Did you know, if you say Pumpkin Spice Latte three times in a mirror, a white woman in yoga pants will appear and tell you everything she loves about fall.
“Beautifro” is a registered trademark & copyrighted ‘super hero’ of the Johnson Products Company & George Ellis Johnson, Sr.
“Beautifro” is the super hero dat kicks yo’ black ass right outta dem dreads & makes you use Afro Sheen (under threat of laser eyeballs from her super powers) until you wise-up and see the difference fo yo’ own damn self!
She plays a mean upright bass too, in her spare time & they gave her a Grammy just so she wouldn’t laser-eye the theater!!
And don’t even THINK about asking her about her colors without leotards and a cape – “ ‘cause she will fill your lungs with Afro Sheen just for her own entertainment!”
She was sad when she couldn’t get any attention from her parents before (dressed as a school girl).
Dad only asked if she decided to go with the ‘fro again, then it was all (David) Walky.
She wasn’t acting as herself when she tried to get their love, she dressed as the Catholic Schoolgirl they sent her to be after she robbed the convenience stores.
She isn’t sad now, she is seeing herself as she normally is.
To be fair, it’s been like 5 weeks since Charles (whose name I totally didn’t remember) told her (and by extension, us) that he liked it long and straight. I’d forgotten myself.
Heart. Broken. I love this woman. Why is her father the one doing this to her??? Where is Amazi-girl when you need her? I hear she’s good with fathers…
Gotta agree with Yotomoe here. She’s APPLEasing gal to look at either way, but her natural curls looked incredible. By the expression in the last panel- she seems like this isn’t what she wants for herself, that she’s only doing it to please her parents. Which is sad. She was getting used to having natural hair again, and it’s a shame she’s calling it QUINCE over one sideways comment from her dad.
From what I’ve read about and see on television – it’s probably better that you’re not aware of it. Seems to me as an ‘outsider looking in’ to be more of a social construct than anything real in health or actual beauty care.
From what I’ve lived, growing up in Mississippi and Louisiana, “good hair” affect self esteem, and social dynamics, sending people to beauty shops because nappy hair meant that you were socially or genetically
inferior, except for those surges where natural hair was in.
“Good hair” was a thing before the internet existed and it still is a thing.
I know what you mean, Timemonkey. She looks so much better this way, I don’t know why it has to be such a race issue. I know plenty of women of various races who take steps to change their hair from its natural state. To me it’s more of a fashion issue.
It doesn’t bother me when Irish women cover up their freckles with makeup either, but then I’ve grown up around quite a few different cultural groups, so maybe I’m just missing the problem.
Even as a black man, I can’t say. I hate it when people push other lifestyles on me. But I’d also that a good 50% of the women of color I know have straightened hair. I dunno…I guess I’m just not black enough.
(I do hate it when people touch my dreadlocks, though.)
It’s a race issue because historically, black women (and men) who keep their hair in it’s natural state tend to be looked down or mistreated. The pressure to straighten hair to be considered more acceptable or desirable in society is a big deal in the black community.
If you want to learn more about this, I highly recommend watching the documentary “Good Hair” by Chris Rock. It’s funny and insightful about the whole issue.
I learnt twoa fewis scarier than using strong bleach, two; hair extentions are a multi-billion dollar business and three; you don’t touch a black woman’s hair even if you are married to her.
I straightened my hair (which is very much like Sal’s) using Lye once. Never again. It BURNS your scalp if you scratched it before hand. It hurts SO MUCH.
The “Good Hair” comments sting in more ways than one. I love her, but my mom (who’s black) made such a big deal about my hair being “my pride” and that I was so lucky that it wasn’t as kinky as hers. :/
It’s sad when a whole culture is thought your natural hair isn’t beautiful or valuable. Hopefully one day natural black hair won’t be so discouraged… oddly, then it won’t matter how you wear your hair. 🙂
“I don’t know why it has to be such a race issue.”
Maybe once naturally-growing black hair isn’t a violation of many schools’ and workplaces’ dress codes, it won’t be. Maybe once having normal black hair isn’t proven to impact your chances of getting a second job interview, it won’t be.
Until then, have fun divorcing issues from their social context and comparing black hair politics to the oppression Irish-Americans face for having freckles. Because that’s a very fair comparison.
If I seem angry, I apologize. My 13-year-old cousin literally got sent home from her private school yesterday morning for having untamed hair.
That is 135% unacceptable on the part of the school, and whoever made that decision is a terrible and racist asshole. It’s her fucking hair, her NATURAL hair, and there is nothing wrong with it.
How unfortunate that centuries of an entire people being conditioned to view themselves as inferior to others gets in the way of your personal preferences.
Others have mentioned how awful straightening can be and the ridiculousness that goes along behind it in our society. I’m loving this conversation.
But I did want to point out to anyone who still doesn’t want to see it as an issue that even though there are plenty of women who straighten their hair because they *want* to straighten their hair and even if Sal *does* like her hair better straight, thinking that how you look (or act or just be) as yourself isn’t how you’re *supposed* to look (etc…) is hard on a person. There’s a difference between doing something because it’s how you want to look (my sisters and dad combing their mildly frizzy hair straight after each wash) and doing it because you think there’s something wrong with who you are.
AGH. No, this is not a thing hair with a tight curl pattern and antigrav tendencies wants. There are short cuts which could work with her hair, but trying to maintain a pixie cut as a pixie cut under humid conditions… noooo.
Besides, she already looks enough like her brother that a pixie would definitely not be the way to go. I’d normally be the first to throw a bob out as a possibility, but “Dorothy/Amber, now with melanin!” might just be pushing it a bit far…
Yeah. That hair is like a big, huge, wild, soft fuzzy part of her that no one wants, including her. As far as she knows, anyway. It’s like, I don’t know, if you were not allowed to use half the words you know when speaking because people look at you like some kind of monster if you do. (Sal’s hair probably makes up 50% of her by volume.) And you know you could just ignore them if you were more brave and sure of yourself.
OK, my OCD side needs me to provide the correct lyrics.
Hello darkness, my old friend,
I’ve come to talk with you again
because a vision softly creeping
left its seeds while I was sleeping
….
‘Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
So does anyone else think that song sounds ridiculously similar to Hit Me with Your Best Shot? Well, at least one other person does, since a local radio station played them back-to-back a few weeks ago, but I meant anyone here.
Ugh, all the people here missing the actual motivation behind her hair.
In short, likely a vast majority of the people she’s met when she had curly hair told her how much better it looked straight. It’s a subtle form of racism where women are taught that being attractive is the most important thing in the world and then black women are told that the only way to be attractive is to not be black.
Glad *someone* said it, yeesh. I clicked on the comments expecting like a flood of Ethnic Studies 101 comments. But yeah, she’s totally feeling bad about trying to remove anything that would disqualify her from seeming “white.”
I missed it at first because it was her (black) father who told her she looked better with straight hair, but yeah, definitely a subtly racist judgment.
It’s worth noting that her father is half black. Being biracial can be more complicated than simply being of a minority race. You may identify more strongly with one side, or equally with both sides, or with neither. But you will be periodically forced to choose one or the other, because CHECK ONLY ONE BOX. You will inevitably be judged by people of both races, and will likely be found not-whatever-enough by both.
One of the few things we know about Charles Walkerton is that he married a white woman. A reasonable hypothesis is that he identifies more strongly with white people, and is somewhat uncomfortable with his black side. Though that’s just a hypothesis that happens to fit the facts we have.
In any event, being biracial comes with a set of issues, and being black-white biracial in the US is especially hard. So it’s understandable that Charles might be a little conflicted. It’s also understandable, but very unfortunate, that he might consciously or unconsciously apply his biases to his daughter.
I thought he was fully black and that Walky & Sal were half & half…
Anyway, I just mean that I missed the subtext at first, but realized it later and was highly disappointed by Charles’ comments and the racism inherent in it.
“Ugh, all the people here missing the actual motivation behind her hair.”
Um, how about no? Thing is we had this discussion about “good hair” and “natural hair” in depth 5 weeks ago when her father said he liked it better straight. Just because we aren’t rushing to rehash it again *today* doesn’t mean we’re a bunch race-insensitive bigots who are too impressed with our white privilege to consider race, class, and context.
I used not to know there was an issue about natural/straightened hair for black persons.
Willis, could you please confirm your original intent to us ?
Is Sal feeling sad only because she’s realised she’s still unconsciously submiting to her
neglecting parents wishes (specifically here, her father) ?
Or is she ALSO feeling ashamed for conforming herself to racist stereotypes about hair ?
One thing I have noticed is women are NEVER happy with their hair. If it is straight they want it curly, if it is curly they want it straight. They never like whatever colour nature gave them, and whatever length it is, they want it changed. For example, my daughter is 22, and I have forgotten what colour her hair is, she changes it so often.
Well, if we are going to discuss various forms of “invisible” privilege again, here’s a good jumping point. For white people, the question of “what do I do to my hair” may be an entirely cosmetic and superficial one without regards to racial matters. A white guy (apart from any job, uniform, or social class requirements) can do whatever he feels like with his hair, because no matter what he does, he is still a white guy, and therefore at the top of the social pecking order, answerable to no one besides other white guys.
A white woman, can do anything she wants with her hair, to an extent. Straight or curly, natural color or not–these do not matter, because she is white and therefor at the top of the current racial social order. However, there are standards she is pressured to conform to depending on what the males of her social circle prefer. These include length and styling, as well as requirements for grooming the hair that is not on top of her head. Roborat’s daughter is most likely weighing these requirements–not necessarily consciously–each time she chooses a new hair configuration.
For a non-white woman, she has all of the concerns that a white woman has, and on top of that she has to balance the conflicting pressure that she could be getting from all the communities that she belongs to (or wants to belong to) telling her to either be more white or more true to her ancestry.
It’s a real mess, and most white guys just have no idea (and some wouldn’t care even if they did).
My daughter is one of the most self confident and independant person I know. She picks her hair style and colour because it’s what she wants to do, and is a look she wants at that time, not because of any societal pressure to conform.
Nevermind everything that is kinda sexist going on there. Systemic misogyny has a lot to do with my women are so fixated on stuff like their hair and its potential/perceived flaws. This is a much bigger deal for black/ biracial women, of course, but it affects all women to some extent.
Just saying if you think “all” women are unhappy with their hair you could give some thought as to why that might be? (except like basically every women I know like their hair just fine so it might be that you r observations are hella flawed in that regard. just a thought!)
Of course it is a generalization; a generalization based on decades of experience. You experience may vary. I was just trying to provide a counterpoint to the posts equating hair preference to racism.
Well, Sal, looks like this isn’t yourself. Maybe it’s just another try to rebel against your parents?
Do you realy know what you want and who you are or do you only know, what you don’t want and afraid of what you could become?
Maybe you aren’t that cool and untouchable.
Maybe you just don’t want everyone to see, how lost inside yourself and your little world you are…
Is the old white guy allowed to say she looked better with more natural hair? Because I don’t believe the curls were natural either, but they were “less processed” than her hair looks now.
Very sad. Sal is lost. Her mom doesn’t even see her and her dad tells her she is not ok just as she is.
Also, having your hair straightened is an ordeal. It stinks, it can sting, and the chemicals are awful. I spent my childhood having this done to my hair because it was like Sal’s.
But… her dad doesn’t have the first idea how she “is”, only how she chose to present herself to him. I think we would need to see more of their relationship to really be able to judge.
So I get why in SAL’s case, this is a result of a messed up psyche. But I don’t think everyone saying “No you should always embrace your natural hairstyle!” is really thinking it through. I like to bleach/highlight my hair sometimes, not because of crippling social anxieties relating to racist standards imposed by culture, but because I like to mess around with my hair. The same can be said of those who perm or even straighten their hair. I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily(tho still possibly) racist for someone to tell her, after she chose to straighten her hair, that it looked nicer that way. So while I’m glad this subplot has pointed this out to me, I’m not thrilled with the generalizations I’m seeing sometimes.
