She doesn’t mean their neighborhood street. Joyce’s mom means the STREET. She is secretly ’bout dat life.
People be goin’ up to hur like “Da’s Carol B. The mos’ wil’ honkey dat’s ever come up in the hood”
Living near Detroit, I can tell you that the drug stuff actually happens more in Pontiac. There are still some hellish parts of Detroit, but Pontiac is almost entirely a shithole while Detroit has good patches as well.
“I can’t be homophobic! Some of my best friends are gay!”
“I can’t be sexist! My mother is a woman!”
“America can’t be racist! Its early-on economic power was built on the backs of black men and women!”
How is it NOT true though? If you are friends with someone, can you really hate and/or fear an intengral part of them? If you are racist, you wouldn’t WANT a friend of a different race, it would be against your believes, and if you disliked their race then you would be such a bad friend that you couldn’t call it a real friendship. Same thing with sexuality/gender, you don’t repress a friend unless you’re scared (if you live in a time/society where tolerance is “evil”).
Having a “black friend”/”gay friend”/”female mother” does not make you a good person. Notice that last one? I would guess that 99.9% of sexists have a mother who self identifies as female (and were birthed from one) and yet they are still sexist.
You can have a gay friend but not want to see him holding hands with his boyfriend or be comfortable when your lesbian friend is hanging out with you and sending cute texts to her girlfriend or when your bi friend is checking out cute butts regardless of what sex the owner is. That’s still homophobia, even if you are friends.
Or someone who is friends with a PoC can still find their hair in its natural state (afro/dreads/etc is what their hair does naturally) to be gross. They can make fun of “urban” people, or jump to conclusions that the guy trying to break back into his own car because he locked the keys inside is actually a thief because of the color of his skin. They can get confused or offended when a PoC calls them out on racist language because “well they called me a cracker” or “my black friend doesn’t mind me saying that word.” They can see nothing wrong with the income disparity between when men and black men, and say that the reason so many more PoCs are in prison is because they are criminals – not because of society and laws targeting them. They can see nothing wrong with an ex-con with a history of racism shooting to death a black teenager who punched him after being stalked and provoked getting off on a self defense charge.
So yes it is perfectly possible to hate a group of people while being friends with a member of that group. One exception does not mean that you are suddenly perfect.
Well, first of all… “not racist/sexist/bigoted” ≠ “perfect/good human”
.. And I still hold that the “friendships” you describe above
aren’t real friendships. If someone I knew didn’t respect my
race/religion/gender, he/she/it would certainly not be what
I would call a friend. That kind of relationship seems more
like acquaintances. A friend respects and supports a friend, period.
Yes, everyone has mothers, (and fathers) not everyone grew up with one,
not everyone respects or love them.
BTW, what does PoC stand for?
(My mind jumped to “Pirate of Carribean”, because of the dreads…)
We know both her parents are (she says as much when she meets Sarah). It seems highly likely, given that, that Joshua is as well, and most likely one or both of their brothers are either graduates, or currently attending, too.
Well, we’ve already had:
– Walky with his dick sticking out of his pants get caught in a group hug by Mike’s family
– Danny’s parents heaping emotional abuse on him
– Joyce’s mom being unintentionally racist
…and Howard.
Yep. It’s going to be awkward as hell, and we’ll probably love most of it!
Just imagine if this family visit happened to you…
To add more, Grounded awkward end, less funny.
I wonder if Joe’s parents are going to make an appearance………
Sounds like the entire small town that I grew up in. Basically all Caucasian…and I think it still is, but I haven’t lived there in 20 years. My parents can be a little….unenlightened….when it comes to race at times. I’m not saying it’s right, but I can understand it when you spend your whole life in a town that is basically one ethnicity.
Haha, this reminds me of when my mom was flipping through her old yearbook and was all, like, “Dang, you know if my friends in highschool were horrible racists I would NEVER KNOW because we like all white. There is literally only one black girl in here. I feel really sorry for her, that must have sucked.”
Her yearbook was really disturbing like that, my neighborhood growing up was pretty dang white, but not _completely_ white, jeez.
But yeah, def a thing that really can happen, weird as it is.
I have an aunt who’s a racist of sorts. Course she grew up in one of those states that hardly had anybody but whites. Then a black family moved in across the street from her. She sounded like Steve Irwin discovering a new animal species. “Did you know black kids played the same games as white kids?!”
That was then. Now she’s got 2 grandkids that are half Chinese and a step-grandniece that’s half black! My family’s getting more and more diverse and I love it.
