Dunno, Carla is coming off a bit entitled here too, and Billy did (in her mind) just sacrificed her relationship (in part) for Carla.
If sal had asked for some there might be some obligation under social contract, but not so for Carla, and since she demanded rather than requested I’d personally be inclined to withold out of indignation.
Might also depend on how far the “social contract” of the dorm floor has progressed. My recollection is that gifts from home that are shareable are meant to be shared (unless you can successfully hide them).
Stop taking the fat outta milk! Whole milk is the best (thing that you can get that is milk that is sold at normal grocery stores short of getting cream and drinking that). Down with the 1% (and 2%!)
Funny thing is, people tend not to realize whole milk is usually only aroun 2.5%. The people who freak out about it think because ‘it’s got ALLLLL the fat’ that the percentage is around 100%, but that’s not how it works!
It’s a bit rich, to those of us who grew up on 2%. 1% is a good compromise between 2% and that white-colored water they call skim milk, though, if your roommate is used to that.
And yeah, my body can tell the difference. It doesn’t like whole milk in quantity.
3 – 4% is sold in stores as whole milk.
Straight from the cow is a bit higher in fat. Or maybe it is the fresh country air? The outhouse by the propane tank? The hum of the well motor?
Last I checked, alligator limbs aren’t that long compared to their body size; I’d be more worried about there gaping maws or massive tails at fist pulping distance (That would have a made a good point C, now that I think of it). Either way, a good defense against a melee attack is running like mad; ranged attacks, especially ones with a large area of effect, are harder to run away from.
Unless the fireball is a nuclear blast or something, it kills you from the outside in over the course of one or more agonizing seconds. A proper stomp jellies you all at once in a fraction of second, as long as the dragon doesn’t partially miss or something.
Given the choice, I’d rather be stomped. It’s also the absolute best way to be done in by a T-Rex based on the Jurassic Park movies.
Given the number of artificial sweeteners in use you might want to do some reading and experimentation before consigning them all to the garbage. on different days drink a diet soda after writing down the sweetener in the formula (required by law on the label). Record if you got a headache or not. If you did get a headache cross that sweetener off the “allowed” list, if not wait and try it again later in a different drink, because your headaches might be caused by an interaction with other ingredients in the drink. Keep going, and make copious notes until you have tried all 4 of the major sweeteners. If there are any that don’t cause headaches then you can safely consume that or those. The two biggies are saccharine and sucralose, although stevia is also getting big. I can’t remember the name for the 4th as it is very uncommon but it is found in a lot of “natural” sugar-free sweetened foods. It’s not heavily processed and it’s not sugar or HFCS, I just can’t pull the name out of the grey matter at the moment.
I kinda prefer the dragons that breathe lightning.
…. I don’t know what kind of chemical additive that represents, but ironically it would make for a hell of a brand artwork on the label for an energy drink.
Oh, I see. So the only dragons that “count” in your eyes are Red and Gold, huh? That just ignores like 80% of dragons in the D&D monster manual and countless others from individual adventures and worlds. Stop your draconnic sterotyping, dude.
Carla is trans, living in accommodations of her choice, appears to have her higher education paid for, and seems to lack mental problems. Smart money’s on her parents being decent people who respect their daughter.
(which doesn’t mean they’re perfect, I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t understand her, and have screwed up in various ways at various points, but all indications are they’re on her side and trying, which matters.)
People loosely use mental disorder to refer to things that are not pathological.
As far as I can tell, Amber and Ruth are the only ones we know with a definite mental disorder. It’s possible that either Walky or Becky have ADHD, but it seems unlikely given their ability to focus.
Carla likely did have gender dysphoria, which can or cannot be considered a mental disorder, depending on your definition of th eterm. But I don’t see any signs from how she acts that it’s still an issue for her. (And being trans is definitely NOT a mental disorder.)
I guess if you consider personality disorders to a be a subset of mental disorders, you might argue that Mary and Mike have one: Mike is very antisocial, and Mary has a mixture.
And then there’s Billie with her alcoholism, which could be considered a mental disorder. But most classify substance abuse disorders separately. Then again, she could be self-medicating a mental disorder the same way Ruth is.
Joyce is definitely dealing with something much like PTSD from the attempted rape. It’s not clear yet what effect Ross’s happy fun gun time will have on her.
Or on Becky or Dina for that matter, though they’re not currently showing any obvious signs of problems.
People with ADHD CAN focus. Actully if you get us focused on stuff enough some of us go into super focus and totally zone out everything else around us. Kinda like a disablity super power or something. (Sure both my legs are useless but I can hover sometimes)
Yeah, my bet is on a couple that can’t conceive on their own, for one reason or another. Enter, Joe’s dad… (Or, you know, the other way around, as the case may be… >_> )
Well, we know at least one of them is named Rutten. Probably both, since Carla doesn’t have a double barreled name, but that’s merely suggestive, not definitive.
If it makes you feel any better, I’m suffering too in that when I tried to buy an apple pie it was full of ants. The poor shopkeep had to throw out half his stock.
Oh, man, our local supermarket carries these ginger snaps, they are amazing. They are chewy with a crisp crust and it’s like 90% pure brown sugar, I am positive. I cannot stop eating them; they are amazing.
Mrs. Dunster’s! OMG, if you see Mrs. Dunster’s ginger snaps in the store (they’re very flat and kind of oval; they’re a big cookie) you MUST try them they are AMAZING.
I think it’s the text of what’s been running through her head during the entirety of this section of the day. I mean, after all, her last statements were keeping her head down and confirming it sucks to be so aware of the racism surrounding supposedly nice things like this.
This? Is just the spelling out of it. Not to Carla, but to herself, because that “how did you earn these” really made her even more hyper-aware that she’s basically been “bought” as the replacement, whiter biracial daughter to replace their biological daughter and how she’s still seen that as better than the complete neglect she’s gotten from her own family.
But once she said it out loud, it became a lot harder to cling on to, because it’s ruined the magic of it just being tasty cookies she likes.
“My girlfriend pseudo broke up with me so that she could properly discipline Mary for being a shrew to you and I am in dire need of a food based coping mechanism.”?
I mean, my favorite is oatmeal raisin or chocolate chip, but i love ginger snaps. But then again, my mom has described my preference for food as “being punched in the face with a strong flavor” So I like ginger and tart things. Tar froyo is my top fav froyo.
Inside is a video Linda made teaching Sal to use the gun.
“I don’t care if you’re gonna be a delinquent. You’re NOT about to make the Walkertons look like Punk bongoes.”
And that dang line from the Slipshine I can’t even read without a subscription, about liking things loud. It’s probably the most poetic line I’ve ever read from Willis, and I don’t even know the context.
It’s a good thing she’ll have someone to share them with.
If they were just for her, it’d be a hate crime.
Since they’re going also to someone else, then it’s hilarious!
I’m sure Mary has some Transmisogyny Cookies coming from her mom soon.(Unless of course Mary’s mom is actually some sort of anti-Mary, like an old school pagan or something.)
Care packages often contain several items of various sorts. I bet everyone, including Sal, got the cookies. Sal’s just the only one who only got cookies.
Being that way can be seen as cute, or annoying. Right now, for Carla, it’s kind of cute. Do it too often, especially to the wrong people and it can easily migrate over to annoying.
I’m so angry that the racism element in the walkerton favouritism is confounded by Sal’s criminal record. ‘why do you obviously and consistently favour David?’ well he’s not a juvenile delinquent can you blame me
YES
and I know that this *also* is the point of the title because it’s a pattern within marginalised groups to be either dismissed cos tangentially related negative qualities often cos the oppression got to you, or if you are a fucking angel and got through life clean and shiny and lovely to all, it obviously isn’t that bad, look at ms/r heaven on earth over there.
There’s a strip when Walky was very small he was on a children’s show. Mama Carole was showing favorism way back then, and it had nothing to do with Sal’s criminal record.
It is the ‘look’s of the two, Carole thinks Walky looks more white.
It’s hard to say with that example, imo. I mean, if you can only choose one you’ve gotta choose one, right? And I imagine it’s a situation most everyone with a sibling has experienced at least once, or at least in a similar fashion.
We have. The problem is that you’re refusing to see it as a trend.
Like, if choosing Walky was literally the only instance of favouritism we saw in the entire series, then okay sure whatever, but we have seen numerous instances of favouritism that eventually just plainly spell it out that Walky is the favoured child.
Walky is chosen for Hymmel.
Linda freaks out when Sal climbs a jungle gym because she thinks she’s going to break something.
Charles literally says that her hair is prettier when it’s long and straight, traits typically associated with “good” hair.
They both almost totally ignore her during their visit and even remark, when asked by the Dean why she isn’t with them, that she just “does her own thing.”
Like, that’s the point. If we got a sequence where Linda walked up to Sal and said “daughter I hate you because you’re more black”, then that’s stupid. The type of bigotry being focused on in Sal and Walky’s story is that subtle, insidious brand.
Well the problem with that is that only one example of pre-robbery favoritism could be seen as such, in the kid’s show thing; and even then, like I said, it’s Linda being forced to choose. The playground incident is just a mother scolding her child for dangerous behavior, a common enough occurrence.
Then we have the post-robbery interactions, which are now tainted by the Walkterons seeing Sal as a thieving thug; it’s given them an actual, concrete reason to favor Walky over his sister simply because he never did anything as heinous as Sal did. And to claim “they pushed her to become a criminal” requires pre-robbery evidence, of which we have one semi-valid case.
Nothing. Nobody MAKES people commit crimes. Simply imagine Sal trying to use that backstory in court to get out of it.
More to the point, we need more evidence of pre-robbery racism than that one single instance if we’re to accept it as solely to blame for something as bad as robbery with a knife and hostage. As it is, all we’ve got is Sal’s word for it, and, hate to say, that isn’t worth much.
“we need more evidence of pre-robbery racism than that one single instance if we’re to accept it”
Speak for yourself. I’m good with accepting the narrative that has already been presented very obviously by the author. Your resistance to the concept sounds like a personal issue.
Sal says this is what happened. Walky, once he took an introspective moment to actually think about it, agrees. Billie agrees. Considering Walky and Billie were there and that they would benefit more by denying it (thus allowing them to reap the rewards of favoritism guilt-free)…. Why exactly are we still having this conversation?
I don’t really get the logic that leads people to make these demands for evidence. I mean, these are fictional characters in a fictional story. Elements of a narrative that has been carefully constructed to explore certain themes and ideas. Really, which narrative seems most likely to be the one Willis is constructing? One where a black girl has been neglected and ignored by her parents for reasons of racist favouritism or one where said black girl is a thug who, wrongfully, blames the consequences of her thuggery on racism? I mean, honestly, which of these is the story Willis is most likely to be telling? Could you imagine him finding the second option to be worthy of his time and effort as a writer?
But thing is, children by and large live up or down to the expectations those around them place upon them. Sal’s parents have lower expectations for her than Walky – when they bother to have expectations for her at all. Sal was being treated more harshly than Walky, even as small children. Sal’s friendships were discouraged (Sal’s mother telling her that a “child like that” – read: her non-white friend playing on a playground – is going to end up a delinquent). Sal’s mom gave Walky more opportunities to succeed than she gave Sal. I could go on.
I have a large (and largely dysfunctional) extended family. I am very sure that the only reason I don’t have a record from my teen days is because I am a white woman. More people have teen records in my extended family than don’t (though the majority of us have sorted ourselves out and become successful members of society in adulthood, largely after we found our own role-models and mentors since our parents were fucking the job up – Thank you, Canadian young offenders system which wipes the slate clean once you hit 18 and makes that sort of personal reform possible. If it weren’t for the fact that your youth record is wiped clean at 18, most of my family would not be where they are today, and the fact that people in the US can be followed around by something they did as a preteen and have it haunting them and making it hard to get jobs in their 30s is just so unjust to me). From first and second-hand experience, I tell you this: Juvenile delinquents don’t set out to be thugs. They’re as complex as anyone else.
Some of them (one of my siblings and two of my cousins come to mind here) set out to impress their friends, because their friends’ approval is the only approval they get in life. So they act out more and more, and get more and more admiration for their daring and lack of concern about consequences.
Some of them (teenage me comes to mind here, as does my uncle) aren’t really operating with a goal in mind, but have an anger/emotional pain problem and lack the coping skills and emotional maturity to deal with it constructively. Vandalism, assault, etc happens as a result. You know that kid every school has one of, who seems pretty normal a lot of the time but if they’re set off they suddenly become a Tasmanian devil? That was me. I don’t have a record, and I’m pretty damn sure that because I am approximately the whitest woman in the known universe (seriously, I am so pale that in some photos it’s hard to tell where the white background ends and I begin), I got off with a lot of stern lectures and warning. And therapy, of course. But yeah, if I was brown, for damn sure I would’ve done time in a juvenile facility at least once. From what I’ve seen of Sal, she’s falls somewhere between the first category and this one.
Some of them are dealing with severe poverty of the my-shelter-is-uncertain-and-I-have-no-idea-where-my-next-meal-is-coming-from variety, and they commit crimes to survive. Some of my classmates are in this group – these are the kids in survival prostitution, and/or who get nabbed for shoplifting small essentials like toiletries and food. Many of these kids weren’t strictly growing up in poverty but were growing up with severe neglect that basically amounted to a similar living situation to extreme poverty.