I agree. Sal herself said she preferred it straight, which is all the argument required. I still can’t understand that liking one hairstyle over another is inherently racist. I know full well about the pressures black women have faced to make their hair look “white”, and I know that this is a bad thing. I strongly believe that how a woman keeps her should her own choice, but simple suggestions on an individual level aren’t bad.
Of course, as I’m a white Christian man, I’m probably just being really racist here without knowing.
Her face in the mirror is saying something different. Maybe she’s more conflicted about it that we initially thought. After all, who’d a thunk Sal would throw on that Catholic school uniform to try to please her parents?? You’d never have guessed it from anything she said out loud up to that point…
So Willis, this has nothing to do with today’s comic but, are you planning on keeping the same main characters throught dumbing of age? Or do you ever plan to add new, original characters?
This is such a sad scene! And yet, the sadness of it feels undercut by the fact that, when I read Sal’s speech bubbles, I hear in my head Bunnie Rabbot from the 1993 Sonic the Hedgehog Cartoon, Rogue from the 1993 X-Men cartoon, and Applejack from the 2010 My Little Pony cartoon … all at once.
I am a red head of Irish Scots descent. My hair is wavy not curly. But it is a very determined wavy. Bangs go crazy. Pixie cuts wave off in 50 directions.
I wear my hair the way I like it. Which is down the middle of my back. Besides the longer it gets, the less wavy and easier to take care of.
At 12, I went to the barbershop with my 9 year old brother and paid for him to get his haircut, then I used my allowance to get my hair cut just like his. My parents were furious. It had hung to my waist. and it was the biggest pita to care for. So I had it cut off. Best summer of my memory :), I like it short then.
I didn’t really care then what I was ‘supposed’ to look like, and I don’t think Sal does either.
I think that wearing her hair straight is the way Sal wants it. She has not been ‘home’ in years and arrived with it straight. Her hair got ‘scared curly’ in the strip with Jason, and was depicted as being an involuntary thing.
Sal did not ‘chose’ to put her hair curly, ‘it just happened’.
I do not like her with curly hair. I like long hair and she is the only female (of any color) in this strip that has long hair and it makes her unique. All of the females in this strip have pretty similar haircuts and none of them are all that different and none much past the top of the shoulder. Except Sarah who always has hers in a pony tail.
So, if she is wearing her hair long ‘because it’s how A’m supposed to look’, why was this never addressed before, it just doesn’t seem to me to fit Sal’s persona.
She smokes, rides a cycle, enters buildings thru windows, and now all a sudden she’s gonna wear her hair like OTHER people want it to be??
I just can’t buy that. Sure I could be wrong. But, I just think Sal will wear her hair the way she wants to and everyone else be damned.
The subject has already been brought up. I think you forgot the comment her Father made about her Hair (which was the ONLY thing he talked about with his estranged daughter).
Yes Sal is independant but she has issues with her familly and she tries , at least occasionally, to please her parents by submiting to their wishes.
It was obvious when she wore her Catholic School uniform in front of them.
It is less obvious right now, but still what she said is “How I’m SUPPOSED” to lookk . Not “How I WANT / LIKE to look”. And my interretation of the last panel is that she’s wondering wether she’s only doing this because that’s what her father wants. Which reminds her of the hard fact that she still got let down by her parents (Yes, she is also at fault for immediatly weaseling out of it, but , as I used, this familly has Issues.)
In conclusion; I am dubious about her trying to conform to a racist standard in society, but she’s definitely still trying to figure herself and how to deal with her familly’s history.
‘This is what I’m supposed to look like’ is pretty much exactly what pops into my own head every time I look at my just-cut hair after an overdue hairdresser’s appointment. To me it’s a good thing: I look the way I want to look, the way I like to see myself, my hair back in the state it should be in. And I’m a white woman who doesn’t do anything special to said hair. But it could well be different to Sal of course.
Even setting aside the potential racial undertones of getting her hair straightened, she seems to be coming to the realization that she gets it done that way, not because of reasons of her own choosing (comfort, ease of care, fits under a helmet), but because it’s The Way Things Are Supposed To Be.
This whole thing with Sal’s hair is kind of weird for me, because I think she looks better with curly hair… but I’ve been reading since early in It’s Walky!, thirteen years or more, and Sal has always had long, straight hair, to the point that it’s her primary identifying trait, without any indication that it was anything but natural, even when, e.g., zapped by giant electricity monsters. So I think she looks better with curly hair, but she doesn’t look like Sal. It’s like if Joyce’s big blue eyes were revealed to be colored contacts or Mike’s bangs started complying with three-dimensional geometry.
I’m uncertain if this is supposed to imply that sort of thing for the Walkyverse too vs just the DoA-verse. If it is multiversal there’s the issue that her hair stayed straight in all sorts of situations, including her runaway phase before she met Jason, that this implies should have been impossible
John, as someone who’s also been reading Roomie’s and It’s Walky for years, Sal’s long, straight hair, always baffled me. It’s very very very rare for a mixed person (like myself) to not have curly hair. I always assumed she got it chemically straightened.
I dunno, I’m pretty much a new reader of Willisverse. But I already read previous Walkyverse comics and even when I saw Sal with straight hair I still like her curly hair more. It seems like in a lot of manga and comic curly haired women tend to be side characters 🙁
I didn’t understand the comic until I read the comments. I didn’t realize how much pressure there was to have the “right style” of hair. I thought she just liked it straight. You learn something new every day.
Now Sal’s wearing gloves again, and we never got to see her right hand. That reinforces my suspicion that she is hiding something…Another tattoo, perhaps? One that she’s not proud of? She practically made a point of keeping that hand behind her back when she was with her parents. I guess they don’t know she’s inked, so she had to weasel out. She does not want them to learn about her because she’d rather be a non-entity than a disappointment. Yet another superficial thing keeping her away from her family, and making me sad :/
Am I the only one who’s mind is kinda blown?
I’d assumed Walky & Sal were Hispanic. ie naturally straight/wavy hair
But it was largely because their hair was never addressed this way.
Guess that is what I get for not really paying attention all these years.
Some Hispanic people have very curly/kinky hair. Depends on the genetic mix. My mom’s side is pretty much half Indigenous/ half European and one of my aunts has a halfro. My hair is pretty curly as well. Apparently our Spanish ancestry has some Norther African mixed in somewhere.
It has come up before that. I believe when Walky gets a haircut in IW he mentions that he doesn’t want curly hair like his dad (which takes on a lot more meaning now), and I think there was also a self-depricating comment Walky made about how he’s a “black dude with no dancing ability”, or something like that. But yeah, in a storyline about saving the world their racial origins weren’t discussed that often.
I don’t think her father’s preference for her wearing her hair straight is an embrace of Eurocentric cultural norms so much as it is yet another way he’s telling her to be more like Walky. I don’t mean to minimize the cultural significance of “good hair,” but sometimes we need to remember that the personal trumps the sociological in stories like this.
Personally I liked her old hairstyle (seeing it that way for years, I suppose I’m used to it), but since it’s clear that this iteration of Sal isn’t happy with it, I expect it to be gone for good soon, and that’s for the best — she should wear her hair however it makes her feel most happy.
Might even be interesting to see her experimenting with several new styles over the next few months as she tries to figure out what *she* wants, as opposed to what daddy wants.
edit — I meant to write that “we need to remember that sometimes the personal trumps the sociological in stories like this.” Changing the location of that adverb changes the meaning of the sentence rather significantly.
For the record: my opinion on Sal’s hair has nothing to do with her race, I never even think about her race. I just think long straight hair looks pretty and curly hair does not. I don’t even like it when my own hair curls. I’d never go up to someone in real life and tell them their natural hair was ugly. Get a bad perm and you’ll hear about it though.
As someone who has curls and whose family has constantly told me that I’d look so much prettier with straight hair… this is really frustrating. WHY is straight hair prettier than curly hair? Why do YOU think this way? We as a society/culture have a very narrow standard of beauty.
Or else your family does. Mine thinks my curly hair is amazing. We’ve nicknamed it the white girl fro. You just need to find the right haircut and then everyone’ll go “Oh my god, I wish I had natural curls!”
I think your family is an anomaly. Think of how the majority of famous women usually have straight hair. Think of how this issue was very subtly addressed in Brave, with Merida’s mom insisting on trying to tame Merida’s hair.
First I wonder which grav I’m going to get with this comment and if it will work with what I will say.
Second I’m black with natural hair and my mother is a cosmetologist (hairstylist) I was raised in the salon. What was said about black people and conforming their natural hair to appear to have “good hair” has been said and I don’t need to add any more to it except the joy that acceptance in the natural look is slowly growing.
But my first thought was the method in which Sal is getting her hair straightened. If it’s a relaxer then holy crap that’s a lot of chemicals being pressed into her hair, they would need to double team her to get it in and out before it’s over processed with all of that hair.
I highly doubt she would press it out given how unless she ritualistically flat irons it the curl would be back rather quickly.
I won’t say that I like it that an ethnic person did her hair but from what I’ve seen it seems to be a trend not many hairstylists today can do hair of different ethnicity, often times treating them all the same which is a big no no.
I’ve long learned that it doesn’t matter as long as you did it for you and you’re happy with it.
This is what being raised in a hair salon does to you. You look into the method not the reason.
I thought it was a Brazilian blow out sort of thing. We did that with mine and it worked fabulously. Keeps for several months, too. Expensive, though. I prefer going curly now…
From what I can tell, her damily has naturally curly hair. She does as well. She let it return to curliness for her family.
She straightens it as a way to seperate herself from her family.
But she doesn’t want to be an outcast from them.
Great, after HOW many years of Sal having luxurious glorious flowing long straight hair, now we’re all supposed to feel racist and guilty about it? What’s up with that??
Who says you should feel guilty? Unless you’re throwing around words that suggest her natural hair state looks ‘unruly’ or ‘unkept’ I don’t think anyone cares if you prefer it straight or curly.
No. You’re not supposed to feel racist and guilty because of this, however you are supposed to understand the effects of the culturally imposed aesthetic on her self identity and how that impacts her self image since that seems like it’ll be an acknowledged part of her characterization moving forward.
And the culturally imposed esthetic is that we evil white men have made natural black hair ‘bad’ with our evil racist dislike of it, and that we have done that so hard that it has been internalized by black culture, and now we find that Sal only does her hair like this because of external cultural pressure, and not because she actually likes this way.
Or to summarize: Sal does her hair in a way that makes her unhappy, and she only does it because of racist bastards that prefer that look. And since I happen to prefer her hair in this style, guess what that makes me?
“we evil white men”… no. It’s not about you. It’s not about white people’s feelings, even though the situation exists because of the actions of white people. It’s about how black people are affected by current, still racist, attitudes held by society, and frankly, if you’re throwing out that “but why am I supposed to feel guilty?” you don’t get it. You aren’t supposed to feel anything, you are supposed to actually take that information and you know, learn. Learn how your actions and words can affect the world and take that knowledge forward into life with you.
I find it highly unlikely that this comic wasn’t meant to inspire feelings.
And I’m supposed to learn…to like Sal in her poofy hairstyle better. Right? That’s it, right?
Sorry, but poofy hair Sal doesn’t look like Sal to me; she looks like a kerchiefless Sarah. (And yes, I know that that’s ignoring numerous other differences, but hair is a HUGE definer of character appearance, particularly in comics/cartoons.) So straight-hair Sal looks like Sal, and poofy-hair Sal looks like somebody played mix-and-match with character parts. It don’t click for me.
Which means I’m the oppressor, apparently.