No, she’s implying that everyone else on their street’s offspring are racist.
Just to clarify.
Either way… she could be right, though she probably didn’t quite mean it that way, because if she were so aware of their racism she wouldn’t be excited about their reaction to her daughter’s friend. Way to be so wrong and probably pretty correct at the same time?
Implying that everyone actually has at least the courtesy to ASK. High school I had people walk up and start petting my hair without even acknowledging that they were invading my privacy. 😐
I’m white (Jewish), so it doesn’t even remotely compare with the space invasion that happens to minorities.
The women of that family have foot-in-mouth disorder. Danny and a certain politician we’ve seen in this comic suffer horribly from this disorder as well.
I already saw the versions that show up in “It’s Walky”, so I wasn’t sure where Willis was going to go with the Browns once they got a real appearance (not counting their cameos at the start of the comic).
In comparison to her family, Joyce really has come a long way: she actually looks embarrassed in last panel (still loves her, but “OMG Mom”.)
Sarah is no dummy, she knows when to go out for popcorn or homework.
As for hair, I’m an ‘Irish-American’ redhead. [If blacks can be African-Americans, I can be Irish-American I guess. And maybe that’s part of the problem. I can remember back when we were all just – Americans.]
Anyway, we redheads have the coarsest hair of the 4 main types, while black hair is the finest. In grade school a black girlfriend and I compared hair. Her hair was as soft as a bunny rabbits. Never forgot that. However, couldn’t find any difference in how our skin felt, felt like skin to both of us.
Grew up in an unusal town in NY, I know that now. Not many Jewish families in town, but every year we had an elementary school pagent with both the manger scene play, and a presentation about Hannaka (sorry I can’t spell, going for phonetic).
lol if you think Mexican-Americans were ever just “American”
Before Mexican-American, we were just “Mexican”
(Also if white people get to be European-Americans. None of this “Caucasian” BS. I mean, the Caucasus region isn’t even in Europe! Some white supremacist archaeologist just found a pretty skull and started using the term to describe Europeans because it supported a master-race theory that was so prevalent.)
No offence, but we were never all Americans. Some of us were property. And then second class citizens. The only reason the term African American is enough is we’ve come up enough in the world to be vocal, but not enough to be equal.
Sorry to be like this but yeah.
I remember when the Irish were the “Black Irish” and, in the South, went to the “colored schools.” Book for you: How the Irish Became White, by David Roediger.
Yeah, “back when everyone was just -American,” that only held true for politically and culturally visible Americans. Being considered “African-American” was actually a step up because you were at least being acknowledged as participants by society at large, even if some hedgey hyphenization was required. It was another baby-step into integration.
You do realize we were talking about Pre-Civil Rights era, right? It’s not particularly brave or radical to say those things you say NOW, and so self-back-patting isn’t especially required.
But even today, while everyone would outwardly agree wholeheartedly that all Americans are American, it’s what occurs on a subconscious level that is the problem.
I don’t mean to start an argument here, but the serious note of the comments (on what is typically a light-hearted comic) underline the fact that Racism (and by extension, many other forms of discrimination) is still very much alive and well in the US, and not just on a subconscious level. I grew up in a place where much of the population was (and still is) very much like Joyce and family. These attitudes extend to elected officials on the national level too, so it isn’t just a local, or regional issue.
In that context, my previous comment seems quite radical indeed. Though I do not consider myself a radical in any sense of the word.
Are we sure Uniqueantique’s not just talking about “-Americans,” as in when “white people” were more seen as different ethnic group -Americans than a single group?
Really? Because I don’t, and I’ve been around for over 40 years. I suspect that what you’re actually remembering is the time before your world expanded enough to discover that racial tension exists. Perhaps it needs to expand enough to realize that not everybody’s life is like yours.
“Oh good, you’re not a racist like everyone thought you were. Maybe they’ll assume that we aren’t as well! Everyone wins! Right Sarah? …Sarah? Joyce, where’d that African-American friend of yours go?”
You know I bet she’d call any black person African-American. I’ve seen that happen before with people. “Um actually I’m not American.” The best was a white friend of mine from Africa who had recently gotten citizenship here. People would get so confused and flustered when he’d tell them he was African-American.
When I was in San Diego, I noticed that recent emigrants from Sudan generally identified themselves as sudanese. I assumed that most emigrants from Africa would identify themselves as being from whatever country they came from.
After all, I figured that part of the reason we call black people African-American because we don’t know where in Africa their ancestors came from. It’s not like slave traders and slave owners were particularly interested in preserving the culture of their slave’s native land.