Some of them don’t see any other option for a life trajectory. Everyone they know is involved with crime, all their role models are criminals. They get into dealing drugs or smuggling or whatever because their family does it, their friends and neighbours do it, and they don’t see people like them in any other career path. From an early age, they’re resigned that this is what life is going to be for them, and that’s all there is to it.
I could go on, but the take-away is that for juvenile criminals, very very few of them set out to commit crime or to be a thug or what have you. They all have more complex reasons than that. Pretending they don’t just plays into the superpredator scare-mongering style of racism of the 90s.
You know, when Ethan popped on page, talking about how being gay made him miserable because now his friends and family were giving him shit, we believed him. We didn’t have to wait for a moment where we found out the real reason they’re disappointed in him is because he spends all his time focusing on Optimal Primer Truck Man.
There’s been enough evidence that shows a trend, Hymmel just being one example of how, instead of being a cross burner in a bedsheet, Linda and Charles have engaged in subtle behaviour that they don’t recognize as favouritism and neglected their daughter. The robbery is ultimately irrelevant in that, if only because Sal was 13 years old and paid her debt. It’s done and over with.
I think what’s always somewhat amusing about these sorts of comments is that its always “ugh, where’s the real X-ism, I’m not seeing it, what about (outlandish alternative explanation)?” right up to the point where its suddenly “gah, this is so unrealistic and shoving it in my face, where’s the subtlety and nuance.
Like, do they never wonder if the reason Willis occasionally spells it out crystal clear in comic is because so many people are in denial about bad behavior like racism?
Also, of course Sal having a criminal record is a big thing. Because it echoes the way real life black people, and especially unarmed black men who are gunned down, constantly have things like minor criminal records or even the rumor that they may have once done something technically illegal like jaywalking or known someone who did something illegal used to justify said dehumanization and murder.
Sal’s alienation, like a lot of black youth, began a hell of a long time before she decided to break the law, but it’s that one instance of illegal behavior that is used as an excuse to justify viewing her as less. By Amber, by her mom, even by her brother until recently. And that retroactive justification for a pattern that long predated any ill action on her part echoes how real world racism works.
It echoes how black people are just assumed to be criminal and treated as such, as some sort of permanent underclass who cannot be trusted with their own lives, while rich white lawbreakers are offered repeated second chances and societal forgivenesses, even for violent crimes.
And that’s a more important story than “perfect angelic black woman” still nonetheless faces racism.
It’s basically the last story arc in a nutshell, Sal shouldn’t have to be perfect to earn her humanity and not face bigotry. She should not have to earn her humanity.
I don’t think you can really compare Ethan’s situation with Sal’s. I think people are more willing to accept Ethan’s explanation because things were more overt in Ethan’s case… (I think even Amber mentioning something about ‘defending’ Ethan against his family), not a bunch of subtle cues that would have been the case with Sal.
Secondly, in the case of Sal, there were alternative explanations for at least some of the ways she was treated… sexism, elietism, etc. (none of them are necessarily good, but they are different than the racist explanation that’s been given.)
If Sal had never brought up the issue of race, I would never have assumed that was the reason for the way she was treated… I would have assumed some alternate reasoning.
Literally, Linda grouses that she needs to get her ass down from there before she breaks something, and talks about how Marcie is going to become criminal riffraff.
It’s also extremely subtle, but in the Hymmel flashbacks, Linda yelling her children’s names to get them to stop running around is larger and bolded when she says Sal’s name.
I get what you’re saying, but I’m also glad, in a way. This is how it is in real life: things aren’t as clear cut and there are things in people’s lives that are used to discredit them. But, like (especially certain types of) crimes committed by some people of color in real life, it’s important to understand the underlying reasons for them (and that’s not even getting to the extremely important factors that lead to people of color being arrested or otherwise penalized for acts that they didn’t actually commit or that white people would totally have gotten away with).
It’s all she’s been thinking about in the back of her head as she’s tried to distract herself with the cookies. Carla was just direct enough to get it out of her.
In Billie’s case, it’s actually more the other way around. Walkyverse Billie was white. But people kept thinking she was Asian, ’cause of straight black hair and skin tone similar to some Asians, and when Willis ported her to the Dumbiverse, he made her half. Like I said below, I’m not clear on whether this means that Walkyverse Billie is white and Dumbiverse Billie is half-Asian, or that Walkyverse Billie has been retconned to have always been at war with half East Asian.
1. Billie’s line REALLY feels forced. Like… I can’t imagine her chaining that sequence of words together in that fashion.
2.Are Carla and Billie friends?
3. Why did Billie say she “earned them” and not “I deserve them”. The former being an outright lie, with the latter being more vain than anything.
4. Aren’t Billie’s parents completely distant and cold who just throw money at her every problem. Like it or not, if Walky’s mom DIDN’T like Billie so much, she’d have basically no one who loves her.
5. This comic is basically Billie admitting guilt for being “too white” which as someone colored makes me uncomfortable. It’s not enough that she’s got to deal with being Asian. It’s nice to set the precedent that she’s also too white as well. God forbid she take some pride in getting a gift from a family friend. Especially when she’s already going through a breakup (probably).
I’m sure people will pop up to argue me down in a series of increasingly lengthy posts describing how I’m wrong or not thinking of the right victims or how I’m a shit but in this case I’m gonna stand by my dislike of this strip.
I actually see people doing what Billie does a lot actually. I don’t know the correct term for it, so I just call it “Problem Sharing”. They’ll be having a conversation about say, Pokemon, and then one of them will just drop this personal or family problem that the other person has no business with.
I mean, I don’t blame Billie for wanting to bring this up, it just feel like Carla isn’t someone she should be talking to about this stuff. Maybe bring it up with Sal, hey there’s an interesting dynamic. The black sheep of the family and the adopted one talking about this whole issue.
Also you didn’t type anything out that should make people mad or anything, you just gave your opinion. And everyone has a right to that.
It seems natural to me for a character to pull out all the stops when they know they’re saying something dumb/tmi and choose to do it anyway. If we could hear it it would end with the rising inflection of a question. …scrolls up… I guess Willis agrees on that last part.
3. So a character said a dumb thing. What’s new?
4. I can see Billie being a little awkward over being loved by someone more than they love their own daughter.
On 5, keep in mind that she -just- had it shoved in her face that Mrs Walkerton likes her better than the woman likes her own daughter. I don’t think she’s feeling guilt for being too white, I think she’s feeling guilt for enjoying her cookies while remembering that her friend just got the seriously short end of the stick.
I mean, we STILL haven’t seen what’s in Sals box,ew, so I’m still holding out hope that we actually get some dialogue between the parents and their kids at some point.
Partially, because you’re pushing a normal God Dammit Nerds button, where extremely heavily implied subtext isn’t actually canon and everything has to be spelled out in neon signs with arrows pointing at them, all the while the nerds pat themselves on the back because of how much smarter they and their fiction are.
But mostly, because once again, this idiotic “WE MUST HAVE COMPLETELY UNIMPEACHABLE TEXT THAT SPELLS EVERYTHING OUT, SUBTEXT IS BADONG AND I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO INTERPRET TEXT”, is trotted out to discredit anything that might make a minority happy.
Not to mention, that the argument’s got an uncomfortable subtext to it. Basically, we’ve got a marginalized group character saying that an oppression related to their marginalized status exists.
But then a large number of readers repeat a particular argument that basically goes, no, that marginalized group member is lying about their experiences or is seeing things that aren’t there.
Which, raises an uncomfortable question. If she’s lying? Why? If she’s mistaken and seeing what isn’t there…?
Well, that’s often the charge leveled at marginalized group members whenever they dare notice and call attention to an oppression, especially if it is a subtle societal oppression. They are hyper-scrutinized and yelled at for seeing things that “aren’t there”, unlikely alternative explanations (especially ones that presume wrong-doing on the marginalized group member’s part) are tossed around, and the person’s real life experiences are discounted or questioned.
And so, the argument raises the spectre of that, unfortunately, which isn’t a problem per se in moderation, but when it’s as ubiquitous as it’s been of late, that starts getting more and more uncomfortable. I don’t think that’s on you Ctrl+C D@, but I can see where Rutee’s frustration is coming from, because it’s a similar frustration I felt when people were trying to find reasons why Mary’s transparent transphobia was a total accident and Mary only meant to say she was being rowdy.
I’ve never believed that Sal was lying about there being obvious ways that her and Walky’s parents treat them differently, my question early was more on why we still haven’t seen what Sal got in her box.
There’s something going on between her and her parents that I’d like explored further at some later point, but for right now since we’re on the subject of the care packages, it’s something I felt I wanted to know. Hell we still haven’t seen waht’s in Walky’s box yet either, and having seen another instance of how the siblings are treated differently would be something interesting to see.
Right now the only thing I’ve seen(in the current time, not hte flashbacks) of how their mother treats Sal is with outright ignoring her. I’d love to see what kind of “gift” this woman sends her estranged daughter.
This is exactly the fight I kept having on the Korra page (From Legend of Korra) on Wikipedia – a huge, nonstop fight to get her relationship with Asami on the page (and on the show page) where nothing about subtext and musical cues and third-party sources talking about it and framing mattered, none of it counted, Korra And Asami Were Not Together And Were Absolutely Straight.
Then Bryke (the creators) came out and wrote an article in plain text saying “yes this is exactly what we were doing and we went as far as the network would allow us.” Only then did I get a grudging acceptance.
(At which point the party line became “it was pasted on and shoved in our faces with no buildup or subtlety,” again ignoring everything I’d written and footnoted from dozens of critical sources talking about how it had been building for a year.)
We have that with Euphonium too, except that /a/ made it their mission to shit on anyone who saw the obvious subtext, and there still aren’t giant neon signs, as there are with korrasami. I mean, the original novelist praised them for their relationship, and was super happy that one of Kumiko and Reina’s intimate scenes together ‘captured the sheer eroticism of the moment’ that she was going for too, but the creators apparently felt barely-sub text was sufficient for anyone they felt like speaking to, so shitlords on /a/ and the like felt there was No Proof Whatsoever.
That whole ‘tacked on and with no buildup’ thing was total bullshit though. Were you not fucking watching the series? Of course they were a thing! Gah, heterosexists are blind.
I’d agree, but Billie explicitly framed her statement around race, around being “reasonably white-passing”. The bulk of the guilt might be about being the preferred daughter, but the undertone of white guilt is undeniably there.
I do think people are complex. While I have no doubt Billie’s whiteness helps her with Mama Walkerton, I don’t think it’s likely that’s the only reason. Or maybe I just hope her relationship with her isn’t totally horrible and based on racism.
Absolutely. Nothing’s that simple. Billie was Walky’s friend. Her parents neglected her. She needed adult parent figures. We don’t know much of her during childhood, but I’m sure the relationship was more complex than ‘grab random “white” girl to replace daughter’, but at the same time I’m sure that figured into why she was acceptable to them.
Another little bit I haven’t seen or thought of before, but it doesn’t seem like Billie’s little DUI problem has harmed her relationship with the Walkertons at all. Just a thought for those still thinking it’s all because Sal’s the bad girl and Walky’s the good kid. Billie’s still the favored “daughter” despite the legal problems.
As somebody who’s half, but is white-passing where I live (not everywhere, I’ve discovered) it does make sense to me that Billy feels guilty for being ‘too white’. I’ve heard similar from other people who are biracial.
That being said, her words and attitude both seem off to me. Eventually you get to the point where you realise you don’t get to decide how people see you, so you better take the cookies from wherever you can.
Ditto. It’s conversations my cousins have had being mixed race themselves, but that being said, I’m way too white to discount an actual POCs feelings of discomfort on how a racial issue was handled.
I knew it by the time I was Billie’s age, easily. And I would expect Billie to have learned it quicker than me with parents like hers. She’s already learned to take the cash they dole out, but to go beg affection elsewhere, from Linda, who actually provides.
Basically I’m agreeing with Yoto on points 1 & 4. And while I would understand that she feels some white guilt, I also agree with Yoto on the later half of point 5: the sarcastic “God forbid she take some pride in getting a gift from a family friend.”
There’s a clip of a black woman cooking on Fox News from last year during the Thanksgiving season that made the tumblr rounds for a disgusting best of racism from the white hosts. One of them asks her condescendingly if she’s going to be serving Kool-Aid to go with this huge fancy meal.
The woman sort of weakly chuckles and says uh, no, no Kool-Aid, and tries to steer the conversation back.
(Kool-Aid is the liquid version of watermelon, in case you aren’t upon your gross racist stereotypes.)
Anyway, I had to watch the clip multiple times AND THEN Google Kool-Aid and stereotypes, because I’m a white thirty something and no one wanted to ever damage my innocence as a teen by teaching me about racist microaggressions. (Hell, I only learned about the watermelon thing like five years ago!)
But you know who immediately recognized the micro aggression? The woman’s daughter. Who looked maybe nine years old. She was helping her mom cook, and when the host asked, she got this LOOK on her face. She gave the camera a side-eye.
Kids who aren’t white don’t always get to be kids. Racism slaps them in the face at an early age.
How does liking watermelon, which I have been called an alien for not liking (I’m white, the people who’ve called me that have been white, Latino, and Philipino), become a specifically black stereotype? As far as I’ve been lead to believe watermelon is God’s juicy gift to man in an inedible green package.
I’m quite fond of it too, but it’s an old association, dating back to slavery days and deliberately pushed in the Jim Crow days to make black people seem greedy and childish.
It’s pretty much only an American thing and near as I can tell, the link is much stronger in the old South.