And as for my actions and words, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to learn – I’ve long since learned that commenting in any way on any (real) woman’s hairstyle invites DEATH. Doesn’t that cover everything?
I will admit that there are a number of webcomic creators who have a problem with making characters look apart from one another that we actually have to rely on certain visual keys to tell who is whom. Here the case isn’t so bad with this applying to only a few
But I had read one that was rather hyped up. The only way to tell the ethnic characters apart from the others was simply because the comic was in color or they had the Asian eyes. When the comic didn’t have colored pages it was impossible to tell anyone apart.
But her hair is just iconic for her character. Not that you’ll get Sarah just because its in afro.
It makes you a belligerent precious asshole, if your response to “this behavior is harming me, please consider your actions” is to put on a defensive show about how you’re an “evil white man.” ‘Cuz frankly, that’s just you stepping into the role you pretend to shun.
1) Dismiss the possibility of race being an issue, and carelessly ignore the fact that Sal seems to unhappy with the hair-role forced upon her by society.
2) Accept that race is an issue and examine where I fall in that discussion. Where I fall is that I prefer who Sal looks with straight hair. I have little control over my preferences. And given that fact, I can:
2a) Accept that I am part of the (theoretical) crowd that is pressuring her to adopt a look that she’s (apparently) not happy with. (The theoretical part is that I’m not in her universe, and thus may not effect her much.) The reason for my having that opinion is irrelevant – nobody cares why fundies oppose gay marriage. The long and short is that I’m part of the problem. The race problem.
2b) Dismiss the possibility of race being an issue, and carelessly ignore the fact that Sal seems to unhappy with the hair-role forced upon her by society.
I don’t like being part of the problem. My usual reaction to being part of the problem is to stifle my problematic opinions and not act on them. Usually to the point of not mentioning them – but I don’t think Sal can hear me in there, so I’m chafing openly a little. I like Sal’s classic hair. And that suddenly makes me the bad guy.
Why – when people repeatedly tell you that no, you’re not supposed to feel racist and guilty, you’re not evil, you’re not an oppressor, you can like her hair whatever damn way you want – do you insist on feeling accused?
The correct option is 2c): Accept that your preference, in itself, does not affect Sal’s feelings or hairstyle at all, and would not do so even if she were real.
The racial issue here is apparently a pretty big deal, one that I was blissfully unaware of. Now I know. I’m glad I learned something, and I’m glad that there’s now some extra subtext for me to read into this strip. End of story. Being guilty or being part of any problem has nothing to do with it.
Empathy sucks and then you die. 2c is not an option because when I know Sal doesn’t like her hairstyle, I can’t like it either. So I don’t like any of her hairstyles anymore.
My only solace is that I know one thing: my opinions don’t matter at all. She’s not effected, and since I don’t act on them (since they don’t matter), nobody in real life is effected either.
(Unless I chafe openly, in which case I annoy others like I’m doing now.)
I like her straight hair. Her not liking it doesn’t change that. It’s a subjective, aesthetic opinion, not a logical argument based on any facts. And now I know that if I could actually talk to her right now, telling her that her hair looks great, even if it’s a compliment, could make her sad(der). This isn’t a problem; I can like her hair without telling her I do.
Yeah, it is a little strange. Especially when there’s been attention drawn specifically to how great her hair was (if you recall Joyce saying how much she wanted to brush it, etc.), and it only changed as part of a gag. Now all of a sudden it’s a super serious racism issue.
The idea that race issues only exist as over-the-top villainy, rather than also existing as several small things which manifest in other more subtler ways, is one of the more insidious impediments to combating racism. Pretending race issues are only the former and not the latter is a way to protect ourselves from having to address it.
So, yes, Sal’s hair can go POOF one day in a visual gag and it can still be the catalyst for issues of race — because race isn’t only ever some dorks in white hoods gerrymandering the voting districts. It’s also programmed into the language in which we speak and the subliminal reactions we have to things.
And so when you point out the smaller, subliminal things, folks go OH HEY WHAT racism is this super serious issue, I’m not David Duke, for god’s sake, and learning shuts down. Because, again, we tell ourselves racism is only the big things, to protect ourselves.
Anyway, I say fuck that. I will write about the smaller race things because they are more important to confront. Everyone fucking agrees you shouldn’t burn crosses or use the N-word. Where’s the courage in that? It points outward, towards cartoonish villains, instead of inward, where problems still need to be solved.
(I’m not sure you’ll even see this, but here goes).
I want to start by saying I am a U.S. citizen, no accent with maybe a slightly Southern twang on some words. That’s it. I grew up most of my life in Florida. I’m also pretty brown.
….Thank you. I just want to thank you. No one knows why I get mad when people ask, “Where are you from?” If I’m outside work, I’ll say “Clearwater”, but if they press for more then I’ll firmly but poilitely say it’s private information. And strangers do get mad for that.
Of course I don’t say that when I’m at work, where it happens the most. I’ll usually make up an answer or say “I wouldn’t know sir, I’m adopted.” Can’t risk making a customer mad if I intended to or not.
The point? I feel offended when they ask these questions not because they want to know if I also grew up where there’s theme parks and beaches, but because of how I look. It’s a personal question to me otherwise to ask, “Oh, so where are your parents from?” “Where are your grandparents from?” “WHY AREN’T YOU WHITE?”
Because I don’t look like a U.S. citizen, despite being a mixed race and growing up here my whole life. My culture is not where my grandparents left when they were kids, it’s here just like you. Why is being brown make me an inferior citizen?
…Phew. Sorry. Just reading through the archieves and…this hit the nail on the head for me.
Oh, I should mention I was born in Chicago, but with a brother that was born in Germany, I don’t take birthplace too much account of who you are. I mean, my brother is as American as Mountain Dew.
I was wondering about the method too. I’ve never known anyone with that length of hair that wasn’t natural, so I was wondering how a relaxer works LOL.
Maybe she just has soft curls and a good blow dry/roller wrap is all she needs!
I do not understand why people want this comic (and apparently all books, tv shows, and movies) to be written as though race and racism do not exist. I do not understand why people talk as though if race is *an aspect* of Sal’s situation, it is no longer a “personal” problem with which we can sympathize. No one is saying that Amber’s problem with her father is not “personal,” despite the fact that gender is clearly *an aspect* of the horrible domestic violence she and her mother experienced with Blaine. What is all this either/or thinking? And if you can “relate” to characters who are not exactly like you in every way, why can’t you just try to imagine the world from Sal’s perspective instead of insisting that she act like she never has experiences with racial implications?
Racism is not only a thing when somebody is burning a cross or using the n-word. Sometimes racism can just be thinking and acting like white people’s experiences and worldviews are the norm (or should be).
What? I’d like to hear the explanation for why gender is a factor at all in Amber and her mother’s abuse situation. You do realize that a roughly equal amount of men and women are abusers, right?
I am torn between deleting this for being obnoxiously assholeish and keeping you around to ask you how you arrived at this insane conclusion. I’m flipping through strips with Sal in them and I have absolutely no idea what the fuck you’re on about.
It could be a comment on how some other artists draw long straight hair? I have, in the past, noticed that some artists forget to factor in the head’s shape under all that hair.
If dimble were talking about “some other artists,” maybe dimble shouldn’t shouldn’t be talking about how “when HE draws it this way.” Clearly talking about me rather than some hypothetical other dudes.
Still trying to figure this one out. I pencil the same headshape under Sal’s inks regardless of what her hair looks like. I only freehand characters when I’m doodling in people’s books and convention sketches.
This is me anytime I straighten my hair with a straightening iron… I am full on hispanic, both parents from Colombia, but I was born and raised in the US. My hair is naturally curly, sometimes frizzy, and very very thick. I prefer my hair straight, but it wasn’t until I saw this comic strip that I thought about how much of my preference is actually mine and not determined by others. When I’m honest, I prefer my hair straight because other people like it, it doesn’t look or feel messy, and I get more compliments about my hair than when it is curly and thick. Basically, I know your feels Sal.
Wow! Sal’s haircut gets nearly as much love as Danny! 😀
I mean, people, heyyyyy.
This is obviously foreshadowing of character development, but like all good foreshadowing, I think it’s a bit early to say of what exactly…
Sal realize that taming her hair was a symbol of repressing her “good girl” side that she can’t keep all the time?
Or that she is not the rebel she thinks she is if she thinks her hair are “supposed” to look something?
Or she is thinking about Jason and their love/hate relationship?
Or she is having second thought about rebelling altogether, and she would like to be a “good girl”?
At the moment, imho it’s just some generic foreshadowing! Keep cool^^
Damned Willis can bring anything out of it 😀
Yeah, her own FAMILY likes her hair better straight. So…um…maybe it’s not a race thing, it’s a family thing after all? It doesn’t actually distance her from them, it pleases them. Her dad, anyway.
Her family can be racist. Yes, they’re a mixed-race family. That doesn’t help. Her dad is parroting the current beauty standards in the west, which are fairly racist.
Internalized racism is a thing. So, yea, forcing/strongly preferring their daughter to uphold Eurocentric beauty ideals (like bone-straight hair) is racist at worst, extremely suspect at best.
Oh sweetie. Those are not the words of someone who loves their hair. 🙁
For the record, I’m black and I currently love my super curly, super nappy hair. It would right now break my heart to chemically straighten it because it would be like taking away something that makes me unique. I can straighten my hair like everyone else, but the way my tiny curls spiral and frame my face is just so… ME.
When I occasionally (maaaybe once a year) straighten my hair with heat, I get comments like “Wow, I didn’t know your hair was so long! Where was that hiding? You look so nice!” I smile with them, but at the same time, I’m thinking about how I look like everyone else and can’t wait to be allowed to make humidity my friend again, get rid of that “burnt hair” smell, wash my hair and bring back all that is cute and curly.
But I did not always feel this way and I sure as heck can empathize.
I went natural years ago. I had to take to hiding my old pics from when I used to straighten my hair, because there would be an endless barrage of “omg you look sooo much better with straight hair!” I know they mean well, but the Unfortunate Implications do not sit well with me.
I know I’m blowing up the comment page tonight, but work has me up late and I’m thinking far too much. =/
Sal is sad she doesn’t have a cast page showing how she’s supposed to look? Does she feel being mysterious motorcycle girl who later got a big reveal wasn’t worth it? Damn you Willis, even Sal getting her hair done is a cliffhanger!
The conversation I had with various people on this site about black culture and hair straightening very much changed my perception of this comic. I just wanted to thank everybody for that.
If I don’t shave my facial hair off or groom it a certain way then I’ll get remarks on it, have a harder time getting a job, and so on. Actually, the same is true if I grow my hair out. You’d be surprised how obnoxious my own family could be for years because I grew my hair out.
This actually doesn’t so much seem to be a racial phenomenon to me so much as a general societal issue. Expectations. They’re stupid. It doesn’t matter who it is, just hurry up and do what everyone is told they want. *shrug*
People should be who they want to be but as long as societal pressure exists things like this will happen.
” For example, a “no-beard” employment policy that applies to all workers without regard to race may still be unlawful if it is not job-related and has a negative impact on the employment of African-American men (who have a predisposition to a skin condition that causes severe shaving bumps).” – http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/race_color.cfm
” “They were questioning me why I look the way I look,” said Mr Edhi who has a long beard and always wears traditional Pakistani dress along with a traditional cap.” – http://dawn.com/news/286929/edhi-faces-deportation
Bearded people are being harassed and discriminated, and many times it’s got to do with their race or culture, not just because they looked like a hobo.
While I do not dispute the objection you are raising, I question whether the path to alleviating ignorance and fostering understanding should include referring to those you wish to enlighten as scumbag idiots.
You’re right, but frankly, I doubt if he’s going to be back to see the responses to his racist comment. And even more frankly, there are some things that people say that I just feel the need to be blunt and unforgiving about.