I mean, I would suspect that an Egyptian who immigrates to the U.S. wouldn’t want to identify as African American, they’d want to identify as Egyptian-American. But maybe I’m wrong.
S’funny… I once saw someone online throw a complete fit because a black Brit was just called “black”. Apparently we should have been calling him African-American, despite the fact that, you know… He was British.
Not African, not American… Just a Brit who happened to be black.
It’s interesting to note such differences. The insistence in calling black Americans “African-Americans” has always seemed a little distasteful to me. I mean, if they feel a tie to another country and want to identify as being of both that country, and of America, that should be their choice, rather than being forced on all members of a particular race to identify them as being “different”.
But I’m tangenting, and other people have already commented on it. I just wanted to say that, yes, there are people who call all black people “African-American”, even when that label is in no way accurate.
Which I think is mostly due to Americentricism. If it’s not done like it is in America, it should be! Whether or not they have our history with racism and slavery!
Aww Joyce, muffin, a part of growing up is realising your parents are far from perfect or that they can hold wrong opinions/problematic viewpoints. It’s an awkward realisation, especially when you probably still love them (and it can hurt on some level too), but it’s one almost everyone has to go through or they’ll remain emotionally and socially stunted. It just shows you’re beginning to grow up honey.
(Yikes Joyce’s mum but yeah something which is definitely realistic and I could see an Aunt of mine pulling, god damn- so good one Willis).
Joyce is being playfully sarcastic with her brother? I didn’t even know she had that gene.
Joyce is being more open than her mother? Not entirely unexpected, but still good to see the effects of the outer world working. I don’t expect this to be a much bigger thing than this — certainly I don’t expect any big argument or cutting the parents out of her life — but even as a little thing it puts some difference between them.
I’m just interested in seeing how her brother acts.
Presumably he’s gone through the same process Joyce has, and I’d suspect he would either turn out as the end result to Joyce’s current process of becoming open-minded, or an even worse zealot than his parents.
My Grandmother was a Meleungon from West Virginia, considered White in WV, or damn near. But often “mistaken” as colored in the 50-70’s in Virginia. Had to carry her birth certificate around with her. Was refused admittance to Mary Washington as an adult, despite it. So took classes at GWU. I’ve been thought of as least Native American, because I tan under florescent lights, turn bronze in full sun.
My Dad wondered about my mother, until he saw her b. certificate. It All didnt end with the 70’s. My first grade in 1969, was the first year schools in VA Beach were desegregated after Massive Resistance. Being a kid I didnt know how revolutionary all this was. And Fuck It All, it seems to be returning to that era of ‘polite’ racism.
Man,… it sucks to be Sarah at this time,….
And yes it’s sometimes awkward moving toward insulting how “innocent” some people are
“Ooooh Can I touch it?”
“Do you belong to a gang? Why do you do that?”
“You’ve NEVER gotten trouble with the police? REALLY??”
Sigh,.. sorry,.. just down today,.. nice strip Mr. W.
I disagree that hyphenating names is a step up in society. Voting is, fighting for what you think is right is. Dying for what you think is right is.
Simpler times my ass.
I was afraid of the polio epidemic in grade school. A friend ended up in an iron lung-go google that one.
I was afraid of the damn Air Raid sirens.
I was afraid of the BOMB, especially seeing as how we thought about it all the time as we practiced Air Raid drills in school each week, where we all crawled under our desks and practiced kissing our asses goodbye.
My family passed down stories of the Potato Famine to me, so don’t patronize me with Black Irish stories: been there, done that.
It did not make me recognize black people as a political part of society by sticking a hyphen in the middle of their name. Rosa Parks made me aware of that. Riding a Freedom Bus made me realize that.
I teach now, and I come here to listen to the kids I teach. And I guess that I was as sure of the world and thought that I had all the answers when I was a kid too. The answers are not Black and White and never will be. We just do the best we can.
I have enjoyed the strips a lot, and the debates.
Having difficulty really understanding how your hearing stories equates with having experienced racism first-hand? And definitely not seeing where you get the right to tell non-white people what terms to prefer for themselves or how to feel about hyphenation.
I also think that needing Rosa Parks to “recognize black people as a political part of society” is something you should be admitting with quiet shame, not brandishing as a flag that proves “African-American” is a worthless term.
(As in, “I can’t believe it wasn’t until that woman refused to move to the back of the bus that…”)
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Joyce’s mom knows the street.