For what it’s worth, I’m with you (and definitely not an alien). The juice alone might be okay, if a bit weak and watery (hence the name), but it almost always comes with flesh so slushy it’s just on the wrong side of “barely even there”, and of course the seeds…
I do actually really like [i]artificial[/i] watermelon flavor. And I’ve thought/suspected that concentrating the actual juice might bring it up to the flavor intensity I prefer.
In my personal experience, the black food stereotypes are basically all southern foods. Friend chicken and watermelon? Everyone in the south eats and loves it. I don’t know why mocking black people for it became a racist thing, but it makes me sad.
Yeah its the sort of self conscious character break to exposit on the situation. Kinda like how bugs bunny talked to the the audience by adressing another character? Maybe…
And eventually, after even that stage, you realize you can get your own cookies and you don’t have to play a fucked up role in someone else’s family drama for them.
I’m not sure about Billie’s lines being forced in this strip. If anything, they seem true to her underlying personality. Some of her issues is because, in her head, there is still a significant part of her that thinks of herself as Princess Billie, the Alpha of the High School. The idea that she deserves good things to happen to her and to have things that she wants solely on her terms is a very real and very toxic part of her personality and one of the reasons why she is having difficulty developing healthy relationships.
To me, the whole point of the panel 4 to panel 6 sequence is for Billie to let that spoiled brat out and speak it aloud so that she could suddenly hear herself and realise just how horrible an attitude it is. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s going to apologise to Sal right now. Either that or get stone drunk and be found unconscious in a vacant room somewhere.
I wonder if there was also some rich privilege auto-response there. Like, oh of course I earned getting free stuff because of who I am and of course I shouldn’t be expected to share with those who are cookie-less and it’s when Carla challenged that that she fully said out loud how she has “earned” her place with the Walkertons as a sort of replacement family.
Which is ironic because Carla also has rich privilege and that might be part of why she also feels entitled to getting free cookies from someone else’s gift.
I don’t get this. It was a gift. How is Billie saying “no you can’t have any of my (care package from a friend)” to someone who AFAIK isn’t even her friend an expression of privilege? The race stuff, the stuff with Billie’s parents versus Walky/Sal’s parents, I hadn’t thought about. But Carla’s not coming from a reasonable place to begin with, so Billie having to blurt out that complex justification makes no sense. It feels clunky.
My bad, I was more musing that it was the way she was reflexively defensive about free stuff with an “I earned this” rather than anything about the cookies in general, because yeah, she shouldn’t be expected to share her cookies. Those are her racism cookies, damnitt! 🙂
I’m still a little baffled as to how a character gets into a position where they need to justify keeping their cookies via breaking down the racial motivations behind their relationship with their friend’s mother when they could have just said “a family friend sent me these cookies, I’m not sharing them with you, Carla, you’re the person who’s deliberately an asshole to everyone and it’s unreasonable to expect me to hand them over to you.”
I get that this is Billie knowing exactly why she got a big bag of cookies and why Sal got a tiny little box, but to have her blurt all this out to Carla, someone who’s just dickishly saying “hey give me your stuff,” doesn’t even jibe with the confrontational behavior Billie’s shown in earlier strips.
One of my favourite bits of this comic from a racial standpoint was how mature Billie was at the end and aftermath of Freshman Family weekend. Seeing that collide with her early petulance here in a sort of abrupt way isn’t great.
“Passing privilege” is horseshit, insofar as white dudes don’t suddenly become victims of centuries long bigotry if someone calls them a cracker ass honkey.
Conditional privilege, like how Billie is only privileged as long as she belongs to the white homogenous sludge until someone finds out she’s half Chinese and suddenly becomes the recipient of a million “so you’re only half as good at math right” jokes, is not privilege.
I respectably disagree. If you’re “white-enough”, like Billie, you really can be allowed preferential treatment in regards to many things. Job opportunities, for instance.
That being said, it’s a weird kind of backhand privileged where white people give you shit for not being white enough, and you get shit from whatever other race you’re part of for being too white. So privileged in certain areas and not privileged in others. Like many things
It is exactly that weird kind of backhand privilege. I refuse to call it privilege when it comes with that big a caveat, where you’re only safe until they pull the rug out from under your feet.
White, straight, and male privilege exist because those groups inherently experience favouritism.
I think this is why I find ‘privilege’ a very fraught term when talking about individuals. Billie may experience a level of white privilege, but I wouldn’t call Billie ‘priviledged’ in a broad sense. But where do you draw that line? Is Walky ‘priviledged’? Even individuals in similar groups, (even in the most priviledged groups!) may experience privilege at different levels in their lives, depending on personal circumstances and behavior and luck. It’s standard deviation.
On a societal level, I think it’s important to address the fact that white, straight, male, and certain hard to define socio-cultural classes each have an automatic plus in life, and we should think about bringing everyone else up to a similar level. But on a personal level, I don’t think we can (or should) place our cards on the table and try and decide who has it most shitty – Billie vs Sal, go!
I think Walky is privileged within his own household, but how privileged can he be? He’s a dark skinned man in middle America. His mom can go gaga over his straight hair and his obedience, but who else is that going to matter to?
I just wholly, completely disagree with the idea that privilege can count when it’s conditional. Billie’s liked by the Walkertons because she’s whiter than Sal, and suddenly it’s that whiteness that causes someone else to hate her. It’s not being white enough that costs her a job she’s applying for. It’s being too white for somebody else.
I can’t call that a privilege in the same way I unilaterally benefit from being white and male, and don’t benefit from “straight passing” because that’s something I only have until someone finds out I’m into dudes.
It’s definitely not the same privilege as something inherent, but it’s a privilege. Being read as a dominant group member you are not can come with perks, including as others have said in hiring, promotions, and sometimes avoiding some of the direct negative public responses.
But as you note, it’s a fraught “privilege” because it’s based on a misunderstanding on the part of the dominant culture and when that “privilege” comes crashing down, it can sometimes be to the worst forms of oppression because now the person is seen as a “deceiver”.
But it’s still a thing. A trans woman who “passes” as cis receives less active harassment when she walks down the street. My bi “it’s complicated” had a much easier time of things when she had a “boyfriend”, than when she was open and out as bi. I’ve had to recloset myself and pass as what I was not just to survive and be hired, because it’s really hard to be hired for most anything as a trans person.
And there’s all manner of stories of actresses allowed careers that other black women were not simply because they “pass” as white. Hell, it’s still a thing where those actresses who “pass” as white are more likely to get more and more varied roles than someone who doesn’t.
It’s a lie of a privilege, one that can be removed by someone “clocking” you (like Dr. V who was driven to suicide, because her life “passing” as a cis woman was directly threatened by an idiot sports writer who thought the fact she was a trans woman would make a great hook for a story) or simply if you are unwilling to deal with the uncomfortable dissonance and overly discomfort of those kinds of closets (a number of those “passing” black actresses nonetheless had deep depression because of how much the stress and unfairness and closeted nature weighed on them).
It’s the privilege equivalent of a cloud. Physically tangible and able to affect things, but easily dissipated into thin air with the slightest shift in climate.
Maybe cuz I’m bi, but I seriously have trouble with the phrase “passing privilege”. Cuz it’s used a lot in the LGBT circle to justify biphobia. Bi people don’t belong here, they’re not really oppressed because they have “passing privilege”.
Likewise with invisible disability stuff in the disability circles. “People with invisible disabilities aren’t really discriminated against because they have ‘passing privilege.'”
It’s not a privilege to have your humanity be conditional. Nor is it a privilege to be cut off from the only group that can be a reliable support structure when dealing with these things because of the fact that the dominant group decides you’re sometimes maybe partly people. Conditionally. When they feel like it.
This. Is. Not. Privilege.
It’s oppression of the divide and conquer variety.
Get LG folk all pissed off that bi people can look het if in het relationships, cut off bi and LG folk from each other. Both oppressed groups have their support network cut down and their resources cut down. Who wins? Het folks.
Get visibly disabled folk all pissed off that people like me can “look normal” (with a boatload of effort and energy that leaves us too drained to do anything else that day) and have them cut us off when we need support for stuff like asking for accommodations or putting pressure on a place being oppressive or whatever (See also, the time the disability advocate at my uni refused to support me with my complaint over cigarette smoke inside buildings because since I can pass, I don’t count and I don’t really need to breathe anyway. Limited resources so rather than putting pressure on the school to actually enforce an already-existing policy, I’m going to continue to campaign for elevators in all the buildings. As if it’s a zero sum game, and as if my breathing is less serious an issue than someone in a wheelchair being able to get to all floors. For the record: All access issues are important and deserve attention, but my point is the fact that I pass for healthy and abled when I’m working very hard to keep my NT mask on does not mean I can magically tolerate cigarette smoke or that I don’t need support from the disability community when trying to pressure an institution not to be ableist shitbags who think that getting smokers to move 10m away from building air intakes – like the law and university policy already require – is more troublesome than me having daily asthma attacks and possibly requiring ER trips). What happens when visibly disabled folk refuse to help on the count of the fact that invisibly disabled folk have passing privilege and therefore don’t really need help, is that invisibly disabled folk get pissed that the visibly disabled folk don’t have our backs, for all their fancy talk of solidarity or what have you. So we don’t come out for visibly disabled folk because if you won’t have mine why should I have yours? Resentment builds and each camp becomes more divided. What happens? Each group is isolated, smaller and weaker. Who wins? Abled folk.
“Passing privilege” as a term, is a tool of divide-and-conquer power politics. Because IME, when people invoke “passing privlege” as a thing, they’re doing it to pretend you don’t need their help for an oppression issue because you’re not really oppressed. Or they’re doing to justify their exclusion of you from an event or group that you actually do belong to. Wayy more often than not, it’s used to perpetuate the status quo rather than challenge it.
Which is not to say that passing isn’t a thing that happens. Or that passing doesn’t make things easier in some respects. But it’s just… Hard to articulate but a lot of groups seem to think that if you pass everything is magically all better and you never experience oppression ever. They don’t realize that your own group will often cut you off if you pass (often in so many words – as a bi woman in a het relationship I’ve been told I “don’t count” as LGBT because I pass, as just one example), and they don’t realize that conditional when-I-feel-like-it acceptance to the dominant group isn’t actual acceptance, and that you’re part of the main group only as long as it’s convenient for them. When they can hold you up as a model minority, or have you perform as a walking encyclopedia on all things your oppression experience regardless of how invasive or insensitive or degrading or time-consuming or draining the questions are, they love you. The moment you’re at all difficult or anything other than a docile bobble-head of a yes-person, you’re just a stupid r***** like the rest of them.
That’s a good point about how the slight, mercurial, temporary, and always with painful cost “privilege” of passing is used by some communities to justify biphobia and ableism against “invisible” disabilities. And yeah, I think in biphobia in general, there’s a lack of awareness that passing privilege is much like closet privilege, in that it sucks and is awful to live through.
Like, yeah, you get less active direct shit when you’re closeted, but you still get a lot of shit and you still feel like shit constantly in ways that are often life-ruining and that’s a part of the overall oppression.
And so yeah, the illusion that “passing” is this instantly wonderful thing is something that has been repeatedly disproven in a number of communities, but especially the trans community, because for awhile we were court-ordered to be “passing” and “disappear” in order to be allowed to have access to what we needed and it became quickly apparent that that offers way fewer protections than an active out community.
Which makes it a difficult subject to talk about especially in the LGBT community because of its history.
That all being said, there is definitely a tangibly different albeit temporary, illusory, and precluding being in a closet that’s personally constructed for you way one is treated when one is deemed by dominant society to “pass” than when one doesn’t.
And how rough that can be is often why individuals are scared to live in closets or feel such pressure to “pass” as dominant group members (I’m thinking especially of all the social pressures for trans people to “pass” simply to make their daily harassment less all-consuming). But it definitely is not the same thing as a white privilege or a male privilege by any stretch of the imagination.
Passing is absolutely a thing. It’s a systemic advantage that is unearned. It’s just not one worthy of anger, and REALLY not a thing for bi, pan, or similar folks. Having a much lighter skin tone is /helpful/, especially if people need to see your ID to figure out you’re not white (Or sometimes need to). People needing you to reveal something helps a LITTLE. Just not exactly super much. But it’s still a thing.
Frankly, the idea of ‘passing privilege’ for bi people ultimately makes me throw up a little. I mean, gay people just need to /not mention who they’re married to/ or similar. or go out in public! Then nothing is learned of your sexuality! You know, the same strictures bi people would have to adhere to.
What is the world coming to when you can’t even enjoy a damn Oreo without being reminded of racism. The most BS part about it is that just looking at it starts it all.
I don’t even like the white part anymore. I dunno whether it’s just that my tastes have changed as I’ve gotten older, or if they actually have increased the Crisco content, but it’s all about the chocolate cookies for me. Double Stuf is really not an improvement.
I haven’t had mint ones since back when they were called Grasshoppers and Oreos only came in regular and Double Stuf. Grasshoppers were the best, though. I was pissed when they stopped making them.
I noticed that the cream in the Oreo got even grosser (never liked it) right around the time they had to take trans fats out of everything. The cookie texture changed too. Hydrogenated fats might be the devil but DAMN if they don’t make delicious cookies.