Sometimes, a stern swat with the newspaper is enough and the person can take some initiative and be open for constructive dialogue– or better yet, educate themselves.
At some point you have to pick your battles; you’ll tire yourself otherwise. From the wording of their comments (and their history of horrible comments), something it telling me not to bother.
Yes. They seem to be trying to make a point about not letting societal expectations control you without realizing those additional implications and the insensitivity of the statement. I see ignorance in that statement, not malice.
I could be mistaken, but it seems like a situation where the error could be addressed and the mistake realized. I don’t understand how hostility beyond making it clear why offense has been taken is helpful in achieving that understanding.
I feel this way because I know I’m resistant to listening to good points made with insults thrown in due to feeling insulted, and I’ve observed others reacting similarly. I try to keep this in mind and listen to such good points anyway, but this is in spite of not wanting to. I expect others to have the same issue, and therefore expect insulting an individual as counterproductive to changing their mind.
Dan, I love your comic, but I owe that racist asshole nothing. He chooses willful ignorance and as A-A-A-Albi has pointed out, has a history of nasty comments.
He’s had years of life to educate himself, and he’s refused to. His false equivalence is insulting to everyone.
All he deserves is a metaphorical slap in the face over that.
To be honest, I missed the part about a history of comments. I have not seen those, and perhaps they do illustrate that trying to convince this person of certain things is fruitless.
In general, however, I stand by my assertion that, if your objective is to convince someone of something, insulting them is generally not the best way to go about it. If your objective *is* to insult a person, however, then my suggestion of not insulting people is naturally not going to help with the success of that objective.
Having long hair or a certain style of facial hair isn’t ‘dirty’. Nor did I say anything about different race’s hair being dirty. Nor did I compare it to the long list of things Totz mentioned. People sure like to interpret things as negatively as possible.
What I said is if I have my hair a certain way- or were to paint my nails or something- I have my chances of employment and so on go down. Because it is frowned upon by society for little to no reason. I was equating what happens with this ‘good hair’ (Yes I agree that is ridiculous) thing to that sort of societal thing rather than necessarily being about race.
Think of it this way, I’m not willing to believe people are that stupidly racist, rather I think society enforces a narrow sort of ‘professional’ look no matter who you are and that that itself needs to change.
You guys shouldn’t be so quick to judge perhaps. I appreciate that Dan at least can act with some tact rather than jumping to being nasty. Thanks man.
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I sense feelings coming.
Where’s Mrs Warner when you need her?
Behind the door, waiting to pounce-and-hug.
It’s beginning to creep Dina out. She still hasn’t been able to shake Faz, so he’s back there as well.
I think she’s trying to get Sarah again
It just occurred to me, my doctor’s name is Warner. She is also a very nice lady with brown hair.
She is real!
Coming? They have ARRIVED.
It’s 2013, the word is “Feels”.
– Ethan
Well, whatever it is…I can’t stop feeling it.
To me, I will only use feels in sentences similar to these:
“Cat’s tongues sure feels funny”.
“This feels wrong somehow”
I can feels my banjo in my teeth!
Weeeeeeeird…
I think it’s the E-flat…
I like eels
Except at meals
And the way they feels.
I have eels in my hovercraft.
Please send a concierge, there is a frog in my bidet.
* Cat’s tongues sure FEEL funny.
Ahem.
^This is creepy because it implies a single cat has multiple tongues.
“Whatever it is, I like it.”
– Batman
I sense multiple feels. However, not all of them have arrived yet. Their shape is enigmatic.
I thought she was worried about the bill she is about to get for working on all that hair.
Coming? They’re here.
BLOODY MARRY. BLOODY MARRY. BLOODY MARRY
And when she gets back to the dorm the communal TV is found to be possessed, subsequently everyone dies and the campus becomes known as Silent Hill
Mary would only make things worse.
Mustakrakish
Mustakrakish
AWAKEN AWAKEN AWAKEN AWAKEN
CANDYMAN! CANDYMAN! CANDYMAN!
Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice!
Ohwa Taygoo Siam
Klatoo Barada Weenum.
IA! IA! CTHULU FTAGHN!
Kltpzyxm!
Ba weep grahnah weep ni-ni-bon.
At least no one said Candlej
What a nice guy, that CJ fellow, posted the comment after abducting Jenny Creed.
Ooga-chaka ooga ooga!
Number nine
Number nine
Number nine
Hoona Igna Chowa Neha!
Did you know, if you say Pumpkin Spice Latte three times in a mirror, a white woman in yoga pants will appear and tell you everything she loves about fall.
(not mine but I don’t know who coined it)
Wingardium Leviosa….. I believe that is what we are doing >.>
Lete Latobarita Urus, Aliaros Bal Netoreel
BeetlejuiceBeetlejuiceBeetlejuics! I sent him away.
BLOODY TRIAL SEPARATION, BLOODY DIVORCE, BLOODY ALIMONY, BLOODY BIGAMY SUIT
Gah. Where’s that gorgeous fro I fell in love with? You’re not the woman I fanfic-married!
She used to be so Beautifro.
*groans and applauds*
“Beautifro” is a registered trademark & copyrighted ‘super hero’ of the Johnson Products Company & George Ellis Johnson, Sr.
“Beautifro” is the super hero dat kicks yo’ black ass right outta dem dreads & makes you use Afro Sheen (under threat of laser eyeballs from her super powers) until you wise-up and see the difference fo yo’ own damn self!
She plays a mean upright bass too, in her spare time & they gave her a Grammy just so she wouldn’t laser-eye the theater!!
And don’t even THINK about asking her about her colors without leotards and a cape – “ ‘cause she will fill your lungs with Afro Sheen just for her own entertainment!”
http://bit.ly/1fFT45k
Yaw beautifro. Yaw beautifro.
Yaw beautifro, iiiiit’s true.
@Ivan: My neighbour upstairs has hair pretty much like that depicted in your link but she’s Italian not African.
In my family, it’s called a Jewfro.
Were you in the’fros of passion when you wrote that fanfic?
I’m Batman. And fanfics make me want to ‘fro up.
. . .
I’m Batman.
No, Sal, don’t be sad. D:
Sad? I just see kinda thoughtful.
[yay the mass effect of a few stray pixels]
I see flexing arms in her eyes; she’s obviously pumped up about the new do.
And now I can’t un-see that. Thanks.
Give Sall all the hugs.
I mean, she’ll kick my butt for it, but I can live with that.
Right now…Sal deserves “All” the hugs!
Sall the hugs?
She was sad when she couldn’t get any attention from her parents before (dressed as a school girl).
Dad only asked if she decided to go with the ‘fro again, then it was all (David) Walky.
She wasn’t acting as herself when she tried to get their love, she dressed as the Catholic Schoolgirl they sent her to be after she robbed the convenience stores.
She isn’t sad now, she is seeing herself as she normally is.
she only straightens her hair to please her dad.
I actually like her better with straight hair, but awww. Sad.
Sal’s having a bit of remorse, I see.
I would. Her hair kicked ASS curly.
All she needs is another F from Jason. This could be a regular thing.
Or a D is fine too.
I see what you did there. It was terrible.
I was talking about the grade. What do you think I was talking about?
He could even give her a C. Everyone finds C’s tolerable.
The D. Y’know… The one desired by those of the female persuasion? Said D is usually in my possession.
Oh, THAT D.
Usually? Do you lend it out, or just occasionally misplace it?
Sometimes it goes missing. This happens all the time. It’s detachable.
I’ve been known to–as they say–‘give it’ to any fine young lady that my desire such a D as mine.
You have large breasticals and you give them to women? I am confused.
Remorse over only having her hair straightened now and not years ago. It’s not an uncommon reaction.
I’ll release the tears your troubled upbringing won’t allow you to Sal T_T
STOP MAKING ME FEEL THINGS!!! I CAN’T HANDLE IT RIGHT NOW!!!
Are you secretly…Ultra Magnus then??
I’m secretly Springer. Not in that I’m badass, but in the sense that I claim to be able to jump really high, but never actually do so.
You should go talk to Samurai Jack, he could teach you.
It seems that Sal is, in fact, trying to please her parents by submitting to their ideal picture of her.
She’s gotta compete with THE FAVORITE. Damn you Walky for being so Likeable. And Damn you Walky’s parents for not giving Sal hugs for existing.
Yay, someone actually keeps up!
To be fair, it’s been like 5 weeks since Charles (whose name I totally didn’t remember) told her (and by extension, us) that he liked it long and straight. I’d forgotten myself.
Whooooole pile of issues there. Poor Sal.
Awwww…Sal!
Was the stylist able to find the students her hair devoured?
No Survivors…
And whomever the hair did not consume, the lye dissolved.
She was able to find their skeletons.
Sad Sal looks like she needs hugs
Where the Hell is Mike’s mom when you need her?
Hugging everyone between Amber and Sal.
Sarah is slowing her down.
No Sal. Not you. Don’t YOU make me cry too.
I know that feel bro.
Heart. Broken. I love this woman. Why is her father the one doing this to her??? Where is Amazi-girl when you need her? I hear she’s good with fathers…
Sounds like some Misinformation. I don’t think she’s at ALL good with them.
Good at punching them, way I heard it.
woah, sal actually was going to get her hair done
I kinda liked the big 80s hair. It made her look like a member of Jem’s rival band, The Misfits.
I can’t be the only one who thought the Misfits were the better band.
They were when Danzig was lead.
Things slid downhill after that.
Jem would say that statement is fallacious.
Truly, truly, TRULY fallacious.
That is the look of someone considering a Mohawk.
There is a 0% chance I am incorrect
If anyone could make that work, it’s Sal.
Or Mike. His hair is already prepared for it.
Nope. That kind of broad frontal sweep is like the opposite of a mohawk.
Thus, Mike’s hair would make a good kwahom.
These feels Willis. There are so many of them.
Don’t be sad, Sal, you looked BANANAS with your hair so curly
What’s wrong with you!? She looked just PEACHY the way it was.
“starts singing” I Really Love your Peaches wanna Shake your Tree
ORANGE you glad you straightened it, Sal? Why so MELONcholy?
I think she looks just GRAPE. She’s PLUM attractive.
She really shouldn’t worry so much about her apPEARance.
Gotta agree with Yotomoe here. She’s APPLEasing gal to look at either way, but her natural curls looked incredible. By the expression in the last panel- she seems like this isn’t what she wants for herself, that she’s only doing it to please her parents. Which is sad. She was getting used to having natural hair again, and it’s a shame she’s calling it QUINCE over one sideways comment from her dad.
The way it poofs out in that adorable way (sans scrunchy) is the CHERRY on top.
Yeah, but it didn’t look like it would fit in her motorcycle helmet.
Cue the sad violin.
No, cue the Sad Trombone http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJxCdh1Ps48
No, Sal. You just got your good hair back, don’t ruin it with sad implications.
Goddamn it, why can’t I even enjoy a damned hairstyle without Willis making it depressing. DAMN YOU WILLIS!
By “good” hairstyle you mean “inferior to afros in every way”, right? (Don’t feel bad. All hair kneels before the power of the fro.)
Yeah, fros are awesome. 80’s curl is good too….or so I’ve been told.
….I could maybe get behind Sal having a giant afro.
The term “good hair” is kind of already ruined with sad (and racist) implications.
I’m a bad black person for never having heard this phrase. I have failed my people!
It’s okay, Yotomoe! : )
From what I’ve read about and see on television – it’s probably better that you’re not aware of it. Seems to me as an ‘outsider looking in’ to be more of a social construct than anything real in health or actual beauty care.
From what I’ve lived, growing up in Mississippi and Louisiana, “good hair” affect self esteem, and social dynamics, sending people to beauty shops because nappy hair meant that you were socially or genetically
inferior, except for those surges where natural hair was in.