She doesn’t mean their neighborhood street. Joyce’s mom means the STREET. She is secretly ’bout dat life.
People be goin’ up to hur like “Da’s Carol B. The mos’ wil’ honkey dat’s ever come up in the hood”
Which is why Joshua looks so nervous when his mom mentions it.
Joshua: Mom, we swore we’d never talk about what happened in Detroit…Who could’ve thought the drug deal could’ve ended in all those casualties
Carol: Man up, Joshua. Mama ain’t raisin’ no pussies.
Just imagined Scarface but with Joyce’s mom in the role of Tony Montana.
OK, DARLING, I’M RELOADED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Say hello to my little friend!”
*Pulls out bible*
Makes machine gun noises with her mouth.
No, a machine gun that shoots Bibles.
No, a Bible with pages made of bullets.
Yotomoe! Make it happen!
CAROL IS BOUT THAT LIFE
Laughing against my better judgment!
She looks like Trailer Trash Barbie.
Someone help, I cannot breathe. I am laughing too hard.
Sarah didn’t choose the thug life, the thug life chose her.
Did I say Sarah and not Carol? I meant to say Carol. Curse my drunken state.
Living near Detroit, I can tell you that the drug stuff actually happens more in Pontiac. There are still some hellish parts of Detroit, but Pontiac is almost entirely a shithole while Detroit has good patches as well.
Sesame Street?
Danny the Street? From Doom Patrol?
“Because she has a black friend, see??”
Sad how many people ACTUALLY think this.
“I can’t be homophobic! Some of my best friends are gay!”
“I can’t be sexist! My mother is a woman!”
“America can’t be racist! Its early-on economic power was built on the backs of black men and women!”
How is it NOT true though? If you are friends with someone, can you really hate and/or fear an intengral part of them? If you are racist, you wouldn’t WANT a friend of a different race, it would be against your believes, and if you disliked their race then you would be such a bad friend that you couldn’t call it a real friendship. Same thing with sexuality/gender, you don’t repress a friend unless you’re scared (if you live in a time/society where tolerance is “evil”).
Having a “black friend”/”gay friend”/”female mother” does not make you a good person. Notice that last one? I would guess that 99.9% of sexists have a mother who self identifies as female (and were birthed from one) and yet they are still sexist.
You can have a gay friend but not want to see him holding hands with his boyfriend or be comfortable when your lesbian friend is hanging out with you and sending cute texts to her girlfriend or when your bi friend is checking out cute butts regardless of what sex the owner is. That’s still homophobia, even if you are friends.
Or someone who is friends with a PoC can still find their hair in its natural state (afro/dreads/etc is what their hair does naturally) to be gross. They can make fun of “urban” people, or jump to conclusions that the guy trying to break back into his own car because he locked the keys inside is actually a thief because of the color of his skin. They can get confused or offended when a PoC calls them out on racist language because “well they called me a cracker” or “my black friend doesn’t mind me saying that word.” They can see nothing wrong with the income disparity between when men and black men, and say that the reason so many more PoCs are in prison is because they are criminals – not because of society and laws targeting them. They can see nothing wrong with an ex-con with a history of racism shooting to death a black teenager who punched him after being stalked and provoked getting off on a self defense charge.
So yes it is perfectly possible to hate a group of people while being friends with a member of that group. One exception does not mean that you are suddenly perfect.
*white not when. It’s late, can’t type well.
Well, first of all… “not racist/sexist/bigoted” ≠ “perfect/good human”
.. And I still hold that the “friendships” you describe above
aren’t real friendships. If someone I knew didn’t respect my
race/religion/gender, he/she/it would certainly not be what
I would call a friend. That kind of relationship seems more
like acquaintances. A friend respects and supports a friend, period.
Yes, everyone has mothers, (and fathers) not everyone grew up with one,
not everyone respects or love them.
BTW, what does PoC stand for?
(My mind jumped to “Pirate of Carribean”, because of the dreads…)
And why would you even want to hang out with someone if you think so badly of what they identify with/heritage? It makes no sense to me.
“I am NOT accustomed to diversity!”
Is everyone in Joyce’s family an IU graduate, or are they just really enthusiastic about buying probably overpriced shirts?
Why can’t it be both?
You can buy those t-shirts at any Walmart in the state for ten bucks.
Um not in Lafayette you can’t.
Indy Walmarts don’t really carry college shirts much either.
Her parents are, at least.
We know both her parents are (she says as much when she meets Sarah). It seems highly likely, given that, that Joshua is as well, and most likely one or both of their brothers are either graduates, or currently attending, too.