Too late. The USS Carlie has set sail, captained by me. (Barla sounds stupid, so it’s Carlie, everyone who wants to sail along accept it or go overboard tbh xD)
I feel like Willis has got more and more obnoxious with forcing the storyline, its at the point where I read ‘OH NO THE BIGOTS ATTACK’ and my response is ‘ok.’. I just dont feel any more emotional investment in these characters, but only really in the plot questions. Bluh. Im still reading but, I feel like as his art quality gets better, his storytelling degrades.
This is an older plot. Willis is really into social justice and always has been, and sometimes he gets a little bit zealous with it. He did get really hamfisted with Toedad, who ended up being a Bad Guy rather than the significantly more nuanced character I expected him to be, and he might continue that vein or he might go back to the complex and interesting character interactions I started reading this comic for. Hard to say.
Why does the Gunman have to be “nuanced”? Why can’t he just be a complete asshole? People like him absolutely exist.
(Hell, somewhere in either the comments or Willis’s Tumblr, someone posted a news story about a man doing something heartbreakingly similar to what the Gunman did to Becky).
I think the Gunman’s better off as a complete monster. Because then Carol defending him creates that much more conflict.
“Why does the Gunman have to be “nuanced”?” Because it makes for a better character. Plus, nobody just becomes a “bad guy”. Ever read some histories behind serial killers and psychopaths? They’re almost never born that way.
The advice about “nuance” misses the point of the advice “nuance” is meant to address. And that’s complexity or rather having a character’s motivations make complete sense given their attitude, life experiences, personality, and history.
Cause that’s what makes a rich character. When you can see Carla in her handful of appearances and see the signs of a rough background that leads to the projection of overconfidence and the slight tools she uses to turn her perceived negatives and vulnerabilities into strengths. That shows a lot of care in craft and its reflected in the moments where she’s more fleshed out.
Toedad is not nuanced. But he is fully fleshed out and consistent to his motivations and character. It makes perfect sense the chain of broken logic and petty hypermasculinity that lead him to escalating the situation with Becky to its ignoble end. His actions are fully informed by his faith, his feelings of failing against Satan, and even his beliefs in his role as a father.
He’s a real person and as such, he resonates strongly with people who have known a Toedad. Who’ve been under his ire. He rings true, because his actions have a perfectly understandable characterization and that carries more emotional impact than a character who is made “nuanced” for nuance’s sake.
Also, I would disagree regarding the “become the bad guy” thing. In that, Toedad doesn’t believe he’s the bad guy. In fact, in his worldview, his actions were the heroic attempts to literally fight off the Devil’s minions who were adamant in denying him personally from saving the soul of his remaining family. And because of that worldview, he made justifications for truly abhorrent and vile behavior.
And that’s true to life. There’s no shortage of truly awful people, people who spend their lives trying to make kids kill themselves, who kill their children for not “growing up right” or who make merry sport of bigotry, who ran hate campaigns and join organizations like the Klan or the hashtag we dare never speak the name of. Who will find a justification for why they’re not the baddies or at least, if they are the baddies, they’re the super cool baddies who look super awesome and besides they were pushed into it.
“The Ross McIntyres of the world are not nuanced.”
They are, actually. Everyone has a story with unique origins to their beliefs, goals and reasons for holding them, and so on. It’s a fact of life, regardless of how good or bad someone is. To portray someone as mindlessly, inherently bad is its own form of unrealistic.
Except he has origins, beliefs, goals, reasons for his actions. Hell, I provided a lot of the play-by-play of the worldview being faithfully recreated, a worldview Willis literally grew up with, when those comics were being run.
Just because they do not make him sympathetic, does not make him fully informed by his culture and his personality.
Nah. Some people are just bad. They are being presented as bad because they are bad. If there’s no symapathetic bone in Toedad’s body, why make one up? It doesn’t exist. He’s an asshole. I don’t understand why you would want ‘nuance’ on an asshole. His reasonings and motivations have been made abundantly clear. They are not redeeming. Maybe that’s why he’s so jarring. He is bad. His motivations are bad. That’s it.
Everyone has a story with unique origins to their beliefs, goals and reasons for holding them, and so on.
We know what Ross’s backstory is.
It is the same goddamn backstory as every single person who has pulled this shit in real life.
A disgusting stew of religion, privilege, homogeneity, and toxic masculinity.
There are variants in the story – what specific religion and culture, and how that effects how the others manifest – but it’s a straightforward story.
There is no ‘nuance’ to it, nothing to make these assholes sympathetic and suitably ‘realistic’ to the people who can’t help but think ‘no, they can’t just be assholes, they MUST have some deep backstory that means that the horrible things they do make sense’.
No, it’s horrible living in a reality where fuckholes like Ross MacIntyre exist, and are constantly being given the benefit of the doubt by people who insanely naively think that they don’t.
It must be absolutely lovely to live in a goddamn sugar bowl where there is no such thing as bad people.
Just because someone’s motivations for being a terrible person make sense to them doesn’t mean we need to in any way honor those motivations. Yes, Ross has a whole life story that made him the Toedad he is today. It was still his choices that led to his Toedadism. I don’t see that there’s really any room for nuance there.
Serial Killers do indeed grow into that. Do you think their stories are universally redeeming? For fuck’s fucking sake, nerds, do you read what you type?
Why don’t we hear about all the good sympathetic qualities to people who deliberately target more vulnerable people (usually women and sex workers) and brutally murder them for their own personal pleasure?
Sociopathy doesn’t do that. Actively choosing to defy common sense (trying to hurt someone because a randomly powerful person says it should be done without giving a justification) is what does that.
That and someone in the patreon strips for those had said they actually had to stop reading because it was too close to their real life circumstances. And there were definite moments that resonated uncomfortably close to home for others.
Honestly, with all the… more traditionalist commenters who occasionally pop up to note how the storylines focusing on the more marginalized people and the stories never written about.
I can understand where they are coming from. After all, if you are used to stories looking a certain way and being about certain things and about a narrow band of individuals and circumstances, this can probably feel alienating and uncomfortable and “heavy-handed” and overly infected with his “social justice” bent and so on…
But personally, I’m often grateful and happy that he’s been writing about these issues simply because there are very few places to see that sort of story and see that sort of story actually done well and truthfully to those experiences (in this I’m speaking more of the ones I can personally attest are done very accurately to my own experiences).
For me, some of these storylines have helped me deal with some rather fresh and nasty traumas and see representations I never expected to see. And maybe that’s not what people who are used to seeing themselves in their fiction come to comics to read, but there’s a lot of stories out there that speak to interests they have and not so many for me. So I have a hard time feeling that bad about how they feel alienated by storylines that actually address real issues in an informed yet sardonic way.
Be aware the article contains the fathers threat to kill his daughter.
Also the father’s religious beliefs factored into his reaction similar to toe-dad.
This man’s particular beliefs are to blame not his religion the same way Toe-dad’s beliefs are to blame.
I wasnt complaining before. Im complaining now that it seems like all these similar plots of “Everyone hates people for being different” just completely stamp out the sorta dark yet optimistic feel of this comic and has got to the point where its normalized and im not getting any emotions from reading it.
I don’t agree with your overall assessment, but there is some real scary moral absolutism going on in this thread. Not that Toedad is somehow meant to be sympathetic, he’s not, but dismissing nuance as untrue to real-life is upsetting to me.
….but that is Sal’s story. It has always been. She is a Cool Rebel with a Troubled Past because of Friction With Her Family while her brother is an Immature Jerk who is too Privileged to understand Her Situation, but at college they have the chance to meet again as adults rather than children…
Like, there is not a single strip with Sal that has not in one way or another addressed this story-arc.
Just like Becky’s story ark has always been that she is fleeing a childhood that didn’t allow her to be what she is, or that Joyce’s story is that she is leaving a childhood behind that wanted to make her a bigot (something she refused to be in the meeting with Dorothy, Ethan and the New And Improved Becky). It’s nothing new – the theme of oppression has been one of the main pillars of this comic from day one.
All of this. The interplay of being more aware of these oppressions and growing as a person because of it is on of the cornerstones of the comic and has been since its pre-planning mock-ups. Not just because the characters demand it based on who they are and what informs their arcs, but also because that’s been the point of the comic for the author.
Willis has stated several times that part of this comic is his own therapy, exploring the hard road of shedding his bigotries that he was carefully raised to have through contact with people who were the groups he was raised to hate and becoming more and more aware of the issues they face, both dramatically and more subtly.
It’s why Joyce, the character with that exact arc is one of the most autobiographical in the comic.
People who are acting like having so much awareness on microaggressions and dynamics of harassment and abuse is some new deviation from the comic have been largely missing the point about the comic.
Part of it, I suspect, is that we’re moving from the stage where the basically nice girl with prejudices confronts them and grows out of them to the stage where our characters have to confront others, who are actually set in their ways and sometimes not at all nice, at least to their targets.
The first is the easy, happy story. Joyce grows up, we laugh at her a bit and then we’re happy for her. She’s the nice bigot that some posters keep asking for and she comes out of it practically on her, just with a little exposure outside her old comfort zone.
The second is harder, less comfortable. Not everyone is nice and willing to change.
Of course, it’s all been there from the beginning. The villains of these storylines were established and foreshadowed long ago, but it was easy to look past until now.
I don’t think I’ve ever had ginger snaps, but I hate ginger, so I would probably not enjoy them. I mean, I hate the spice, not the hair color, the hair color I love. And Ginger Spice the person is cool too (love ya, Geri). But the actual spice ginger can go die in a fire ;p
I don’t drink, so the beer is out anyway, but I do remember my mom giving me ginger ale to drink when I had stomach aches as a kid? Tastes like medicine to me now, so no thanks^^
Oh! Don’t think this exists where I live. But in any case I am at least 99% sure that bases on empirical evidence re: me and ginger, I would not enjoy it xD
You probably would not, a lot of people don’t, it might be the strongest soda ever. A stronger batch can make your insides feel like their burning the first time you drink it. Do you live in Europe?
That does not sound pleasant. I mean, even ginger ale always had that kind of effect on me, though maybe not as strong.
And yeah, Germany. (I just googled whether we have the ginger beer soda here and we do not, because nothing is allowed to be called beer in Germany that isn’t beer xD)
its really good actually (to me at least), its just not that sweet. Funny enough I once gave ginger beer to german foreign exchange students, I made sure to grab the strongest bottle I could find.
There is almost nothing in that sentence I enjoy lmao. I don’t like tea, ginger…. or being sick xD Lemon is fine, as long as it’s not pure. I know, I am the worst.
Reminds me of being a kid in Michigan. Having a cold meant the tea. Having a flu meant a slow weaning of room temperature ginger ale. As far as getting sick can go, good times.
After all, those sugar cookies worked hard, went to good schools, and really earned their place on my plate. Honestly, it’s really unfair of you to suggest that anything other than sober fair analysis went into this cookie decision. And besides, we all know about those double chocolate cookies and their lack of “proper” flavor values. Nuff said.
Because of the potential for weight gain. A lot of people feel guilty for enjoying cookies because they gain weight or they want to lose weight and the desire for cookies makes it harder to do so.
Storytime: In Sweden there is a cookie called Chocolate Balls previously called N***** Balls, because of racism. Now it is a HUGE THING that people are not allowed to call it the old name any longer without getting called out for it. It’s even gone so far that the rightwing populist party uses it as an informal platform. (“We want a return to the good old days when you could use the real name for things”). Many a sheltered kid has their first exposure to privilege-theory from the chocolate ball debate.
…so yeah, racist cookies – in Sweden we call it Politics.
In Germany there is a chocolate desert filled with cream that is now called Chocolate Kiss and it used to be called exactly that thing that the Balls were called in Sweden. When I was a kid they were TOTALLY still called that. It maybe started slowly getting phased out 15 years ago? Crazy, right?
(Germany, I’d say Western/Northern Europe in general, has a shitload of these kinds of racisty things going on, like blackface and whatnot, that are only really REALLY slowly starting to get the outrage and attention they deserve!)
And the old people yelling about ‘political corectness’, they exist here, too. Of course they do. Basically what they’re saying is ‘I want to still be racist without being called out on it, can’t we go back to those good old days?’ Those idiots exist everywhere. In the US a very orangey man is currently riding those people alllll the way to the polls.
Which is proof that whines about political correctness are really about dominant group members not being willing to handle the fact that social norms change and what once was given a free pass really shouldn’t anymore.
Like, they are so used to not having to change for anything, that the slightest growth of culture is seen as a direct attack on them.
Exactly! The chocolate balls is just one example. There are so many “Racist things we have always done, but when we do them now people call us racists and we don’t want to be called racists”-things that have become HUGE THINGS in Sweden that it is utterly ridiculous.
“We have always:”
– Called Pippi Longstockings father a N***** king (rather than a “South Sea king” as in the new printing)
– Seen a three second long animation of a caricature black doll in a disney cartoon during Christmas.
– Shelved the earliest, most racist Tintin comic books in the children’s section in a particular library in Stockholm rather than in the adult comic section one floor up.
– Singing a particular song about gingerbread men in the children’s christmas plays at daycare (one particular school dared to change the program one year)
– A particular brand of candy with a yellow-face Chinese caricature as logo
– …and those damn cookies.
All these things have repeatedly been front page news and hotly debated by top politicians. They are held up by the more-or-less-outspoken racist political parties as proof of Political Correctness Gone Mad.
So, yeah, enjoy this news flash from the Socialist Feminist Utopia Sweden…
I mean, your super racist party (I want to say Sverigekotama?) got seats. I knew y’all had some pretty bad shit going ont oo, everyone does. But yeah, most Meriken leftists just know Sweden has it better than here.