“Good hair” was a thing before the internet existed and it still is a thing.
[insert smiley expressing sad understanding and appreciation]
:/
Willis, I am an ever-more appreciative fan.
Yeah this whole hair sorta sub-plotlet was kind of unexpected and pretty cool.
See, I can’t even enjoy hair without it being sad and depressing.
You think *you* feel this way, imagine if it was your hair!
My hair does curl, that’s why I buzz it every few months.
Ha!
I’d never heard of this either. Sad stuff, yo.
I know what you mean, Timemonkey. She looks so much better this way, I don’t know why it has to be such a race issue. I know plenty of women of various races who take steps to change their hair from its natural state. To me it’s more of a fashion issue.
It doesn’t bother me when Irish women cover up their freckles with makeup either, but then I’ve grown up around quite a few different cultural groups, so maybe I’m just missing the problem.
Even as a black man, I can’t say. I hate it when people push other lifestyles on me. But I’d also that a good 50% of the women of color I know have straightened hair. I dunno…I guess I’m just not black enough.
(I do hate it when people touch my dreadlocks, though.)
It’s a race issue because historically, black women (and men) who keep their hair in it’s natural state tend to be looked down or mistreated. The pressure to straighten hair to be considered more acceptable or desirable in society is a big deal in the black community.
I mean little girls are being suspended from school for wearing their hair the way it naturally grows of if their heads: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/05/tiana-parker-dreads_n_3873868.html
Wearing your hair in its natural state as a black person could keep you from getting employed:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/05/black-women-natural-hair-at-the-workplace_n_2811056.html
If you want to learn more about this, I highly recommend watching the documentary “Good Hair” by Chris Rock. It’s funny and insightful about the whole issue.
I’m checking out GOOD HAIR on youtube now.
I learnt twoa fewis scarier than using strong bleach, two; hair extentions are a multi-billion dollar business and three; you don’t touch a black woman’s hair even if you are married to her.
I learnt twoa fewis scarier than using strong bleachI learnt a few things from that movie, one; that hair relaxer is scarier than using strong bleachI straightened my hair (which is very much like Sal’s) using Lye once. Never again. It BURNS your scalp if you scratched it before hand. It hurts SO MUCH.
The “Good Hair” comments sting in more ways than one. I love her, but my mom (who’s black) made such a big deal about my hair being “my pride” and that I was so lucky that it wasn’t as kinky as hers. :/
It’s sad when a whole culture is thought your natural hair isn’t beautiful or valuable. Hopefully one day natural black hair won’t be so discouraged… oddly, then it won’t matter how you wear your hair. 🙂
The good, the bad, and the ugly.
Thanks for the link!
“I don’t know why it has to be such a race issue.”
Maybe once naturally-growing black hair isn’t a violation of many schools’ and workplaces’ dress codes, it won’t be. Maybe once having normal black hair isn’t proven to impact your chances of getting a second job interview, it won’t be.
Until then, have fun divorcing issues from their social context and comparing black hair politics to the oppression Irish-Americans face for having freckles. Because that’s a very fair comparison.
If I seem angry, I apologize. My 13-year-old cousin literally got sent home from her private school yesterday morning for having untamed hair.
Appropriate comment AND gravitar ^_^
I approve this message. Thanks, Spiny Creature. And tell your cousin to hang in there.
Sheesh. I know it’s harder for me to get a job with dreadlocks, but I hadn’t experienced anything like that. That’s messed up!
That is 135% unacceptable on the part of the school, and whoever made that decision is a terrible and racist asshole. It’s her fucking hair, her NATURAL hair, and there is nothing wrong with it.
How unfortunate that centuries of an entire people being conditioned to view themselves as inferior to others gets in the way of your personal preferences.
Others have mentioned how awful straightening can be and the ridiculousness that goes along behind it in our society. I’m loving this conversation.
But I did want to point out to anyone who still doesn’t want to see it as an issue that even though there are plenty of women who straighten their hair because they *want* to straighten their hair and even if Sal *does* like her hair better straight, thinking that how you look (or act or just be) as yourself isn’t how you’re *supposed* to look (etc…) is hard on a person. There’s a difference between doing something because it’s how you want to look (my sisters and dad combing their mildly frizzy hair straight after each wash) and doing it because you think there’s something wrong with who you are.
Well, not the awesome “jump out the window, land on the bike and ride to the sunset” that I imagined….but damn ninjas keep bringing in onions.
oh man those sneaky snooks! You can’t see ninjas, so you never know why you’re crying…
Sal, you know what you must do:
Cut it short! Get the short hair, possibly a pixie crop, you were always meant to have!
err, that might actually be “pixie cut”, not crop. So many hairstyle names.
AGH. No, this is not a thing hair with a tight curl pattern and antigrav tendencies wants. There are short cuts which could work with her hair, but trying to maintain a pixie cut as a pixie cut under humid conditions… noooo.
Besides, she already looks enough like her brother that a pixie would definitely not be the way to go. I’d normally be the first to throw a bob out as a possibility, but “Dorothy/Amber, now with melanin!” might just be pushing it a bit far…
The entire cast of the comic is going to slowly normalize into exact clones of the Dorothy/Amber collective.
Joe will take the longest to get there.
Poor Joe!
That is why she needs to buzz it down to like 1/2 in or so. That would be so perf <3
This is one of the saddest comics to date. Poor Sal.
Yeah. That hair is like a big, huge, wild, soft fuzzy part of her that no one wants, including her. As far as she knows, anyway. It’s like, I don’t know, if you were not allowed to use half the words you know when speaking because people look at you like some kind of monster if you do. (Sal’s hair probably makes up 50% of her by volume.) And you know you could just ignore them if you were more brave and sure of yourself.
Hello darkness, my old friend…
I’ve come to speak to you again
Beneath the halo of a street lamp, I turn my collar on the cold and damp.
Modern version
Beneath this halo of floressence, as I resist the tide of my feels.
Because a vision softly creeping left it’s seeds while I was sleeping
OK, my OCD side needs me to provide the correct lyrics.
Hello darkness, my old friend,
I’ve come to talk with you again
because a vision softly creeping
left its seeds while I was sleeping
….
‘Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence
Sup Dale!
Aw Sal, it’s all good, really it is.
Welcome back, Sal. I’ll play your favorite song in celebration.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJO3ROT-A4E
WHY DID I CLICK THAT
Whatever do you mean? That song coming on the store radio is one of the (potential) highlights of my workday.
WHAT IS IT? I’m afraid to click on random links…after Kikia.
One Direction, I saw the band name and closed the link.
Thanks man. The last thing I need is One Direction.
Need more than one direction? I suggest Yahoo! Maps
Nah, just point me where the sun sets and I’m a happy camper.
I should kill you were you stand!
What is it, Yotomoe? TELL ME WHAT IT IS!….please.
Yotomoe is actually me. He doesn’t know how to tell you.
Yotomoe’s on Team Curly, which rules….
…Team Straight drools.
WHY WOULD YOU LINK PEOPLE TO THAT!
Please. It was confirmed by David Willis on his tumblr.
Your joke is bad. And you should feel bad!
Haha, first time in my life gema saved me.
So does anyone else think that song sounds ridiculously similar to Hit Me with Your Best Shot? Well, at least one other person does, since a local radio station played them back-to-back a few weeks ago, but I meant anyone here.
Gugh.
Why must the sad touch everything.
I like the wavy look in the panel one….
Ugh, all the people here missing the actual motivation behind her hair.
In short, likely a vast majority of the people she’s met when she had curly hair told her how much better it looked straight. It’s a subtle form of racism where women are taught that being attractive is the most important thing in the world and then black women are told that the only way to be attractive is to not be black.
+1
its a combination of this and her needing to conform to anybody’s rules because she’s the unfavourite and she can never match up
Glad *someone* said it, yeesh. I clicked on the comments expecting like a flood of Ethnic Studies 101 comments. But yeah, she’s totally feeling bad about trying to remove anything that would disqualify her from seeming “white.”
I missed it at first because it was her (black) father who told her she looked better with straight hair, but yeah, definitely a subtly racist judgment.
It’s worth noting that her father is half black. Being biracial can be more complicated than simply being of a minority race. You may identify more strongly with one side, or equally with both sides, or with neither. But you will be periodically forced to choose one or the other, because CHECK ONLY ONE BOX. You will inevitably be judged by people of both races, and will likely be found not-whatever-enough by both.
One of the few things we know about Charles Walkerton is that he married a white woman. A reasonable hypothesis is that he identifies more strongly with white people, and is somewhat uncomfortable with his black side. Though that’s just a hypothesis that happens to fit the facts we have.
In any event, being biracial comes with a set of issues, and being black-white biracial in the US is especially hard. So it’s understandable that Charles might be a little conflicted. It’s also understandable, but very unfortunate, that he might consciously or unconsciously apply his biases to his daughter.
I thought he was fully black and that Walky & Sal were half & half…
Anyway, I just mean that I missed the subtext at first, but realized it later and was highly disappointed by Charles’ comments and the racism inherent in it.
+50
“Ugh, all the people here missing the actual motivation behind her hair.”
Um, how about no? Thing is we had this discussion about “good hair” and “natural hair” in depth 5 weeks ago when her father said he liked it better straight. Just because we aren’t rushing to rehash it again *today* doesn’t mean we’re a bunch race-insensitive bigots who are too impressed with our white privilege to consider race, class, and context.
I used not to know there was an issue about natural/straightened hair for black persons.
Willis, could you please confirm your original intent to us ?
Is Sal feeling sad only because she’s realised she’s still unconsciously submiting to her
neglecting parents wishes (specifically here, her father) ?
Or is she ALSO feeling ashamed for conforming herself to racist stereotypes about hair ?
Thanks.
It’s probably a bit of both.
Or maybe she just likes it straight? Just saying.
One thing I have noticed is women are NEVER happy with their hair. If it is straight they want it curly, if it is curly they want it straight. They never like whatever colour nature gave them, and whatever length it is, they want it changed. For example, my daughter is 22, and I have forgotten what colour her hair is, she changes it so often.
Well, if we are going to discuss various forms of “invisible” privilege again, here’s a good jumping point. For white people, the question of “what do I do to my hair” may be an entirely cosmetic and superficial one without regards to racial matters. A white guy (apart from any job, uniform, or social class requirements) can do whatever he feels like with his hair, because no matter what he does, he is still a white guy, and therefore at the top of the social pecking order, answerable to no one besides other white guys.
A white woman, can do anything she wants with her hair, to an extent. Straight or curly, natural color or not–these do not matter, because she is white and therefor at the top of the current racial social order. However, there are standards she is pressured to conform to depending on what the males of her social circle prefer. These include length and styling, as well as requirements for grooming the hair that is not on top of her head. Roborat’s daughter is most likely weighing these requirements–not necessarily consciously–each time she chooses a new hair configuration.
For a non-white woman, she has all of the concerns that a white woman has, and on top of that she has to balance the conflicting pressure that she could be getting from all the communities that she belongs to (or wants to belong to) telling her to either be more white or more true to her ancestry.
It’s a real mess, and most white guys just have no idea (and some wouldn’t care even if they did).
My daughter is one of the most self confident and independant person I know. She picks her hair style and colour because it’s what she wants to do, and is a look she wants at that time, not because of any societal pressure to conform.
Nevermind everything that is kinda sexist going on there. Systemic misogyny has a lot to do with my women are so fixated on stuff like their hair and its potential/perceived flaws. This is a much bigger deal for black/ biracial women, of course, but it affects all women to some extent.
Just saying if you think “all” women are unhappy with their hair you could give some thought as to why that might be? (except like basically every women I know like their hair just fine so it might be that you r observations are hella flawed in that regard. just a thought!)