Joyce’s last expression. Is it happy, proud, uncomfortable? I’m going to uncomfortable with a hint of happy.
Even Joshua looks like he isn’t sure how to react.
Her FAAAAACE looks just uncomfortable, really.
It appears that there’s also just a pinch of shame, with a sprinkle of new perspective.
^ That.
I’m going for uncomfortable, but she’s forcing a smile so her mother doesn’t realise it.
^ And that.
Can I just say…
ALL THE GLORY FOR THIS ARC!
Wait until they find out she has an athiest BBF.
And a gay Jewish boyfriend.
MA-HA-HAN, this story arc is gonna be FULL of awkward, isn’t it?
Oh yes, and we’ll all be loving every minute of it. XD
You betcha, Joyce’s face will end up stuck that way for quite some time.
Now I want to know whether Joyce inherited her “shock face” from her parents.
Well, we’ve already had:
– Walky with his dick sticking out of his pants get caught in a group hug by Mike’s family
– Danny’s parents heaping emotional abuse on him
– Joyce’s mom being unintentionally racist
…and Howard.
Yep. It’s going to be awkward as hell, and we’ll probably love most of it!
Just imagine if this family visit happened to you…
To add more, Grounded awkward end, less funny.
I wonder if Joe’s parents are going to make an appearance………
And a possibility of having a demon infested hat.
No, Willis will save that plot-point for another story arc.
A dinosaur hat has already been seen, though.
His highness Joshua prefer to grace the game with his presence.
…Mrs. Brown, are you implying that everyone else on your street IS a racist?
…I’m not sure where to go with this information.
Just keep nodding, I guess.
Nope, if everyone on her street was racist, she wouldn’t have told anybody there.
I imagine everyone on Joyce’s street has never seen a black person in their lives.
They also never saw an atheist, jew, muslim or catholic. Yeah it’s that kind of street.
I know the street Joyce grew up on, and it’s definitely possible.
Sounds like the entire small town that I grew up in. Basically all Caucasian…and I think it still is, but I haven’t lived there in 20 years. My parents can be a little….unenlightened….when it comes to race at times. I’m not saying it’s right, but I can understand it when you spend your whole life in a town that is basically one ethnicity.
Diversity is when someone moves into the neighborhood who’s of Central European descent instead of Western European descent like everyone else.
My property value! Damn you Slavic nations…!
Look we’re not even touching the Eastern European descendants here, that’s just asking for trouble!
My grandma’s Romani and lived in Minnesota. Ho-lee shit some of those people.
I can only imagine but I am sure nothing I can visualize could ever get close to the actual experience D:
The smiling, thumbs up avatar really, really makes that comment uncomfortable. Just saying.
Haha, this reminds me of when my mom was flipping through her old yearbook and was all, like, “Dang, you know if my friends in highschool were horrible racists I would NEVER KNOW because we like all white. There is literally only one black girl in here. I feel really sorry for her, that must have sucked.”
Her yearbook was really disturbing like that, my neighborhood growing up was pretty dang white, but not _completely_ white, jeez.
But yeah, def a thing that really can happen, weird as it is.
For some reason, I think of Joyce living in Prohibition-era Chicago.
Which is silly, as Chicago isn’t in Indiana.
It wasn’t easy trying to be a christain while living in a busy speakeasy.
Chicago and its suburbs are still one of the most segregated areas in the country.
Now you’ve got me imagining Joyce as a 1920s gangster.
And that image is awesome.
I have an aunt who’s a racist of sorts. Course she grew up in one of those states that hardly had anybody but whites. Then a black family moved in across the street from her. She sounded like Steve Irwin discovering a new animal species. “Did you know black kids played the same games as white kids?!”
That was then. Now she’s got 2 grandkids that are half Chinese and a step-grandniece that’s half black! My family’s getting more and more diverse and I love it.
No, she’s implying that everyone else on their street’s offspring are racist.
Just to clarify.
Either way… she could be right, though she probably didn’t quite mean it that way, because if she were so aware of their racism she wouldn’t be excited about their reaction to her daughter’s friend. Way to be so wrong and probably pretty correct at the same time?
You were right to run Sarah. The awkwardness can only escalate.
It may start out nice, but soon they will ask to touch your hair. And no conversation recovers from that.
“Oh, it’s soooo springy” *bouncing their hands on her hair*
When people ask to touch my hair I just touch theirs so that it’s either equally awkward or we connect on a level that most never dare to reach.