I’m not sure if they replaced the wording of Pippie Longstockings Father’s role in the German Version or if they kept the wording and made a comment about the word. What’s not happening is pointing out, that at that time, this might have been a child’s fantasy what happened to her father who was lost at sea. But that it showed an uniformed and racist world view, as why the hell should any south sea tribe make a random white man swept upon their shore their king?
I’d rather prefer not changing the stories but talking about why the have wrong ideas and, incidentally, wrong words.
BTW: Conservatives tended to hate Astrid Lindgren because of her anarchist ideas (a child living all by herself without adult supervison! In 1941!). We cannot know what her point of view would have been if she lived now, her story Kati in America (1950) describes the segregation in the southern states of the US (sorry about the wording, ianans) in very shocked words. So this suggests she would be an ally.
Oh, we don’t have to wonder about Astrid Lindgren’s views on racism.
“I dislike all kinds of separation of humans in nations and races, all kind of discrimination between black and white, between aryas and jews, between turks and swedes, between men and women.
Since I was big enough to think independently I have disliked the blue-and-yellow patriotic Swedish, all those things about “if anyone comes too close to our mountain… [a pretty hillarious patriotic song]”, that is as disgusting to me as Hitler’s german nationalism.. I have never been a patriot. We are all human – that has always been my special patos of life. ”
Astrid Lindgren, 1957 (hastily translated by me – all errors are mine)
Actually, I remember starting the awkward bakery conversation (where you could buy the singly) with asking for a “Schokokuss” in the early 80ties. I’m not sure when the word became mainstream usage, some company who sells the stuff in boxes made a huge marketing effort to have their brand name become a generic name for it.
Cesaria’s and Bagge’s comments illustrates a problem I encounter when inappropriate names are talked about.
Bagge wrote about N**** which I read as a certain word, and Cesaria chimes in with her experience about a German sweet. Only because I know the German sweet was not named with how I read the word Bagge wrote about, I know that I either misinterpreted the Swedish word or others will misinterpret the German one. Or maybe from a POC point of view, both words are equally offensive?
If the offending word isn’t mentioned, it is all open to my knowledge or fantasy what it was. I can understand the wish to not repeat an offending word but at the same time, it makes it impossible to know what is really talked about.
This troubles me.
The German N word is just as bad as the English one. Sure, it’s a word associated with slavery in English and there are always *those* people that will argue that the Germanic word is just “a translation of the word black”, so it can’t be offensive. But yes it can and yes it is. Because it has taken on this meaning over time. It doesn’t MATTER what it may have originally meant. Now it’s a slur and shouldn’t be said, just like the English N word.
Jupp. The word was also used excessively by racial biologists in their mission to measure how races were different from each other. Like, I have a hard time thinking of how a word could be MORE obviously racist.
Still that way in the Netherlands. They’ve been slowly phasing that out. And then there’s the ridiculous amount of people trying to claim that Sinterklaas’ helpers aren’t a caricature of black slaves.
Same thing here with Balthazar (of the Three Wise Men). There’s always children dressing up as the Wise Men on January 6th and every year, like clockwork, someone will do blackface. I don’t understand how it’s so hard for some people to understand that we don’t DO THIS ANYMORE because it’s FUCKING RACIST. Ugh. Europe is hella slow on the uptake about this =/
Or maybe it’s Caspar, I am not religious enough to know the names of them^^ But you know what I mean, one of them is black and it’s always, inevitably, a mess with blackface.
The problem with offensive speech is that it is very frequently regionally and even contextually specific. Words that are offensive in one area are normal proper nouns or verbs elsewhere and are uttered by people of all races without a twitch because there is no societal association with offence.
The lesson? Bigotry is universal but its language is not.
That may be true. But it’s also true that many times people who ARE offended simply pick their battles, and people who are not offended have no idea that people are offended.
So true. These words were always offensive and hurtful to the communities they affect, it’s just those battles are ugly, long, and dehumanizing, so it takes time for a community to work up to drumming up education on it and there are plenty of times when people in the community will walk rather than invite the stress of it all into their life.
That is only true if the word is in a language that the community speaks. However, an identical-sounding word in their language is not offensive at all. That’s the point I’m making.
Maybe. But if a member of an oppressed group alerts you to the fact that a word (even one you’ve maybe been saying all your life, in whatever language) is offensive, then you stop saying it. It’s really as simple as that.
In Britain, we had a lot of those battles in the ’90s. I was oblivious at the time, being a white kid, but I do remember when Robinson’s Marmalade quietly dropped their cheery little mascot, which I shall refer to here as a “golly***”.
One time when I was little, I asked what all the different kinds of mixed nuts were in a bowl over a Christmas holiday. My dad told me “this ones a pecan, this one’s a walnut, and these ones I don’t know but we just called them N—– Toes!” and laughed like it was some grand joke, and then my mom berated him for saying something like that to me (not for the context of that certain word, mind you… just that he used it, because she considered it along the lines of saying a curse word and this was back when we were all “good Catholics”… -_- ). I remember being really confused because I didn’t know what that word meant and why it was “off limits” yet at the same time hilarious.
It was also weird because when a black guy moved into our neighborhood in the little backwater town in a southern we lived in at the time, my dad was the only one who treated the guy with any respect and welcomed him to come over, have dinner, watch football games, etc… until our neighbors achieved their goal of making him feel so unwelcomed he moved out a few months later.
Still confusing today because I see similar behaviors from them of being perfectly respectful to all kinds of people, but are more than happy to drop all sorts of nasty slurs and even make comments about how certain groups of people are troublemakers, lazy, blah blah blah.
Selective racism maybe?… All I know is it gave me many bad habits that I had to painfully reteach myself away from and that I doubt I’ll ever be able to fully make up for.
I guess it could be a mix of growing up with these jokes and stereotypes, so they’re still funny even if you know they’re wrong, or they’re funny BECAUSE they’re wrong. Some sort of black humor.
Also, it’s a lot easier to think/say “group X is Y”, than say that a flesh-and-blood person is bad due to their belonging to a certain group. Basically, the jokes are about stereotypes, but when confronted with real people, and seeing these stereotypes don’t apply, you drop that attitude.
(I think that joke offends in many ways. I can always not post it. Will it help if I point out I’m Irish? Oh well, they can write it down if they like it.)
It’s such a nice touch. Like she’s just… what? What the fuck did you just say? It’s basically like the non-angry, non-hurt version of her dead stop panel with Mary after she dropped her bomb.
And it’s made all the more impactful with Billie’s awkward cringe. Like, she’s just said out loud what she’s known has been true for the longest time, what has colored her every awkward interaction with Sal, and she knows that that has robbed her cookies of a lot of their innocent joy and wonder, because she can’t escape what they transparently represent.
That one panel is just such a good character moment.
Carla doesn’t get why Billie has had a sudden guilt-trip, but she’ll run with it if it gets her ginger snaps.
Meanwhile, poor Billie is suddenly and uncomfortably aware of the scale to which Mrs Walkerton has used her as a club to punish Sal for existing. It is the sort of thing that tends to rob you of your appetite.
I just spent like 30+ minutes reading these comments. Very wide range. I’d kinda like a refund for about 5 of those, but I know you have a no refund policy, Willis. You can’t even leave cookies untainted, can you?
It takes a lot of effort to put yourself in the wrong in a conversation where someone walks up to you and says “Cookies, gimme!” but Billie can rise to the occasion.
Goddammit Mrs. Billingsworth, do you not pay any attention to your daughter’s life? We’re not dating anymore. We haven’t been dating for months. I’m not even in contact with your daughter anymore. Stop sending me care packages.
So, here’s my question: Is Sal’s skin tone actually darker than Walky’s? Now, to be as clear I’m not saying that Sal is making up the racial aspect of her mother’s relationship, or that Willis is a bad story teller who doesn’t story tell correctly. In fact, I can think of several plausible explanations, the most likely (in my mind) is that there’s a sexism thing going on as well: she was fine with a darker skin child while she wanted a lighter skin daughter. So while she’s okay with Walky’s skin tone, she’s not with Sal’s (I’ll also admit that I’m definitely oversimplifying with my language; I have like 5 minutes to write this so I can’t use my big girl words so easily.)
However, I just want confirmation that I’m not the only one who can’t tell the skin tone between the two and maybe (if art/people who can figure out how to do this can) someone telling me if their skin time’s are using the same pigment or at least highly similar pigments. Thanks!
Walky and Sal have the same skin tone. It’s the difference in their other traits, like Walky’s straight hair vs. Sal’s kinky hair, that motivated Walky’s preferential treatment.
Oh duh! Now I feel absolutely silly. They spent so long talking about white passing and appearing that somewhere in my brain I thought they must have been talking about skin tone, when I know that white passing is a whole bunch of other things as well. Question answered. Thanks.
I believe that Sal (or maybe it was Walky) once said something about Walky being ‘a more acceptable shade of beige’ but I don’t know how much of that was factual and how much of that was the speaker being flippant.
Re: Generically Beige line
I find it pretty hard to believe that Walky’s dad would let him have that concept in his mind. Just as someone who is a minority and most likely experienced discrimination, how could he not disabuse his son of that notion?
Neither of my parents are mixed, so maybe it’s a little different, but the idea that slight differences like hair and complexion* separate us was always pushed against. I even remember meeting a fairly light skinned dude in high school who definitely feel the need to try and impress upon me that he was black, as if I would’ve denied him. It would literally never have crossed my mind.
However, I know that identifying as mixed and honouring your entire background does conflict with this idea. And it also seems like it parallels the super shitty one-drop rule stuff. But the way it was presented to me, it wasn’t that you couldn’t have your differences of culture and that those couldn’t be celebrated, but that “blackness” isn’t a metric to use to separate people.
Which brings me back to the idea that I find it hard to believe that Papa Walkerton never experienced any opinions/reactions about being too black or not black enough while growing up in America, being an academic (I think) or being in a relationship with a white lady that made him think “man it feels bad to be judged that way” and not let his kids or wife do that shit. I almost don’t buy it for Walky even though he was basically raised by television and the internet, but I don’t buy it for his dad.
Also Walky is talkative as all hell so I don’t think that class was the first time he ever dropped that ‘I’m beige, but my sister is black’ stuff.
*At the same time I was made aware of colourism, especially via who made it in the mainstream media.
When this issue was first raised, I noticed how several strips showed Sal and Walky together, in the same lighting, to rub in how very identical their skin colour really is. The comment thread at the time was a bit of an education. /Mostly/ in a good way.
TLDR: there was talk about how their parents see Sal as stereotypically “black-acting” and Walky as stereotypically “white-acting”, from people who’ve some experience of this problem.
Willis uses the exact same color palette for both twins. It’s other factors, like Sal’s hair being more obviously kinky than Walky’s (when she doesn’t straighten it), and Sal apparently self-identifying as black while Walky self-identifies as “generically beige”.
And I cringe every time someone says that Sal “acts blacker”, because in this context the implication is that “underperforms in school and holds up convenience stores” == “black”.
But, yeah, my take on it is that there’s a horrible synergy of racist and sexist stereotypes going on – that it’s more acceptable to the Walkertons that their son be black than that their daughter be black. They want their kids to be a strong, virile black man and a pretty little white girl, and they got a strong, hot black woman and a pretty little generically beige manchild. So they’ve traded the black girl in for a pretty sufficiently-white girl, and Linda’s working on the beige boy to turn him into the young black professional she wants, while Charles is deigning to notice his black daughter only long enough to remind her that she isn’t pretty when she doesn’t make herself look white.
WOW. Way to open yourself in the most blindly and stupid… I don´t even. She must be offguard by the “breakup”. “I was the stand-in “daughter” someone else wanted…”? That´d fuckup anyone. That and the sudden realization, years later. By some cookies.
Or possibly even to herself. The desperation for some kind of parental affection can make it really hard to admit why you’re getting it. Especially if it was just a gradual process, especially once Sal was sent away.
Yeah, especially since its been implied that her own parents are somehow worse, both in how the racism directly affects her and her mom’s treatment in the home and in general neglect.
And ultimately, I think that’s a really important dynamic in Billie’s relationship with them. Even the love she receives from her replacement parents now might be conditional, and it’s going to isolate her even further.
Linda isn’t obviously horrible to Walky either. Note that her non-sal kids like her. Like yeah, she’s one of the worst moms in the strip (#2 or #3, depending on whether you think Carol had this relationship with Becky before Becky came out) but it’s not the sort of obvious terrible you see.
Heck, Billie is probably sitting pretty great with Linda EXCEPT for this. She’s a daughter who is liked and has no expectations placed on her. Walky has to live up to shit.
Well, they liked her, at least…both of them are showing signs of realizing how she treated Sal was Not Cool. It’ll be interesting to see how the realization affects their relationship with Linda and whether that has any effect on her. (Something to prompt Charles to look at his internalized issues is also overdue, but not quite as urgent.)
Ehhhh, we’re talking about kids and their parent. This is probably the start of the road, but I really doubt the road is that short. They’re gonna try and hope she’s decent first.
A little off topic, but does anyone else get ‘unresponsive script’ error boxes on these web pages? I’m using Firefox 44.0.2. I enjoy this comic, but these error prompts are really disruptive, cause I get them all day long.