Aw man, I guess that means my friends aren’t actually female, seeing as they’re perfectly comfortable with their natural hair!
…Or it means you just made a huge generalization with no real basis. Either one.
Of course it is a generalization; a generalization based on decades of experience. You experience may vary. I was just trying to provide a counterpoint to the posts equating hair preference to racism.
… =(
Well, Sal, looks like this isn’t yourself. Maybe it’s just another try to rebel against your parents?
Do you realy know what you want and who you are or do you only know, what you don’t want and afraid of what you could become?
Maybe you aren’t that cool and untouchable.
Maybe you just don’t want everyone to see, how lost inside yourself and your little world you are…
What are you talking about?
D:>
EMBRACE YOUR NATURAL NAPPY HAIR SAL
Don’t let eurocentric beauty standards get you down! 🙁
Over here in Oz, nappy = diaper.
In England too, Plas. Was the source of much bemusement when the Don Imus scandal broke.
BTW, what is this government shutdown I’m been hearing buzz about?
U.S. Congress fighting over Obamacare, basically. Senate wants it, house doesn’t.
I’m with the people who say just shave off their pay every day the government is out and put it to the deficit.
I hope you mean the house and senate’s pay. Cause they are about the only Fed employees who can count on getting paid during this cockup.
Republicans hated Obamacare so much they accidentally broke the whole government.
Hate is truly the most powerful force in the universe.
Not an accident. They have been threatening the shutdown for a while.
I wonder how many will be voted back in office when the time comes?
Is the old white guy allowed to say she looked better with more natural hair? Because I don’t believe the curls were natural either, but they were “less processed” than her hair looks now.
Very sad. Sal is lost. Her mom doesn’t even see her and her dad tells her she is not ok just as she is.
Also, having your hair straightened is an ordeal. It stinks, it can sting, and the chemicals are awful. I spent my childhood having this done to my hair because it was like Sal’s.
But… her dad doesn’t have the first idea how she “is”, only how she chose to present herself to him. I think we would need to see more of their relationship to really be able to judge.
So I get why in SAL’s case, this is a result of a messed up psyche. But I don’t think everyone saying “No you should always embrace your natural hairstyle!” is really thinking it through. I like to bleach/highlight my hair sometimes, not because of crippling social anxieties relating to racist standards imposed by culture, but because I like to mess around with my hair. The same can be said of those who perm or even straighten their hair. I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily(tho still possibly) racist for someone to tell her, after she chose to straighten her hair, that it looked nicer that way. So while I’m glad this subplot has pointed this out to me, I’m not thrilled with the generalizations I’m seeing sometimes.
Not always but sometimes. Keep in mind that the social anxieties you brought up may be part of the equation for some.
I agree. Sal herself said she preferred it straight, which is all the argument required. I still can’t understand that liking one hairstyle over another is inherently racist. I know full well about the pressures black women have faced to make their hair look “white”, and I know that this is a bad thing. I strongly believe that how a woman keeps her should her own choice, but simple suggestions on an individual level aren’t bad.
Of course, as I’m a white Christian man, I’m probably just being really racist here without knowing.
Her face in the mirror is saying something different. Maybe she’s more conflicted about it that we initially thought. After all, who’d a thunk Sal would throw on that Catholic school uniform to try to please her parents?? You’d never have guessed it from anything she said out loud up to that point…
To be fair, even in the original Walkyverse context, Sal has never been good at communicating her own feelings about basically anything.
Oh.
She actually DID have a hair appointment. 😛
So Willis, this has nothing to do with today’s comic but, are you planning on keeping the same main characters throught dumbing of age? Or do you ever plan to add new, original characters?
asma and raidah are crying
Don’t forget about Ryan…though he’s crying in pain.
Ryan is from the Walkyverse.
Really? Damn.
Ruth slept with him for her first time and then had a freak out that made no real sense. Ruth then discovered her father sleeping with Billie’s mom.
It was a bad day.
Asma needs more screentime
Raidah. Sierra.
I still need my Sierra and Marcie spinoff.
Sierra was in the Walkyverse and isn’t new.
Not Marcie either. She was in a Squad!
Wait, she was? Point me to her.
She’s gotten a name change, but yeah. She was in Squad 48 along with Marcie, Mandy, and Grace.
And Guns! Don’t forget Guns, the most important character in the whole Walkyverse, besides Hooper.
Yeah, I left out Guns because she didn’t make it across to the Dumbiverse.
Joe was in Squad 48 on a few occasions, too.
Aw, damn, I liked her more natural hair.
Don’t worry, Becky! You may see her natural hair again. After all, this look isn’t PERMANENT.
🙁 🙁 🙁 jeez willis
Introspective Sal is Introspective.
Eyebrow Joe avatar is eyebrow
Pretty good lemons are pretty good.
Super Asia is super.
Yaaaaaay!
This is such a sad scene! And yet, the sadness of it feels undercut by the fact that, when I read Sal’s speech bubbles, I hear in my head Bunnie Rabbot from the 1993 Sonic the Hedgehog Cartoon, Rogue from the 1993 X-Men cartoon, and Applejack from the 2010 My Little Pony cartoon … all at once.
Good to know I’m not the only one who hear Sal as both Rogue and Applejack.
I am the terror that flaps in the night!
I am the bacteria that makes holes in your swiss cheese!
I. . .am apparently commenting on the wrong forum.
I am a red head of Irish Scots descent. My hair is wavy not curly. But it is a very determined wavy. Bangs go crazy. Pixie cuts wave off in 50 directions.
I wear my hair the way I like it. Which is down the middle of my back. Besides the longer it gets, the less wavy and easier to take care of.
At 12, I went to the barbershop with my 9 year old brother and paid for him to get his haircut, then I used my allowance to get my hair cut just like his. My parents were furious. It had hung to my waist. and it was the biggest pita to care for. So I had it cut off. Best summer of my memory :), I like it short then.
I didn’t really care then what I was ‘supposed’ to look like, and I don’t think Sal does either.
I think that wearing her hair straight is the way Sal wants it. She has not been ‘home’ in years and arrived with it straight. Her hair got ‘scared curly’ in the strip with Jason, and was depicted as being an involuntary thing.
Sal did not ‘chose’ to put her hair curly, ‘it just happened’.
I do not like her with curly hair. I like long hair and she is the only female (of any color) in this strip that has long hair and it makes her unique. All of the females in this strip have pretty similar haircuts and none of them are all that different and none much past the top of the shoulder. Except Sarah who always has hers in a pony tail.
So, if she is wearing her hair long ‘because it’s how A’m supposed to look’, why was this never addressed before, it just doesn’t seem to me to fit Sal’s persona.
She smokes, rides a cycle, enters buildings thru windows, and now all a sudden she’s gonna wear her hair like OTHER people want it to be??
I just can’t buy that. Sure I could be wrong. But, I just think Sal will wear her hair the way she wants to and everyone else be damned.
And that’s the way it’s gotta be. You’ve got to be yourself.
Because everybody else is already taken.
The subject has already been brought up. I think you forgot the comment her Father made about her Hair (which was the ONLY thing he talked about with his estranged daughter).
Yes Sal is independant but she has issues with her familly and she tries , at least occasionally, to please her parents by submiting to their wishes.
It was obvious when she wore her Catholic School uniform in front of them.
It is less obvious right now, but still what she said is “How I’m SUPPOSED” to lookk . Not “How I WANT / LIKE to look”. And my interretation of the last panel is that she’s wondering wether she’s only doing this because that’s what her father wants. Which reminds her of the hard fact that she still got let down by her parents (Yes, she is also at fault for immediatly weaseling out of it, but , as I used, this familly has Issues.)
In conclusion; I am dubious about her trying to conform to a racist standard in society, but she’s definitely still trying to figure herself and how to deal with her familly’s history.
‘This is what I’m supposed to look like’ is pretty much exactly what pops into my own head every time I look at my just-cut hair after an overdue hairdresser’s appointment. To me it’s a good thing: I look the way I want to look, the way I like to see myself, my hair back in the state it should be in. And I’m a white woman who doesn’t do anything special to said hair. But it could well be different to Sal of course.
It’s the word choice coupled with the look she gives in the last panel.
(also, that comment made by her dad)
I am confused, i really like her with straight hair. Why is she sad? 🙁
It’s, uh, complicated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_hair_(phrase)
Well, she was pretty much ignored by her family.
Even setting aside the potential racial undertones of getting her hair straightened, she seems to be coming to the realization that she gets it done that way, not because of reasons of her own choosing (comfort, ease of care, fits under a helmet), but because it’s The Way Things Are Supposed To Be.
Oh my god, I don’t know if you were referencing this intentionally, but inspirational speech from a dead president time.
+1
aw dang
This whole thing with Sal’s hair is kind of weird for me, because I think she looks better with curly hair… but I’ve been reading since early in It’s Walky!, thirteen years or more, and Sal has always had long, straight hair, to the point that it’s her primary identifying trait, without any indication that it was anything but natural, even when, e.g., zapped by giant electricity monsters. So I think she looks better with curly hair, but she doesn’t look like Sal. It’s like if Joyce’s big blue eyes were revealed to be colored contacts or Mike’s bangs started complying with three-dimensional geometry.
I’m uncertain if this is supposed to imply that sort of thing for the Walkyverse too vs just the DoA-verse. If it is multiversal there’s the issue that her hair stayed straight in all sorts of situations, including her runaway phase before she met Jason, that this implies should have been impossible
John, as someone who’s also been reading Roomie’s and It’s Walky for years, Sal’s long, straight hair, always baffled me. It’s very very very rare for a mixed person (like myself) to not have curly hair. I always assumed she got it chemically straightened.
She had curly hair at the *very* beginning, like in the flashbacks when Danny first talks about her. It is drawn drawn super great though.
I dunno, I’m pretty much a new reader of Willisverse. But I already read previous Walkyverse comics and even when I saw Sal with straight hair I still like her curly hair more. It seems like in a lot of manga and comic curly haired women tend to be side characters 🙁
Oh honey NO. 🙁
Sal needs real super powers so she can fullfill her life’s calling ad prove to the world she is a hero they can believe in just like Amaz-igirl.
Has Shazam found Teth Adam’s replacement in this world? Cause Sal could be DOA’s Billy Batson for sure.
….Sal having real powers just results in her fucking up everything on a MUCH larger scale. Girl needs THERAPY and HUGS not superpowers.
I didn’t understand the comic until I read the comments. I didn’t realize how much pressure there was to have the “right style” of hair. I thought she just liked it straight. You learn something new every day.
Yay for changing yourself to conform to society’s norms!
I wonder, who’s she seeing in the mirror right now (besides herself).
Willis, drawing the panel?
Winner of today’s Internet!
Now Sal’s wearing gloves again, and we never got to see her right hand. That reinforces my suspicion that she is hiding something…Another tattoo, perhaps? One that she’s not proud of? She practically made a point of keeping that hand behind her back when she was with her parents. I guess they don’t know she’s inked, so she had to weasel out. She does not want them to learn about her because she’d rather be a non-entity than a disappointment. Yet another superficial thing keeping her away from her family, and making me sad :/
Am I the only one who’s mind is kinda blown?
I’d assumed Walky & Sal were Hispanic. ie naturally straight/wavy hair
But it was largely because their hair was never addressed this way.
Guess that is what I get for not really paying attention all these years.
Some Hispanic people have very curly/kinky hair. Depends on the genetic mix. My mom’s side is pretty much half Indigenous/ half European and one of my aunts has a halfro. My hair is pretty curly as well. Apparently our Spanish ancestry has some Norther African mixed in somewhere.
Walky explains their hair and ethnicity when Sal’s poofs out. Not sure how you missed that.