I remember back when I was a teen when my hair was almost as springy and practically waterproof, you wouldn’t know it now though.
Well yeah. Cuz you’re a gravitar :3.
Pubic hair should serve for both.
“I wonder if it can hold my weight?” *climbs on top of Sarah and uses her as a trampoline*
This is the weirdest slashfic.
=P
Implying that everyone actually has at least the courtesy to ASK. High school I had people walk up and start petting my hair without even acknowledging that they were invading my privacy. 😐
I’m white (Jewish), so it doesn’t even remotely compare with the space invasion that happens to minorities.
I honestly cannot understand why one person would want to touch a stranger’s hair.
So this is where Joyce got her ability to accidentaly say the most offensive thing possible.
Joyce seems to be aware that her mom’s comment is a little off, though. She’s learning!
The women of that family have foot-in-mouth disorder. Danny and a certain politician we’ve seen in this comic suffer horribly from this disorder as well.
That explains so much.
And still asks many questions.
You gotta remember that this family isn’t used to diversity.
If what I hear of “Christian colleges” is true, and her best friend Becky went to one, I wonder who’ll have changed more.
What do you hear?
They are chess pits of sex, drugs, and repressed teenagers working through about two decades of strict rules.
Chess pits?
Yes. Those pawns, bishops, rooks, and assorted other male pieces, once killed and off the board, engage in a gay necrophilial orgy.
However, it’s still not as wretched as the Mos Eisley Cantina, but that’s due to how Bea Arthur ran the place.
Hey, man. What happens in chess club stays in chess club.
Man, Sarah really is good at ducking out of the strip.
She’s ducking out to get popcorn, of course.
“I’m back what did I miss? Aww, they already found out she is dating a gay jew, that was the part I was getting teh popcorn for!”
At least I’m in time for them to hear about the athiest.
She may need extra butter for that revelation.
Sarah is obviously a sugar only popcorn type.
I can’t imagine Sarah ingesting sugar.
What about butter?
How do you think she forms her crusty exterior?
Salt?
Me eather. And butter? Too self indulgent. I like mine with salt, olive oil, basal, and oregano.
Sugar on popcorn??? I know about butter or oil but sugar??
Oil?
Olive oil is good on popcorn, that’s what I usually have.
Cocoanut oil – ONLY!
She should have kissed Joyce on the cheek, said something about keeping the bed warm, left, and then snuck back to watch the meltdown.
And here I was, thinking her parents would be relatively sane.
It could be worse.
They could be Mike’s parents. No sane people could possibly be THAT happy.
If Mike’s parents are a picture of insanity, I don’t want to be sane.
The Joker seems really happy and friendly on paper, too.
I think you forgot to turn the page.
Sane? They made Joyce into Joyce.
One could define sanity as the absence of psychological activity. . .
see? Joyce has learned a lot already!
“A lot” is very relative here…
Even wearing all this Dexter/MM stuff Joyce still doesn’t look as geeky as the rest of her family.
Religious people are nerds after all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNtnN_DiP3o
Interesting moment here in that last panel, with Joyce’s reaction to her mother.
..huh
That’s pretty much exactly how I imagined Joyce’s parents to be.
I already saw the versions that show up in “It’s Walky”, so I wasn’t sure where Willis was going to go with the Browns once they got a real appearance (not counting their cameos at the start of the comic).
“You see, by ‘never’, what I meant was, uh… until now.”
Your words bring shame upon this family. SHAME! Upon aaaaall this family!
In comparison to her family, Joyce really has come a long way: she actually looks embarrassed in last panel (still loves her, but “OMG Mom”.)
Sarah is no dummy, she knows when to go out for popcorn or homework.
As for hair, I’m an ‘Irish-American’ redhead. [If blacks can be African-Americans, I can be Irish-American I guess. And maybe that’s part of the problem. I can remember back when we were all just – Americans.]
Anyway, we redheads have the coarsest hair of the 4 main types, while black hair is the finest. In grade school a black girlfriend and I compared hair. Her hair was as soft as a bunny rabbits. Never forgot that. However, couldn’t find any difference in how our skin felt, felt like skin to both of us.
Grew up in an unusal town in NY, I know that now. Not many Jewish families in town, but every year we had an elementary school pagent with both the manger scene play, and a presentation about Hannaka (sorry I can’t spell, going for phonetic).
lol if you think Mexican-Americans were ever just “American”
Before Mexican-American, we were just “Mexican”
(Also if white people get to be European-Americans. None of this “Caucasian” BS. I mean, the Caucasus region isn’t even in Europe! Some white supremacist archaeologist just found a pretty skull and started using the term to describe Europeans because it supported a master-race theory that was so prevalent.)
