically grounded feature of physically distinct subgroups of human beings but a socially constructed (culturally invented) category that is used to oppress and exploit people of color.”

The book challenges the concept and claims that humans are different breeds.

“Antisemitism isn’t just a problem that affects Jewish people, and more importantly, it’s it’s not a problem that’s going to be solved by Jewish people. And again, that’s in the same way that Black liberation is not just a Black people problem, and homophobia is not just a queer people problem. People should care about it because it’s morally wrong, and if it happens to my community or another marginalized community, then it’s surely going to eventually come around to them,” Bochkis said.

What’s next

The origins of the books remain unknown, and no author has publicly taken credit for writing it.

The Anti-Defamation League encourages you to report discriminatory acts. You can report them at this link.

We also want to hear from you if you find any examples of the book being shared across the Carolinas. Share your sightings with Channel 9 using the form at this link.

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