All the time. I’m pretty sure it’s badly-designed ads playing in Adobe Flash — they’ll routinely take up half a gig of memory, sometimes even a full gig, and somehow they’ll manage to play audio even though I’m sure they’re supposed to auto-mute. At about the same time I have trouble scrolling on the page (it lags badly, halting and stopping and freezing), and have the same trouble typing comments.
I’m using Windows, so I bring up Task Manager and just kill Adobe Flash with fire. That solves the problem temporarily, until Adobe relaunches and the problem slowly builds up again. There’s probably some setting I can go in to fix, but I don’t know what it is.
I’m occasionally getting the same thing, and I’m also running Firefox (but I’m not sure which version) with Windows 7. And it’s not just on the ‘Dumbing of Age’ site, so I will second your assessment that it’s probably some of these border ads that just about every site seems to have these days. My general cure is to close the system with Task Manager and restart Windows; that usually resolves the issue for a while — although since I’m paying for tech support from Best Buy’s “Geek Squad” I should probably drop the laptop off with them and let them fumigate the thing to get the bugs out and at the same time make sure my Kaspersky protection is up to date.
Okay. Can somebody explain to me how you can be married to a black guy, in what presumably is not an abusive relationship, and then hilariously favor/disfavor your kids on skin tone?
I mean. I don’t doubt that it’s possible and that it happens. But the logic, or lack thereof, is bending my brain here.
I’m guessing its something like confirmation bias where subconscious dislike compounded with denying Sal attention and subtly sabotaging her justifying the shitty treatment into an oroborous of bad parenting.
Because it’s not about skin tone, it’s about signifiers.
Sal has trouble in school. Her hair’s curlier than her brother’s. And this causes her misbehavior to register more strongly in Linda’s mind. Sal, to Linda, reads as “culturally black” in ways that Walky and Charles don’t.
You’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head with that description.
There is no real logic to these things. They only make sense when viewed at a particular angle at a particular moment. Taken all together, they are completely inconsistent and almost always contradictory.
Just because Linda isn’t a card carrying klansman doesn’t make the racism that Willis is choosing to focus on in this story any less real or valid. It’s about cultural preferences dictating how the Walkertons view their kids.
The same way Charles himself can have some racist attitudes toward black people despite, himself, being black. The ‘problem’ isn’t being black, per se, it’s being ‘too black’.
It might be the features not related to skin color that made Walky more favored, such as hair or facial features. They’re still racial, and a lot of people give themselves free reign to judge based on them simply because they aren’t directly based on color, even though they’re still based on race.
Nope. I won’t link it again, since it gets your comment moderated forever, but there was a comic establishing that their faces look exactly alike. Book 5, chapter 3, “tall.” It’s during Joyce’s party, when Sal stops by, and Ethan thinks he recognizes her. Sal mentions her twin, and Danny talks about how he never noticed they were identical.
Carla’s a brat but I hardly think she thought she was entitled to getting a cookie… She was just being silly in her way of letting Billie know she wanted one. Even if she wasn’t given one probably the most she’d do is make a snarky comment and yell a bit, then knock another couple of people with ambiguous sexual tension onto each other by not caring to slow down/move around people in her general travel path…. like the brat she is.
I actually think Papa Walkerton could be a source of Sal’s racism and his wife’s as well. I’m hardly one to qualify but given he identifies as Half-White and his comments to Sal’s hair, it’s entirely possible Paps was as hard on Sal as Mama and she absorbed it.
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damn, Billie, way to prove my reverse-privilege comment \=|
Dunno, Carla is coming off a bit entitled here too, and Billy did (in her mind) just sacrificed her relationship (in part) for Carla.
If sal had asked for some there might be some obligation under social contract, but not so for Carla, and since she demanded rather than requested I’d personally be inclined to withold out of indignation.
Might also depend on how far the “social contract” of the dorm floor has progressed. My recollection is that gifts from home that are shareable are meant to be shared (unless you can successfully hide them).
and THAT’S why I didn’t talk to ANYBODY at college!
(that and I lived literally ten minutes from home but my folks thought I should get a life)
((FOOLED THEM DIDN’T I))
anyway there’s no harm in saying “I want cookies!” (I do concede the “gimme!” is uncalled for)
AYyyy, me too. Everyone else was from hours away, but I was like a 15 minute walk from home.
If by “entitled” you mean “craving a cookie”. The “gimme” and subsequent “mine” are just two college students acting like 7 year olds over a cookie.
Ah, you’re right, the “Look at all those cookies” bit rubbed me the wrong way a little, but I was reading the tone a bit wrong for whatever reason.
I wonder what Sal’s present was.
A can of off brand caffeine free diet cola.
Ewwww…a soda without caffeine is like a dragon that can’t breathe fire.
Or beer without alcohol. Or milk without fat.
Hmm… Beer DOES smell fantastic before it ferments into, well, beer.
Truly there is no greater sin than low fat milk.
Agreed.
Go non-fat. If yer gonna take the fat out, might as well go all the way.
Most people call this “water”
Greater sin? I’ve got a greater sin for you: Skim. Milk. Powder.
*shudder*
Or a computer with no internet access.
wait that actually might be worse
A unicorn without magic.
Stop taking the fat outta milk! Whole milk is the best (thing that you can get that is milk that is sold at normal grocery stores short of getting cream and drinking that). Down with the 1% (and 2%!)
Funny thing is, people tend not to realize whole milk is usually only aroun 2.5%. The people who freak out about it think because ‘it’s got ALLLLL the fat’ that the percentage is around 100%, but that’s not how it works!
(Whole milk ftw!)
I am so angry right now. I am one of those people who thought that ‘2%’ meant they removed 98% of the fat in there.
Everything is lies! LIES!
It’s a bit rich, to those of us who grew up on 2%. 1% is a good compromise between 2% and that white-colored water they call skim milk, though, if your roommate is used to that.
And yeah, my body can tell the difference. It doesn’t like whole milk in quantity.
3 – 4% is sold in stores as whole milk.
Straight from the cow is a bit higher in fat. Or maybe it is the fresh country air? The outhouse by the propane tank? The hum of the well motor?
Yea! lot fat milk already exists, it is called water.
Okay, how did “low” become “lot”?
Well, to continue that particular metaphor Tenchan, I prefer my giant flying alligators without the ability to char me to a crisp.
You’d prefer to be pulped to jelly by a giant scaly fist?
A) It would hurt less and B) Fire breath is a ranged attack, pulping with a giant scaly fist is melee.
With limbs that long, I don’t see much distinction.
I suppose it would be slightly quicker, though.
Last I checked, alligator limbs aren’t that long compared to their body size; I’d be more worried about there gaping maws or massive tails at fist pulping distance (That would have a made a good point C, now that I think of it). Either way, a good defense against a melee attack is running like mad; ranged attacks, especially ones with a large area of effect, are harder to run away from.
And yes, I’m a yellow-bellied coward.
Hardly, the fire would kill you near instantly, you could survive the blunt force trauma of getting smashed.
Unless the fireball is a nuclear blast or something, it kills you from the outside in over the course of one or more agonizing seconds. A proper stomp jellies you all at once in a fraction of second, as long as the dragon doesn’t partially miss or something.
Given the choice, I’d rather be stomped. It’s also the absolute best way to be done in by a T-Rex based on the Jurassic Park movies.
AOE
I prefer my carbonated drinks to be drug-free, thank you very much.
… The majority of sodas don’t have caffiene.
Cola, Dr Pepper, Mt Dew (and knockoffs of the latter two), Barq’s root beer…
Vs every fruit flavoured drink except Dr Pepper and Mt Dew, ginger ale and beer, root beers that aren’t Barq’s, cream soda…and lots of etcs.
So in other words, all the good ones have caffeine.
Speak for yourself, cream soda is awesome.
Almdudler is superior to any caffeinated drink you care to name.
Mangola. Indian mango soda. Divine ambrosia with not a tremor of caffeine.
Pfah. Vernors is without caffeine. Proving that when you’re the best, you don’t need stimulants.
No, all the caffienated ones are good (though I prefer A&W to Barq’s), but so are most of the non-caffienated ones.
How fun would it be if Sal actually liked them, just so one day she could drink a case in front of her mom with a grin…out of spite.
I think you meant… out of Sp(r)ite!
Never mind the lack of caffeine, diet soda is basically migraine in a can. (For me at least. Your migraine triggers may vary.)
IIRC, the artificial sweetener they use in diet soda makes most people hungrier.
Given the number of artificial sweeteners in use you might want to do some reading and experimentation before consigning them all to the garbage. on different days drink a diet soda after writing down the sweetener in the formula (required by law on the label). Record if you got a headache or not. If you did get a headache cross that sweetener off the “allowed” list, if not wait and try it again later in a different drink, because your headaches might be caused by an interaction with other ingredients in the drink. Keep going, and make copious notes until you have tried all 4 of the major sweeteners. If there are any that don’t cause headaches then you can safely consume that or those. The two biggies are saccharine and sucralose, although stevia is also getting big. I can’t remember the name for the 4th as it is very uncommon but it is found in a lot of “natural” sugar-free sweetened foods. It’s not heavily processed and it’s not sugar or HFCS, I just can’t pull the name out of the grey matter at the moment.
Aspartame is definitely a migraine trigger for me. Stevia just tastes bad.
I happen to like some caffeine free sodas (Sprite, Ginger ale), but I’d rather drink from a toilet than drink diet soda.
I kinda prefer the dragons that breathe lightning.
…. I don’t know what kind of chemical additive that represents, but ironically it would make for a hell of a brand artwork on the label for an energy drink.
Lighting Dragons contain no chemicals, they are all shaped space and energy fields.
More caffeine and sugar free soda for me.
Oh, I see. So the only dragons that “count” in your eyes are Red and Gold, huh? That just ignores like 80% of dragons in the D&D monster manual and countless others from individual adventures and worlds. Stop your draconnic sterotyping, dude.
You mean like Eastern dragons, which are water-based?
Hair straightener.
That would be a low-blow…
Curling wand would be kinda worse…
The four-star dragon ball with a note saying, “it didn’t work”
Oh man, you made my (very early) morning with that.
The 3 cookies that got burnt because they were closest to the heating element in the stove.
“It matches your skin tone!”
I’m terrible.
D8
If the burnt ones are completely charred only on the bottom side, would that make them half black while the other cookies are “generically beige”?
Ouch. I wouldn’t even be surprised.
It’s just a blood diamond. Sal’s folks really don’t understand her.
whoa. even carla almost gave fucks there
“Huh. Makes me feel slightly better about whatever my family situation is.”
(I mean we’ve got no clue what hers is like and it could well be just as bad as Becky’s, but she probably hasn’t been replaced at least.)
She gets a call from her parents. “Hey, we’ve adopted a motorcycle.” She then panics.
Carla is trans, living in accommodations of her choice, appears to have her higher education paid for, and seems to lack mental problems. Smart money’s on her parents being decent people who respect their daughter.
(which doesn’t mean they’re perfect, I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t understand her, and have screwed up in various ways at various points, but all indications are they’re on her side and trying, which matters.)
According to Word of God, Carla’s parents are the type who’d build her a Johnny Five prototype if she asked for one:
http://itswalky.tumblr.com/search/Johnny+Five+Carla
So, that would suggest, rich, supportive engineering types.
Which is good for her. It’s rough enough being trans in society without also dealing with shitty unsupportive family.
That explains “I want cookies. Gimme!” She probably never got told that asking politely makes it much more likely for other people to share.
Yes. Geez, Carla, what’s the magic word? Here’s a hint, it rhymes with “Geez”!
Cheese?
Wheeze?
“Freeze!” (“Or I’ll shoot! Now hand them over.”)
Or, she’s acting completely normal and being silly. I don’t know how you can read the word “gimme” without reading it in a silly baby talk voice.
No one in this comic universe is lacking mental health problems.
Sierra seems ok.
The token sane person?
That’s why we get to see so little of her.
What are Carla’s mental health problems then?
People loosely use mental disorder to refer to things that are not pathological.
As far as I can tell, Amber and Ruth are the only ones we know with a definite mental disorder. It’s possible that either Walky or Becky have ADHD, but it seems unlikely given their ability to focus.
Carla likely did have gender dysphoria, which can or cannot be considered a mental disorder, depending on your definition of th eterm. But I don’t see any signs from how she acts that it’s still an issue for her. (And being trans is definitely NOT a mental disorder.)
I guess if you consider personality disorders to a be a subset of mental disorders, you might argue that Mary and Mike have one: Mike is very antisocial, and Mary has a mixture.
And then there’s Billie with her alcoholism, which could be considered a mental disorder. But most classify substance abuse disorders separately. Then again, she could be self-medicating a mental disorder the same way Ruth is.
I can’t think of anyone else right now.
Joyce is definitely dealing with something much like PTSD from the attempted rape. It’s not clear yet what effect Ross’s happy fun gun time will have on her.
Or on Becky or Dina for that matter, though they’re not currently showing any obvious signs of problems.
People with ADHD CAN focus. Actully if you get us focused on stuff enough some of us go into super focus and totally zone out everything else around us. Kinda like a disablity super power or something. (Sure both my legs are useless but I can hover sometimes)
Look up hyperfocus
If they’re anything like Ultra Car’s “parents” in Shortpacked! they probably support her.
This leads me to wonder, WHO are her parents? Cuz in this universe, she’s technically gong to college with her dad….
I hope her parents are the nice, sane variety this comic desperately needs.
Maybe it involved time travel?
Since her OTHERverse’s parents are in college with her now, maybe she just has the same dad as Joe and the same mom as Rachel.