Well I was mostly talking about the YEARS of comics before that.
ah
It has come up before that. I believe when Walky gets a haircut in IW he mentions that he doesn’t want curly hair like his dad (which takes on a lot more meaning now), and I think there was also a self-depricating comment Walky made about how he’s a “black dude with no dancing ability”, or something like that. But yeah, in a storyline about saving the world their racial origins weren’t discussed that often.
I don’t think her father’s preference for her wearing her hair straight is an embrace of Eurocentric cultural norms so much as it is yet another way he’s telling her to be more like Walky. I don’t mean to minimize the cultural significance of “good hair,” but sometimes we need to remember that the personal trumps the sociological in stories like this.
Personally I liked her old hairstyle (seeing it that way for years, I suppose I’m used to it), but since it’s clear that this iteration of Sal isn’t happy with it, I expect it to be gone for good soon, and that’s for the best — she should wear her hair however it makes her feel most happy.
Might even be interesting to see her experimenting with several new styles over the next few months as she tries to figure out what *she* wants, as opposed to what daddy wants.
edit — I meant to write that “we need to remember that sometimes the personal trumps the sociological in stories like this.” Changing the location of that adverb changes the meaning of the sentence rather significantly.
To be fair, both phrasings are accurate in this particular context.
Or maybe younger Sal preferred straight hair and father happened to like it straight as well, just for reasons of appearance?
this made me feel super super sad. poor Sal.
Oh God… the comments. There are so many hilarious I can’t figure out who to reply to first…
But I wonder why Sal is sad… Maybe she doesn’t just wanna be how she’s supposed to be. But how she wants.
For the record: my opinion on Sal’s hair has nothing to do with her race, I never even think about her race. I just think long straight hair looks pretty and curly hair does not. I don’t even like it when my own hair curls. I’d never go up to someone in real life and tell them their natural hair was ugly. Get a bad perm and you’ll hear about it though.
It might not. We can’t say for sure. Regardless, it’s good to be mindful of these sorts of things.
As someone who has curls and whose family has constantly told me that I’d look so much prettier with straight hair… this is really frustrating. WHY is straight hair prettier than curly hair? Why do YOU think this way? We as a society/culture have a very narrow standard of beauty.
Or else your family does. Mine thinks my curly hair is amazing. We’ve nicknamed it the white girl fro. You just need to find the right haircut and then everyone’ll go “Oh my god, I wish I had natural curls!”
(Seriously. They do.)
I think your family is an anomaly. Think of how the majority of famous women usually have straight hair. Think of how this issue was very subtly addressed in Brave, with Merida’s mom insisting on trying to tame Merida’s hair.
That said, my family is full of jerks.
Because I find it more appealing on a personal level. Part of it is when you shake your head and the hair does that awesome wave thing.
Your first sentence doesn’t really answer “why” you find it more appealing, regardless of what level we’re talking about.
Also, curly hair can do cool wave stuff too. 😐
First I wonder which grav I’m going to get with this comment and if it will work with what I will say.
Second I’m black with natural hair and my mother is a cosmetologist (hairstylist) I was raised in the salon. What was said about black people and conforming their natural hair to appear to have “good hair” has been said and I don’t need to add any more to it except the joy that acceptance in the natural look is slowly growing.
But my first thought was the method in which Sal is getting her hair straightened. If it’s a relaxer then holy crap that’s a lot of chemicals being pressed into her hair, they would need to double team her to get it in and out before it’s over processed with all of that hair.
I highly doubt she would press it out given how unless she ritualistically flat irons it the curl would be back rather quickly.
I won’t say that I like it that an ethnic person did her hair but from what I’ve seen it seems to be a trend not many hairstylists today can do hair of different ethnicity, often times treating them all the same which is a big no no.
I’ve long learned that it doesn’t matter as long as you did it for you and you’re happy with it.
This is what being raised in a hair salon does to you. You look into the method not the reason.
Well, you’re Marcie, so I suppose that works given she’s a pretty good friend of Sal’s.
I thought it was a Brazilian blow out sort of thing. We did that with mine and it worked fabulously. Keeps for several months, too. Expensive, though. I prefer going curly now…
From what I can tell, her damily has naturally curly hair. She does as well. She let it return to curliness for her family.
She straightens it as a way to seperate herself from her family.
But she doesn’t want to be an outcast from them.
that is the opposite of what happened.
Great, after HOW many years of Sal having luxurious glorious flowing long straight hair, now we’re all supposed to feel racist and guilty about it? What’s up with that??
Yeah, that’s also part of what was bothering me.
Who says you should feel guilty? Unless you’re throwing around words that suggest her natural hair state looks ‘unruly’ or ‘unkept’ I don’t think anyone cares if you prefer it straight or curly.
No. You’re not supposed to feel racist and guilty because of this, however you are supposed to understand the effects of the culturally imposed aesthetic on her self identity and how that impacts her self image since that seems like it’ll be an acknowledged part of her characterization moving forward.
And the culturally imposed esthetic is that we evil white men have made natural black hair ‘bad’ with our evil racist dislike of it, and that we have done that so hard that it has been internalized by black culture, and now we find that Sal only does her hair like this because of external cultural pressure, and not because she actually likes this way.
Or to summarize: Sal does her hair in a way that makes her unhappy, and she only does it because of racist bastards that prefer that look. And since I happen to prefer her hair in this style, guess what that makes me?
“we evil white men”… no. It’s not about you. It’s not about white people’s feelings, even though the situation exists because of the actions of white people. It’s about how black people are affected by current, still racist, attitudes held by society, and frankly, if you’re throwing out that “but why am I supposed to feel guilty?” you don’t get it. You aren’t supposed to feel anything, you are supposed to actually take that information and you know, learn. Learn how your actions and words can affect the world and take that knowledge forward into life with you.
I find it highly unlikely that this comic wasn’t meant to inspire feelings.
And I’m supposed to learn…to like Sal in her poofy hairstyle better. Right? That’s it, right?
Sorry, but poofy hair Sal doesn’t look like Sal to me; she looks like a kerchiefless Sarah. (And yes, I know that that’s ignoring numerous other differences, but hair is a HUGE definer of character appearance, particularly in comics/cartoons.) So straight-hair Sal looks like Sal, and poofy-hair Sal looks like somebody played mix-and-match with character parts. It don’t click for me.
Which means I’m the oppressor, apparently.
And as for my actions and words, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to learn – I’ve long since learned that commenting in any way on any (real) woman’s hairstyle invites DEATH. Doesn’t that cover everything?
I will admit that there are a number of webcomic creators who have a problem with making characters look apart from one another that we actually have to rely on certain visual keys to tell who is whom. Here the case isn’t so bad with this applying to only a few
But I had read one that was rather hyped up. The only way to tell the ethnic characters apart from the others was simply because the comic was in color or they had the Asian eyes. When the comic didn’t have colored pages it was impossible to tell anyone apart.
But her hair is just iconic for her character. Not that you’ll get Sarah just because its in afro.
It makes you a belligerent precious asshole, if your response to “this behavior is harming me, please consider your actions” is to put on a defensive show about how you’re an “evil white man.” ‘Cuz frankly, that’s just you stepping into the role you pretend to shun.
Here are the alternatives before me:
1) Dismiss the possibility of race being an issue, and carelessly ignore the fact that Sal seems to unhappy with the hair-role forced upon her by society.
2) Accept that race is an issue and examine where I fall in that discussion. Where I fall is that I prefer who Sal looks with straight hair. I have little control over my preferences. And given that fact, I can:
2a) Accept that I am part of the (theoretical) crowd that is pressuring her to adopt a look that she’s (apparently) not happy with. (The theoretical part is that I’m not in her universe, and thus may not effect her much.) The reason for my having that opinion is irrelevant – nobody cares why fundies oppose gay marriage. The long and short is that I’m part of the problem. The race problem.
2b) Dismiss the possibility of race being an issue, and carelessly ignore the fact that Sal seems to unhappy with the hair-role forced upon her by society.
I don’t like being part of the problem. My usual reaction to being part of the problem is to stifle my problematic opinions and not act on them. Usually to the point of not mentioning them – but I don’t think Sal can hear me in there, so I’m chafing openly a little. I like Sal’s classic hair. And that suddenly makes me the bad guy.
Being racist doesn’t make you a villain. It makes you everyone else in the world. What makes you a villain is how you respond to this knowledge.
Why – when people repeatedly tell you that no, you’re not supposed to feel racist and guilty, you’re not evil, you’re not an oppressor, you can like her hair whatever damn way you want – do you insist on feeling accused?
The correct option is 2c): Accept that your preference, in itself, does not affect Sal’s feelings or hairstyle at all, and would not do so even if she were real.
The racial issue here is apparently a pretty big deal, one that I was blissfully unaware of. Now I know. I’m glad I learned something, and I’m glad that there’s now some extra subtext for me to read into this strip. End of story. Being guilty or being part of any problem has nothing to do with it.
Empathy sucks and then you die. 2c is not an option because when I know Sal doesn’t like her hairstyle, I can’t like it either. So I don’t like any of her hairstyles anymore.
My only solace is that I know one thing: my opinions don’t matter at all. She’s not effected, and since I don’t act on them (since they don’t matter), nobody in real life is effected either.
(Unless I chafe openly, in which case I annoy others like I’m doing now.)
I like her straight hair. Her not liking it doesn’t change that. It’s a subjective, aesthetic opinion, not a logical argument based on any facts. And now I know that if I could actually talk to her right now, telling her that her hair looks great, even if it’s a compliment, could make her sad(der). This isn’t a problem; I can like her hair without telling her I do.
Yeah, it is a little strange. Especially when there’s been attention drawn specifically to how great her hair was (if you recall Joyce saying how much she wanted to brush it, etc.), and it only changed as part of a gag. Now all of a sudden it’s a super serious racism issue.
The idea that race issues only exist as over-the-top villainy, rather than also existing as several small things which manifest in other more subtler ways, is one of the more insidious impediments to combating racism. Pretending race issues are only the former and not the latter is a way to protect ourselves from having to address it.
So, yes, Sal’s hair can go POOF one day in a visual gag and it can still be the catalyst for issues of race — because race isn’t only ever some dorks in white hoods gerrymandering the voting districts. It’s also programmed into the language in which we speak and the subliminal reactions we have to things.
And so when you point out the smaller, subliminal things, folks go OH HEY WHAT racism is this super serious issue, I’m not David Duke, for god’s sake, and learning shuts down. Because, again, we tell ourselves racism is only the big things, to protect ourselves.
Anyway, I say fuck that. I will write about the smaller race things because they are more important to confront. Everyone fucking agrees you shouldn’t burn crosses or use the N-word. Where’s the courage in that? It points outward, towards cartoonish villains, instead of inward, where problems still need to be solved.
Even if we don’t want to hear about them.
IAWTC. I was really surprised and pleased you went this route with this. I think I already said that but I want to say it again anyway.
+9999
CHRIST. A+, WILLIS.
(I’m not sure you’ll even see this, but here goes).
I want to start by saying I am a U.S. citizen, no accent with maybe a slightly Southern twang on some words. That’s it. I grew up most of my life in Florida. I’m also pretty brown.
….Thank you. I just want to thank you. No one knows why I get mad when people ask, “Where are you from?” If I’m outside work, I’ll say “Clearwater”, but if they press for more then I’ll firmly but poilitely say it’s private information. And strangers do get mad for that.
Of course I don’t say that when I’m at work, where it happens the most. I’ll usually make up an answer or say “I wouldn’t know sir, I’m adopted.” Can’t risk making a customer mad if I intended to or not.
The point? I feel offended when they ask these questions not because they want to know if I also grew up where there’s theme parks and beaches, but because of how I look. It’s a personal question to me otherwise to ask, “Oh, so where are your parents from?” “Where are your grandparents from?” “WHY AREN’T YOU WHITE?”