No offence, but we were never all Americans. Some of us were property. And then second class citizens. The only reason the term African American is enough is we’ve come up enough in the world to be vocal, but not enough to be equal.
Sorry to be like this but yeah.
I remember when the Irish were the “Black Irish” and, in the South, went to the “colored schools.” Book for you: How the Irish Became White, by David Roediger.
Yeah, “back when everyone was just -American,” that only held true for politically and culturally visible Americans. Being considered “African-American” was actually a step up because you were at least being acknowledged as participants by society at large, even if some hedgey hyphenization was required. It was another baby-step into integration.
See also: “they were simpler times.”
I’d never considered before how radical my own belief seems to be:
For me, an American (capital A, no hyphen) is someone who has either:
A) Been born in this country. (or territories)
B) Gone through the process of obtaining citizenship. (Which is not a trivial accomplishment)
Race, or perceived Race or ethnic background has nothing to do with it.
You do realize we were talking about Pre-Civil Rights era, right? It’s not particularly brave or radical to say those things you say NOW, and so self-back-patting isn’t especially required.
But even today, while everyone would outwardly agree wholeheartedly that all Americans are American, it’s what occurs on a subconscious level that is the problem.
I don’t mean to start an argument here, but the serious note of the comments (on what is typically a light-hearted comic) underline the fact that Racism (and by extension, many other forms of discrimination) is still very much alive and well in the US, and not just on a subconscious level. I grew up in a place where much of the population was (and still is) very much like Joyce and family. These attitudes extend to elected officials on the national level too, so it isn’t just a local, or regional issue.
In that context, my previous comment seems quite radical indeed. Though I do not consider myself a radical in any sense of the word.
Really? You predate World War I?
I remember when we called ourselves colonialists.
Then those Adams cousins started making a ruckus.
Are we sure Uniqueantique’s not just talking about “-Americans,” as in when “white people” were more seen as different ethnic group -Americans than a single group?
Whoops, I see others have also made that point. Never mind then.
I remember when we were all just British. Then those damnable rebels had the gall to break away from the motherland…
Hey, you guys cut into our profit margins, what did you expect?
=P
Really? Because I don’t, and I’ve been around for over 40 years. I suspect that what you’re actually remembering is the time before your world expanded enough to discover that racial tension exists. Perhaps it needs to expand enough to realize that not everybody’s life is like yours.
NOOOOOOO!
“Oh good, you’re not a racist like everyone thought you were. Maybe they’ll assume that we aren’t as well! Everyone wins! Right Sarah? …Sarah? Joyce, where’d that African-American friend of yours go?”
You know I bet she’d call any black person African-American. I’ve seen that happen before with people. “Um actually I’m not American.” The best was a white friend of mine from Africa who had recently gotten citizenship here. People would get so confused and flustered when he’d tell them he was African-American.
Yeah, I went to school with some white / Jewish kids who’d grew up in South Africa, and used to joke about being “African American”.
When I was in San Diego, I noticed that recent emigrants from Sudan generally identified themselves as sudanese. I assumed that most emigrants from Africa would identify themselves as being from whatever country they came from.
After all, I figured that part of the reason we call black people African-American because we don’t know where in Africa their ancestors came from. It’s not like slave traders and slave owners were particularly interested in preserving the culture of their slave’s native land.
I mean, I would suspect that an Egyptian who immigrates to the U.S. wouldn’t want to identify as African American, they’d want to identify as Egyptian-American. But maybe I’m wrong.
yeahhh…white people should not be doing that. It’s smug and kind of belittling.
S’funny… I once saw someone online throw a complete fit because a black Brit was just called “black”. Apparently we should have been calling him African-American, despite the fact that, you know… He was British.
Not African, not American… Just a Brit who happened to be black.
It’s interesting to note such differences. The insistence in calling black Americans “African-Americans” has always seemed a little distasteful to me. I mean, if they feel a tie to another country and want to identify as being of both that country, and of America, that should be their choice, rather than being forced on all members of a particular race to identify them as being “different”.
But I’m tangenting, and other people have already commented on it. I just wanted to say that, yes, there are people who call all black people “African-American”, even when that label is in no way accurate.
Which I think is mostly due to Americentricism. If it’s not done like it is in America, it should be! Whether or not they have our history with racism and slavery!