….
Definitely the same father as Joe. Anything else would just be wrong.
Yeah, my bet is on a couple that can’t conceive on their own, for one reason or another. Enter, Joe’s dad… (Or, you know, the other way around, as the case may be… >_> )
Well, we know at least one of them is named Rutten. Probably both, since Carla doesn’t have a double barreled name, but that’s merely suggestive, not definitive.
Wait, both of her parents are named Rutten? Incest really is relative.
Hah.
I was about to ask how you knew that but then I remembered, doy, there’s a cast page!
And Carla finally made it to it a couple months ago (I think before her conflict with Mary).
Yes it was, because she was already there when I came on in late Nov.
Her mom’s there too, we’ve seen her a few times.
Panel 5 Carla isn’t sure she wants those cookies anymore.
I think that was her “yeah, even you know that’s a bullshit justification” look.
or maybe she’s trying to process the awkwardness coming off billie, cuz dang that’s an uncomfortable smile. she knows what she’s saying “^_^
DON’T LOOSE YOUR COOL, CARLA!!!
DON’T LOSE YOUR WAAY
Billie is quite fond of ginger, I hear.
Yeah, but it’s not the sort of thing you want in your teeth.
I see what you did there.
I hear it’s pretty strong
Hey!
SOMEONE needs some sensitivity training!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVN_0qvuhhw
Well, now I want ginger snaps.
Or thin mints.
Basically something with sugar in it.
I’m having a Shiner Bock, how does that sound?
Great. I’ll take a dozen.
According to Google, it sounds rather nice. I’ll have to give it a try.
Me too. And I’m dieting. So fuck everything. Grrr.
If it makes you feel any better, I’m suffering too in that when I tried to buy an apple pie it was full of ants. The poor shopkeep had to throw out half his stock.
…. “better” is not what that mental image makes me feel, no.
Ginger snaps should not be mentioned alongside actual cookies. Especially Thin Mints.
Mint and ginger both have a pleasant bite to them, so I’d think they’d go well together – both Thin Mints and Ginger Snaps are crisp and brittle, too.
Oh, man, our local supermarket carries these ginger snaps, they are amazing. They are chewy with a crisp crust and it’s like 90% pure brown sugar, I am positive. I cannot stop eating them; they are amazing.
And now I can’t remember the brand. D:
Mrs. Dunster’s! OMG, if you see Mrs. Dunster’s ginger snaps in the store (they’re very flat and kind of oval; they’re a big cookie) you MUST try them they are AMAZING.
It’s like people who say they don’t like fish cause they’ve only had slightly rotten fish. There are good gingersnaps and bad gingersnaps.
You could have said nearly anything else and kept the cookies, Billie!
“It’s made from roadkill”.
Like instead of “I earned these!” try “You’re a demanding jerkface and I don’t owe you cookies.”
If she wanted to be a jerk, sure.
What is with people reading Carla’s silly request as being demanding?
Carla’s hardly being nice, and she’s the one asking for something.
I mean, I’d probably give her one anyway, but Billie doesn’t owe her nothin’.
“Hey, these were gifted to me! You sure you really want a re-gift?”
I’m pretty sure that’s the face of “wow I didn’t earn these I might as well share”
I think it’s the text of what’s been running through her head during the entirety of this section of the day. I mean, after all, her last statements were keeping her head down and confirming it sucks to be so aware of the racism surrounding supposedly nice things like this.
This? Is just the spelling out of it. Not to Carla, but to herself, because that “how did you earn these” really made her even more hyper-aware that she’s basically been “bought” as the replacement, whiter biracial daughter to replace their biological daughter and how she’s still seen that as better than the complete neglect she’s gotten from her own family.
But once she said it out loud, it became a lot harder to cling on to, because it’s ruined the magic of it just being tasty cookies she likes.
So when when will they Uberize doing this for the Gig Economy?
“My girlfriend pseudo broke up with me so that she could properly discipline Mary for being a shrew to you and I am in dire need of a food based coping mechanism.”?
With Ginger Snaps no less.
Who has ginger snaps as thekr favorite cookie, anyway?
Somebody with terrible taste. Like someone who thinks Ruthless is girlfriend material. Wait…
Well said.
Everyone.
Me! But I have nostalgia factor as part of it. They remind me of my great-grandfather. He was blind and I would steal them from him.
So, basically, terrible people.
I love ’em. One time we were on a long car trip so we got ginger snaps and Coke to snack on.
But it turns out Ginger Snaps and Coke are one of THOSE combinations. Like toothpaste and orange juice. They just combined into something…WEIRD.
Me and my brothers just couldn’t believe it. We kept eating it and finding funny ways to describe the taste. It was fun!
Fair enough. I mean, I like them alright, they just aren’t my favorite.
I mean, my favorite is oatmeal raisin or chocolate chip, but i love ginger snaps. But then again, my mom has described my preference for food as “being punched in the face with a strong flavor” So I like ginger and tart things. Tar froyo is my top fav froyo.
Tar froyo seems like it would be a niche flavor.
Along with Broccoli, Sizzurp, and Brown Town. My personal favorite from 32 Squirts is the Peyote though.
I love oatmeal raisin and ginger snaps too! Chocolate chip I can take or leave depending upon how they’re made tho’.
Normally I’d agree, but the Mrs. Dempser’s ginger snaps are AMAZING. Best cookies ever.
Racism never got me cookies. Maybe next lifetime.
Got Milk?
*plays Aerosmith’s “Mama Kin” on the hacked Muzak*
Racism cookies hmm, are they cookies made by a racist or are the cookies racist themselves?
Racism cookies are made by a racist.
Racist cookies are racist.
“Chocolate chip Pride! Death to the oatmeal-raisin scum!”
I watched this for the first time literally minutes earlier. It’d be a crime if I didn’t leave it here now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkUeUKlgbqw
“Only double chocolate is pure”.
Nothing worse than biting into a chocolate chip cookie and discovering that it’s actually oatmeal-raisin passing.
Nothing worse than suddenly realizing that you are and always have been a cookie racist.
Hey, I love me the Choc-asians and the Neg-raisins equally.
(But keep those friggin’ Gingers out)
Now i am picturing racist cookies, they will only taste good to certain races and horrible to others.
Gru: I said I wanted “tastist cookies”.
So British and Scottish cooking, basically. 😉
actually, cookie racism is institutionalized, all cookies are racist
Nah. Racism cookies are cookies that have taken part in racism. A racist can make just normal cookies.
The cookies themselves are racists and they’re made by racists for racists.
Source: http://www.definatlytrueandrealfacts.con
Racist cookies: cookies made for racists, by racists, of racists.
But they are organic free-range racists!
I smell a lie. These are factory racists aren’t they!
But are they made from whole racist, or just the juice?
A blend of reconstituted racism and other virulent bigotries, with artificial threat additives.
And stone-ground sodium propinate added to retard spoilage.
Please keep politics out of this…
Huh?
Maybe cookies made from ground racists?
I prefer ones made from tree racists, much better flavor.
Yeah, like that is going to work on Carla.
Oh man, is this whole story going to be an arms race between Carol and Linda?
I wonder who you think is worse…
An arms race is the truest sense, since at the end there are no winners, only victims.
Or, we could always draw lewds of them together instead!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31g0YE61PLQ
Make it so, boss. I’m still working on that ToeCarol.
Carol is at a disadvantage in such an arms race.
Now, if it was an arms sexual orientation…
Ooh, I like those.
The cookies, I mean.
I kinda want to know what’s in Sal’s box, but I’m afraid it’s going to be really depressing.
A gun.
“If you’re gonna hold up a convenience store, do it properly”.
Inside is a video Linda made teaching Sal to use the gun.
“I don’t care if you’re gonna be a delinquent. You’re NOT about to make the Walkertons look like Punk bongoes.”
Don’t we all. Could just ask Jason, however.
Vanilla Oreos. The most pointedly racist of all biracial cookies.
I choose to see this as a silver lining. Recognise the shittiness and let it motivate you to to a not shitty thing. Right?
Ha! Probably the best line out of Billie’s mouth since the start of DOA!
I’m partial to “Go Leafs!” myself.
And that dang line from the Slipshine I can’t even read without a subscription, about liking things loud. It’s probably the most poetic line I’ve ever read from Willis, and I don’t even know the context.
Yeah. Go Leafs! 😀
Also the “spite” conversation was pretty good.
The racism is what makes them extra tasty!
Personally it could do with some ableism to add that extra bite.
That’s the same cookies, but you put them on a really high shelf.
In a bag that takes two hands and significant strength to open?
Come on, Carla. Billie totally needs all those cookies. They’re a vital part of her rack-maintenance regimen.
No, that’s what the booze is for.
Nah, the booze is for keeping her butt in shape.
So this is strip #1720.
Strip #2000 will be on December 13.
And Chapter 4 has a name: “Returns to Nothing”.
Nah, that’s gonna be for strip #2015. TUMBLING DOWN TUMBLING DOWN TUMBLING DOWNNN
Embrace the universe like a burning star!
That chapter name does NOT give me good feelings for the future.
For anyone not aware of the source: http://www.songlyrics.com/sagisu-shiro/kommsusser-tod-tumbling-down-mix-lyrics/
Amg I love Carla’s face in the fifth panel
A wise decision, Billie– sharing your Racism Cookies.
Maybe Carla will share some Transmisogyny Cookies with you in the future!
Er.. assuming that she gets some, anyway…
Transmisogyny cookies, I presume, all look like penises.
Presumably. It would be a shame, since penis-shaped cookies in just about any other context would be a great thing to have.
Something about your choice in avatars tells me you’re not being facetious~
It’s a good thing she’ll have someone to share them with.
If they were just for her, it’d be a hate crime.
Since they’re going also to someone else, then it’s hilarious!
I’m sure Mary has some Transmisogyny Cookies coming from her mom soon.(Unless of course Mary’s mom is actually some sort of anti-Mary, like an old school pagan or something.)
Can’t say I’ve ever heard of something like that, but it could be possible.
You’ve never heard of old school pagans?
Right, sorry, missed the joke.
More of rebellion by way of ‘being Christian’.
Her church group has a rota about who has to bake what kinds of bigoted cookies this week. Biblically determined, of course.
Why did a ziploc bag of cookies need a box that big? That bag is clearly much, much smaller than the box.
She already ate the other 2 bags.
Packing to keep the cookies from becoming crumbs?
Care packages often contain several items of various sorts. I bet everyone, including Sal, got the cookies. Sal’s just the only one who only got cookies.
Hmm. Well, there’s presumably something that was in all 4 boxes, but Billie’s line in the first panel suggests the ginger snaps were unique to hers.
They could easily each have a different assortment of cookies.
Seems likely, yes.
It’s an old freshness trick – the racism stays fresh if you package it with empty favoritism.
Yeah, I’m not surprised that ginger snaps are racism cookies.
I really wish I could Like your comment.
Well, it couldn’t well be a chocolate tart, now could it?
She really likes eating ginger huh
God dammit.
Carla could have been a little more polite about it. “May I have some cookies?”
To be fair, it still more pilot then what I would have done, which would be to grab the cookies out of Billie’s hands and run.
Have you met Carla?
Considering she’s a fictional character, none of us have. We’re just aware of her.
And the protons that are in each atom of the earth’s mass /might/ spontaneously and simultaneously decide to collapse.
She totally could have.
But she’s Carla. I dunno, for whatever reason, she makes rudeness somewhat endearing.
Eh, to each their own. I don’t really like Carla at all.
She’s Carla. Being a jerk is literally her thing. It’s even in her character page.
Being that way can be seen as cute, or annoying. Right now, for Carla, it’s kind of cute. Do it too often, especially to the wrong people and it can easily migrate over to annoying.
Welll that’s awkard.
I’m so angry that the racism element in the walkerton favouritism is confounded by Sal’s criminal record. ‘why do you obviously and consistently favour David?’ well he’s not a juvenile delinquent can you blame me
YES
and I know that this *also* is the point of the title because it’s a pattern within marginalised groups to be either dismissed cos tangentially related negative qualities often cos the oppression got to you, or if you are a fucking angel and got through life clean and shiny and lovely to all, it obviously isn’t that bad, look at ms/r heaven on earth over there.
There’s a strip when Walky was very small he was on a children’s show. Mama Carole was showing favorism way back then, and it had nothing to do with Sal’s criminal record.
It is the ‘look’s of the two, Carole thinks Walky looks more white.
It’s hard to say with that example, imo. I mean, if you can only choose one you’ve gotta choose one, right? And I imagine it’s a situation most everyone with a sibling has experienced at least once, or at least in a similar fashion.
It’d be better if we’d seen a trend.
We have. The problem is that you’re refusing to see it as a trend.
Like, if choosing Walky was literally the only instance of favouritism we saw in the entire series, then okay sure whatever, but we have seen numerous instances of favouritism that eventually just plainly spell it out that Walky is the favoured child.
Walky is chosen for Hymmel.
Linda freaks out when Sal climbs a jungle gym because she thinks she’s going to break something.
Charles literally says that her hair is prettier when it’s long and straight, traits typically associated with “good” hair.
They both almost totally ignore her during their visit and even remark, when asked by the Dean why she isn’t with them, that she just “does her own thing.”
Like, that’s the point. If we got a sequence where Linda walked up to Sal and said “daughter I hate you because you’re more black”, then that’s stupid. The type of bigotry being focused on in Sal and Walky’s story is that subtle, insidious brand.