Because I don’t look like a U.S. citizen, despite being a mixed race and growing up here my whole life. My culture is not where my grandparents left when they were kids, it’s here just like you. Why is being brown make me an inferior citizen?
…Phew. Sorry. Just reading through the archieves and…this hit the nail on the head for me.
Oh, I should mention I was born in Chicago, but with a brother that was born in Germany, I don’t take birthplace too much account of who you are. I mean, my brother is as American as Mountain Dew.
I was wondering about the method too. I’ve never known anyone with that length of hair that wasn’t natural, so I was wondering how a relaxer works LOL.
Maybe she just has soft curls and a good blow dry/roller wrap is all she needs!
I do not understand why people want this comic (and apparently all books, tv shows, and movies) to be written as though race and racism do not exist. I do not understand why people talk as though if race is *an aspect* of Sal’s situation, it is no longer a “personal” problem with which we can sympathize. No one is saying that Amber’s problem with her father is not “personal,” despite the fact that gender is clearly *an aspect* of the horrible domestic violence she and her mother experienced with Blaine. What is all this either/or thinking? And if you can “relate” to characters who are not exactly like you in every way, why can’t you just try to imagine the world from Sal’s perspective instead of insisting that she act like she never has experiences with racial implications?
Racism is not only a thing when somebody is burning a cross or using the n-word. Sometimes racism can just be thinking and acting like white people’s experiences and worldviews are the norm (or should be).
What? I’d like to hear the explanation for why gender is a factor at all in Amber and her mother’s abuse situation. You do realize that a roughly equal amount of men and women are abusers, right?
It’s not that simple: http://www.xyonline.net/sites/default/files/Kimmel,%20Gender%20symmetry%20in%20dom.pdf
(I know, I know: TL;DR.)
The fact that both genders can be victims doesn’t stop it from being a gender issue.
Yep.
Sal has “good hair” issues. However the creamy crack has done its magic, but the spell seems to be wavering.
I like Sal’s hair better like this because Willis doesn’t forget that hair has a skull under it when he draws it this way.
I am torn between deleting this for being obnoxiously assholeish and keeping you around to ask you how you arrived at this insane conclusion. I’m flipping through strips with Sal in them and I have absolutely no idea what the fuck you’re on about.
I looked back and have no idea what dimblecon is talking about either.
It could be a comment on how some other artists draw long straight hair? I have, in the past, noticed that some artists forget to factor in the head’s shape under all that hair.
If dimble were talking about “some other artists,” maybe dimble shouldn’t shouldn’t be talking about how “when HE draws it this way.” Clearly talking about me rather than some hypothetical other dudes.
Still trying to figure this one out. I pencil the same headshape under Sal’s inks regardless of what her hair looks like. I only freehand characters when I’m doodling in people’s books and convention sketches.
BTW, Willis, thanks for the freehand sketch of Joyce on the mailing label of my poster. I got it yesterday.
Sal has hair. Sal has a skull. Sal’s hair doesn’t have a skull.
Maybe just a few curls?
Heh, Sal is written really well in this strip, my heart goes out to her.
This is me anytime I straighten my hair with a straightening iron… I am full on hispanic, both parents from Colombia, but I was born and raised in the US. My hair is naturally curly, sometimes frizzy, and very very thick. I prefer my hair straight, but it wasn’t until I saw this comic strip that I thought about how much of my preference is actually mine and not determined by others. When I’m honest, I prefer my hair straight because other people like it, it doesn’t look or feel messy, and I get more compliments about my hair than when it is curly and thick. Basically, I know your feels Sal.
“I am not my hair. I am not this skin. I am the soul that lives within.”
-India Arie from the song, “I Am Not My Hair.”
how did she ever straighten her hair with curlers?
Roller set/wrap:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kSMkn0hg6YU
I prefer Sal with straight hair, if only because she’s been that way since I started reading Willis back in early high school.
Wow! Sal’s haircut gets nearly as much love as Danny! 😀
I mean, people, heyyyyy.
This is obviously foreshadowing of character development, but like all good foreshadowing, I think it’s a bit early to say of what exactly…
Sal realize that taming her hair was a symbol of repressing her “good girl” side that she can’t keep all the time?
Or that she is not the rebel she thinks she is if she thinks her hair are “supposed” to look something?
Or she is thinking about Jason and their love/hate relationship?
Or she is having second thought about rebelling altogether, and she would like to be a “good girl”?
At the moment, imho it’s just some generic foreshadowing! Keep cool^^
Damned Willis can bring anything out of it 😀
I just realized how stupid hot Sal would be with short hair.
You think Walky is stupid hot? Because they would look a lot alike.
Well, he does have those caramel abs…
She’d look like Walky
Walky…with boobs.
Oh yeaaaahhhh.
ugh, the last two panels. Sympathetic pangs here. 🙁
I don’t know if anyone else has posted this, but….
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/appointment/
Yeah, her own FAMILY likes her hair better straight. So…um…maybe it’s not a race thing, it’s a family thing after all? It doesn’t actually distance her from them, it pleases them. Her dad, anyway.
Her family can be racist. Yes, they’re a mixed-race family. That doesn’t help. Her dad is parroting the current beauty standards in the west, which are fairly racist.
Internalized racism is a thing. So, yea, forcing/strongly preferring their daughter to uphold Eurocentric beauty ideals (like bone-straight hair) is racist at worst, extremely suspect at best.
“How’s that?” “Ah’m sure it’s fine.”
Oh sweetie. Those are not the words of someone who loves their hair. 🙁
For the record, I’m black and I currently love my super curly, super nappy hair. It would right now break my heart to chemically straighten it because it would be like taking away something that makes me unique. I can straighten my hair like everyone else, but the way my tiny curls spiral and frame my face is just so… ME.
When I occasionally (maaaybe once a year) straighten my hair with heat, I get comments like “Wow, I didn’t know your hair was so long! Where was that hiding? You look so nice!” I smile with them, but at the same time, I’m thinking about how I look like everyone else and can’t wait to be allowed to make humidity my friend again, get rid of that “burnt hair” smell, wash my hair and bring back all that is cute and curly.
But I did not always feel this way and I sure as heck can empathize.
Willis, you are an awesome storyteller.
Haha, Ethan’s pic? How ironic; I’m not even sure the hairs on his chest curl. 🙂
I went natural years ago. I had to take to hiding my old pics from when I used to straighten my hair, because there would be an endless barrage of “omg you look sooo much better with straight hair!” I know they mean well, but the Unfortunate Implications do not sit well with me.
I know I’m blowing up the comment page tonight, but work has me up late and I’m thinking far too much. =/
Sal is sad she doesn’t have a cast page showing how she’s supposed to look? Does she feel being mysterious motorcycle girl who later got a big reveal wasn’t worth it? Damn you Willis, even Sal getting her hair done is a cliffhanger!
The conversation I had with various people on this site about black culture and hair straightening very much changed my perception of this comic. I just wanted to thank everybody for that.
If I don’t shave my facial hair off or groom it a certain way then I’ll get remarks on it, have a harder time getting a job, and so on. Actually, the same is true if I grow my hair out. You’d be surprised how obnoxious my own family could be for years because I grew my hair out.
This actually doesn’t so much seem to be a racial phenomenon to me so much as a general societal issue. Expectations. They’re stupid. It doesn’t matter who it is, just hurry up and do what everyone is told they want. *shrug*
People should be who they want to be but as long as societal pressure exists things like this will happen.
Societal pressure not to look like an unwashed hobo and societal pressure to look more white to fit into white society are not the same things x_x
You’re doing your best to be the most godawful person on this page, aren’t you.
HAHAHA NOPE
Yes, because your ancestors were enslaved for having beards.
Yes, because your ancestors were lynched and had crosses burned on their lawns for having beards.
Bearded people were forced to sit in the back of busses.
Bearded people weren’t allowed to eat where clean-shaven people ate.
Bearded people had to attend different schools.
Bearded people face extreme amounts of prejudice and hatred.
Bearded people are forced to produce IDs to vote.
You, KZero, are a scumbag and an idiot.
Go fuck yourself.
” For example, a “no-beard” employment policy that applies to all workers without regard to race may still be unlawful if it is not job-related and has a negative impact on the employment of African-American men (who have a predisposition to a skin condition that causes severe shaving bumps).” – http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/race_color.cfm
” “They were questioning me why I look the way I look,” said Mr Edhi who has a long beard and always wears traditional Pakistani dress along with a traditional cap.” – http://dawn.com/news/286929/edhi-faces-deportation
Bearded people are being harassed and discriminated, and many times it’s got to do with their race or culture, not just because they looked like a hobo.
While I do not dispute the objection you are raising, I question whether the path to alleviating ignorance and fostering understanding should include referring to those you wish to enlighten as scumbag idiots.
You’re right, but frankly, I doubt if he’s going to be back to see the responses to his racist comment. And even more frankly, there are some things that people say that I just feel the need to be blunt and unforgiving about.
I don’t have to educate anyone.
Sometimes, a stern swat with the newspaper is enough and the person can take some initiative and be open for constructive dialogue– or better yet, educate themselves.
At some point you have to pick your battles; you’ll tire yourself otherwise. From the wording of their comments (and their history of horrible comments), something it telling me not to bother.
Bingo.
You stated it much better than I did, A-A-A-Albi.
It’s that exact attitude I feel toward KZero. I owe him NOTHING.
He acts like an ass, and I bluntly tell him off.
You do realize this guy equated being born with non-white hair with… with appearing dirty.
Yes. They seem to be trying to make a point about not letting societal expectations control you without realizing those additional implications and the insensitivity of the statement. I see ignorance in that statement, not malice.
I could be mistaken, but it seems like a situation where the error could be addressed and the mistake realized. I don’t understand how hostility beyond making it clear why offense has been taken is helpful in achieving that understanding.
I feel this way because I know I’m resistant to listening to good points made with insults thrown in due to feeling insulted, and I’ve observed others reacting similarly. I try to keep this in mind and listen to such good points anyway, but this is in spite of not wanting to. I expect others to have the same issue, and therefore expect insulting an individual as counterproductive to changing their mind.
Dan, I love your comic, but I owe that racist asshole nothing. He chooses willful ignorance and as A-A-A-Albi has pointed out, has a history of nasty comments.
He’s had years of life to educate himself, and he’s refused to. His false equivalence is insulting to everyone.
All he deserves is a metaphorical slap in the face over that.
To be honest, I missed the part about a history of comments. I have not seen those, and perhaps they do illustrate that trying to convince this person of certain things is fruitless.
In general, however, I stand by my assertion that, if your objective is to convince someone of something, insulting them is generally not the best way to go about it. If your objective *is* to insult a person, however, then my suggestion of not insulting people is naturally not going to help with the success of that objective.
Yeah I’m confused about this history since I’ve made about 5 comments including the ones on this page.
Having long hair or a certain style of facial hair isn’t ‘dirty’. Nor did I say anything about different race’s hair being dirty. Nor did I compare it to the long list of things Totz mentioned. People sure like to interpret things as negatively as possible.
What I said is if I have my hair a certain way- or were to paint my nails or something- I have my chances of employment and so on go down. Because it is frowned upon by society for little to no reason. I was equating what happens with this ‘good hair’ (Yes I agree that is ridiculous) thing to that sort of societal thing rather than necessarily being about race.
Think of it this way, I’m not willing to believe people are that stupidly racist, rather I think society enforces a narrow sort of ‘professional’ look no matter who you are and that that itself needs to change.
You guys shouldn’t be so quick to judge perhaps. I appreciate that Dan at least can act with some tact rather than jumping to being nasty. Thanks man.
Man… just… wow. Wow.
You suck.
Willfully ignorant racism is the worst kind, you know.
Also KZero please look up false equivalence.
Yes, for the love of Cheese, please do so.
Sal you look dead inside 🙁