Aww Joyce, muffin, a part of growing up is realising your parents are far from perfect or that they can hold wrong opinions/problematic viewpoints. It’s an awkward realisation, especially when you probably still love them (and it can hurt on some level too), but it’s one almost everyone has to go through or they’ll remain emotionally and socially stunted. It just shows you’re beginning to grow up honey.
(Yikes Joyce’s mum but yeah something which is definitely realistic and I could see an Aunt of mine pulling, god damn- so good one Willis).
Joyce is being playfully sarcastic with her brother? I didn’t even know she had that gene.
Joyce is being more open than her mother? Not entirely unexpected, but still good to see the effects of the outer world working. I don’t expect this to be a much bigger thing than this — certainly I don’t expect any big argument or cutting the parents out of her life — but even as a little thing it puts some difference between them.
I’m just interested in seeing how her brother acts.
Presumably he’s gone through the same process Joyce has, and I’d suspect he would either turn out as the end result to Joyce’s current process of becoming open-minded, or an even worse zealot than his parents.
For the first time in my life, getting into an argument on the Internet just isn’t worth the headache. Is this growing up?
Yes. Yes it is.
I’m just going to assume that Joyce’s parents have never seen a black person in their lives.
Ugh, I’ve been that friend before.
My Grandmother was a Meleungon from West Virginia, considered White in WV, or damn near. But often “mistaken” as colored in the 50-70’s in Virginia. Had to carry her birth certificate around with her. Was refused admittance to Mary Washington as an adult, despite it. So took classes at GWU. I’ve been thought of as least Native American, because I tan under florescent lights, turn bronze in full sun.
I go to Mary Washington now, and most of my friends there are non-white. Funny how that worked out…
My Dad wondered about my mother, until he saw her b. certificate. It All didnt end with the 70’s. My first grade in 1969, was the first year schools in VA Beach were desegregated after Massive Resistance. Being a kid I didnt know how revolutionary all this was. And Fuck It All, it seems to be returning to that era of ‘polite’ racism.
So now we know her blue laser beam eyes come from her dad
Technically we’ve known that since Strip 2.
Or 4, since that’s where we can first confirm that they don’t come from her mom?
Man,… it sucks to be Sarah at this time,….
And yes it’s sometimes awkward moving toward insulting how “innocent” some people are
“Ooooh Can I touch it?”
“Do you belong to a gang? Why do you do that?”
“You’ve NEVER gotten trouble with the police? REALLY??”
Sigh,.. sorry,.. just down today,.. nice strip Mr. W.
Gosh, I sure hope Ethan doesn’t meet Joyce’s brother. Could get, uh, out of, um, hand.
Just putting this out here : Joyce’s brother is hot.
I disagree that hyphenating names is a step up in society. Voting is, fighting for what you think is right is. Dying for what you think is right is.
Simpler times my ass.
I was afraid of the polio epidemic in grade school. A friend ended up in an iron lung-go google that one.
I was afraid of the damn Air Raid sirens.
I was afraid of the BOMB, especially seeing as how we thought about it all the time as we practiced Air Raid drills in school each week, where we all crawled under our desks and practiced kissing our asses goodbye.
My family passed down stories of the Potato Famine to me, so don’t patronize me with Black Irish stories: been there, done that.
It did not make me recognize black people as a political part of society by sticking a hyphen in the middle of their name. Rosa Parks made me aware of that. Riding a Freedom Bus made me realize that.
I teach now, and I come here to listen to the kids I teach. And I guess that I was as sure of the world and thought that I had all the answers when I was a kid too. The answers are not Black and White and never will be. We just do the best we can.
I have enjoyed the strips a lot, and the debates.
Having difficulty really understanding how your hearing stories equates with having experienced racism first-hand? And definitely not seeing where you get the right to tell non-white people what terms to prefer for themselves or how to feel about hyphenation.
I also think that needing Rosa Parks to “recognize black people as a political part of society” is something you should be admitting with quiet shame, not brandishing as a flag that proves “African-American” is a worthless term.
(As in, “I can’t believe it wasn’t until that woman refused to move to the back of the bus that…”)
Sarah’s not-aracnic sense just starting tingling it seems?
Gosh, I hope if Ethan bumps into them he doesn’t develop a crush on Josh! D:
Is it bad that I think Joshua’s hot?
Nah, I agree.
The happiness lasted about five seconds
I see you what you did there with that alt text.
So… the hover text… does “visual cues” include Joyce saying she’s the youngest in the family?
LMAO its like newbie Joyce all over again!
Looking back over this much later . . . ‘Older siblings,’ Willis said.