Well the problem with that is that only one example of pre-robbery favoritism could be seen as such, in the kid’s show thing; and even then, like I said, it’s Linda being forced to choose. The playground incident is just a mother scolding her child for dangerous behavior, a common enough occurrence.
Then we have the post-robbery interactions, which are now tainted by the Walkterons seeing Sal as a thieving thug; it’s given them an actual, concrete reason to favor Walky over his sister simply because he never did anything as heinous as Sal did. And to claim “they pushed her to become a criminal” requires pre-robbery evidence, of which we have one semi-valid case.
What do you think MADE Sal attempt the robbery?
Nothing. Nobody MAKES people commit crimes. Simply imagine Sal trying to use that backstory in court to get out of it.
More to the point, we need more evidence of pre-robbery racism than that one single instance if we’re to accept it as solely to blame for something as bad as robbery with a knife and hostage. As it is, all we’ve got is Sal’s word for it, and, hate to say, that isn’t worth much.
psh i know rite
why the hell would we ever believe a character when they describe their backstory and struggles thats total bullshit it never happens
Because everyone is 100% honest 100% of the time, even with themselves? And some people aren’t more trustworthy than others?
And someone prone to crime and delinquency for the sake of rebellion might not be the most trustworthy person?
“we need more evidence of pre-robbery racism than that one single instance if we’re to accept it”
Speak for yourself. I’m good with accepting the narrative that has already been presented very obviously by the author. Your resistance to the concept sounds like a personal issue.
Sal says this is what happened. Walky, once he took an introspective moment to actually think about it, agrees. Billie agrees. Considering Walky and Billie were there and that they would benefit more by denying it (thus allowing them to reap the rewards of favoritism guilt-free)…. Why exactly are we still having this conversation?
I don’t really get the logic that leads people to make these demands for evidence. I mean, these are fictional characters in a fictional story. Elements of a narrative that has been carefully constructed to explore certain themes and ideas. Really, which narrative seems most likely to be the one Willis is constructing? One where a black girl has been neglected and ignored by her parents for reasons of racist favouritism or one where said black girl is a thug who, wrongfully, blames the consequences of her thuggery on racism? I mean, honestly, which of these is the story Willis is most likely to be telling? Could you imagine him finding the second option to be worthy of his time and effort as a writer?
To quote Mrs Walkerton herself:
“In a few years that little vagrant’ll be knocking over convenience stores to get Mommy’s attention.”
But thing is, children by and large live up or down to the expectations those around them place upon them. Sal’s parents have lower expectations for her than Walky – when they bother to have expectations for her at all. Sal was being treated more harshly than Walky, even as small children. Sal’s friendships were discouraged (Sal’s mother telling her that a “child like that” – read: her non-white friend playing on a playground – is going to end up a delinquent). Sal’s mom gave Walky more opportunities to succeed than she gave Sal. I could go on.
I have a large (and largely dysfunctional) extended family. I am very sure that the only reason I don’t have a record from my teen days is because I am a white woman. More people have teen records in my extended family than don’t (though the majority of us have sorted ourselves out and become successful members of society in adulthood, largely after we found our own role-models and mentors since our parents were fucking the job up – Thank you, Canadian young offenders system which wipes the slate clean once you hit 18 and makes that sort of personal reform possible. If it weren’t for the fact that your youth record is wiped clean at 18, most of my family would not be where they are today, and the fact that people in the US can be followed around by something they did as a preteen and have it haunting them and making it hard to get jobs in their 30s is just so unjust to me). From first and second-hand experience, I tell you this: Juvenile delinquents don’t set out to be thugs. They’re as complex as anyone else.
Some of them (one of my siblings and two of my cousins come to mind here) set out to impress their friends, because their friends’ approval is the only approval they get in life. So they act out more and more, and get more and more admiration for their daring and lack of concern about consequences.
Some of them (teenage me comes to mind here, as does my uncle) aren’t really operating with a goal in mind, but have an anger/emotional pain problem and lack the coping skills and emotional maturity to deal with it constructively. Vandalism, assault, etc happens as a result. You know that kid every school has one of, who seems pretty normal a lot of the time but if they’re set off they suddenly become a Tasmanian devil? That was me. I don’t have a record, and I’m pretty damn sure that because I am approximately the whitest woman in the known universe (seriously, I am so pale that in some photos it’s hard to tell where the white background ends and I begin), I got off with a lot of stern lectures and warning. And therapy, of course. But yeah, if I was brown, for damn sure I would’ve done time in a juvenile facility at least once. From what I’ve seen of Sal, she’s falls somewhere between the first category and this one.
Some of them are dealing with severe poverty of the my-shelter-is-uncertain-and-I-have-no-idea-where-my-next-meal-is-coming-from variety, and they commit crimes to survive. Some of my classmates are in this group – these are the kids in survival prostitution, and/or who get nabbed for shoplifting small essentials like toiletries and food. Many of these kids weren’t strictly growing up in poverty but were growing up with severe neglect that basically amounted to a similar living situation to extreme poverty.
Some of them don’t see any other option for a life trajectory. Everyone they know is involved with crime, all their role models are criminals. They get into dealing drugs or smuggling or whatever because their family does it, their friends and neighbours do it, and they don’t see people like them in any other career path. From an early age, they’re resigned that this is what life is going to be for them, and that’s all there is to it.
I could go on, but the take-away is that for juvenile criminals, very very few of them set out to commit crime or to be a thug or what have you. They all have more complex reasons than that. Pretending they don’t just plays into the superpredator scare-mongering style of racism of the 90s.
You know, when Ethan popped on page, talking about how being gay made him miserable because now his friends and family were giving him shit, we believed him. We didn’t have to wait for a moment where we found out the real reason they’re disappointed in him is because he spends all his time focusing on Optimal Primer Truck Man.
There’s been enough evidence that shows a trend, Hymmel just being one example of how, instead of being a cross burner in a bedsheet, Linda and Charles have engaged in subtle behaviour that they don’t recognize as favouritism and neglected their daughter. The robbery is ultimately irrelevant in that, if only because Sal was 13 years old and paid her debt. It’s done and over with.
I think what’s always somewhat amusing about these sorts of comments is that its always “ugh, where’s the real X-ism, I’m not seeing it, what about (outlandish alternative explanation)?” right up to the point where its suddenly “gah, this is so unrealistic and shoving it in my face, where’s the subtlety and nuance.
Like, do they never wonder if the reason Willis occasionally spells it out crystal clear in comic is because so many people are in denial about bad behavior like racism?
Also, of course Sal having a criminal record is a big thing. Because it echoes the way real life black people, and especially unarmed black men who are gunned down, constantly have things like minor criminal records or even the rumor that they may have once done something technically illegal like jaywalking or known someone who did something illegal used to justify said dehumanization and murder.
Sal’s alienation, like a lot of black youth, began a hell of a long time before she decided to break the law, but it’s that one instance of illegal behavior that is used as an excuse to justify viewing her as less. By Amber, by her mom, even by her brother until recently. And that retroactive justification for a pattern that long predated any ill action on her part echoes how real world racism works.
It echoes how black people are just assumed to be criminal and treated as such, as some sort of permanent underclass who cannot be trusted with their own lives, while rich white lawbreakers are offered repeated second chances and societal forgivenesses, even for violent crimes.
And that’s a more important story than “perfect angelic black woman” still nonetheless faces racism.
It’s basically the last story arc in a nutshell, Sal shouldn’t have to be perfect to earn her humanity and not face bigotry. She should not have to earn her humanity.
I don’t think you can really compare Ethan’s situation with Sal’s. I think people are more willing to accept Ethan’s explanation because things were more overt in Ethan’s case… (I think even Amber mentioning something about ‘defending’ Ethan against his family), not a bunch of subtle cues that would have been the case with Sal.
Secondly, in the case of Sal, there were alternative explanations for at least some of the ways she was treated… sexism, elietism, etc. (none of them are necessarily good, but they are different than the racist explanation that’s been given.)
If Sal had never brought up the issue of race, I would never have assumed that was the reason for the way she was treated… I would have assumed some alternate reasoning.
Okay I’m with most of this post but
Freaking out over Sal climbing a jungle gym? THAT’S favouritism? REALLY?
Literally, Linda grouses that she needs to get her ass down from there before she breaks something, and talks about how Marcie is going to become criminal riffraff.
It’s also extremely subtle, but in the Hymmel flashbacks, Linda yelling her children’s names to get them to stop running around is larger and bolded when she says Sal’s name.
Went back. You’re totally right, that is a nice subtle touch:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/02-i-was-a-teenage-churchmouse/professional/
You could choose none.
I get what you’re saying, but I’m also glad, in a way. This is how it is in real life: things aren’t as clear cut and there are things in people’s lives that are used to discredit them. But, like (especially certain types of) crimes committed by some people of color in real life, it’s important to understand the underlying reasons for them (and that’s not even getting to the extremely important factors that lead to people of color being arrested or otherwise penalized for acts that they didn’t actually commit or that white people would totally have gotten away with).
All of this.
Well this thread went serious super-fast. I was looking for something different than innuendos about Ruth. Guess I got it.
The last panel is a draw: which one is more disconbooblelated by Billie’s remark.
She said that out loud. She said that out loud.
It’s all she’s been thinking about in the back of her head as she’s tried to distract herself with the cookies. Carla was just direct enough to get it out of her.
Wait, what did she mean by White Passing? I thought Billie was white.
Also I like that Billie got a bag full of chicken nuggets.
Billie’s mother is Chinese.
In this universe, Billie is half-Chinese.
Weird, never knew that.
And that’s white passing in a nutshell. Hell, passing in general. You look like a dominant group member… but you’re not.
In Billie’s case, it’s actually more the other way around. Walkyverse Billie was white. But people kept thinking she was Asian, ’cause of straight black hair and skin tone similar to some Asians, and when Willis ported her to the Dumbiverse, he made her half. Like I said below, I’m not clear on whether this means that Walkyverse Billie is white and Dumbiverse Billie is half-Asian, or that Walkyverse Billie has been retconned to have always been
at war withhalf East Asian.Her mom’s Chinese. I’m not sure whether that’s a change from the Walkyverse, or whether Walkyverse Billie has been retconned to be half-Asian as well.
It was established back here, and has been mentioned a couple times since.
Ah yes I remember now, I was distracted by Sierra cleavage.
Wow, art evolve, huh?
It has totally been talked about before…like, five years ago: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/mixed/
Billie is half Chinese so she is actually mixed race like Walky and Sal are, it is just less obvious.
I have…MANY issues with this strip.
1. Billie’s line REALLY feels forced. Like… I can’t imagine her chaining that sequence of words together in that fashion.
2.Are Carla and Billie friends?
3. Why did Billie say she “earned them” and not “I deserve them”. The former being an outright lie, with the latter being more vain than anything.
4. Aren’t Billie’s parents completely distant and cold who just throw money at her every problem. Like it or not, if Walky’s mom DIDN’T like Billie so much, she’d have basically no one who loves her.
5. This comic is basically Billie admitting guilt for being “too white” which as someone colored makes me uncomfortable. It’s not enough that she’s got to deal with being Asian. It’s nice to set the precedent that she’s also too white as well. God forbid she take some pride in getting a gift from a family friend. Especially when she’s already going through a breakup (probably).
I’m sure people will pop up to argue me down in a series of increasingly lengthy posts describing how I’m wrong or not thinking of the right victims or how I’m a shit but in this case I’m gonna stand by my dislike of this strip.
I actually see people doing what Billie does a lot actually. I don’t know the correct term for it, so I just call it “Problem Sharing”. They’ll be having a conversation about say, Pokemon, and then one of them will just drop this personal or family problem that the other person has no business with.
I mean, I don’t blame Billie for wanting to bring this up, it just feel like Carla isn’t someone she should be talking to about this stuff. Maybe bring it up with Sal, hey there’s an interesting dynamic. The black sheep of the family and the adopted one talking about this whole issue.
Also you didn’t type anything out that should make people mad or anything, you just gave your opinion. And everyone has a right to that.
It seems natural to me for a character to pull out all the stops when they know they’re saying something dumb/tmi and choose to do it anyway. If we could hear it it would end with the rising inflection of a question. …scrolls up… I guess Willis agrees on that last part.
3. So a character said a dumb thing. What’s new?
4. I can see Billie being a little awkward over being loved by someone more than they love their own daughter.
Saying-Smart-Very-Well-Planned-and-Tasteful-Statements of Age this is not.
Bit wordy, really.
On 5, keep in mind that she -just- had it shoved in her face that Mrs Walkerton likes her better than the woman likes her own daughter. I don’t think she’s feeling guilt for being too white, I think she’s feeling guilt for enjoying her cookies while remembering that her friend just got the seriously short end of the stick.
I mean, we STILL haven’t seen what’s in Sals box,
ew, so I’m still holding out hope that we actually get some dialogue between the parents and their kids at some point.Schrödinger’s Cookies
Oh for fuck’s sake, now I hope we get to see the tiny bag of off-brands Sal has, because this is getting fucking old.
Also, Sal having a shittier gift doesn’t prevent dialogue so why would you even mention that?
Heh.
So that we can put any arguments to rest? Why are you annoyed that I’d ask to see that?
Partially, because you’re pushing a normal God Dammit Nerds button, where extremely heavily implied subtext isn’t actually canon and everything has to be spelled out in neon signs with arrows pointing at them, all the while the nerds pat themselves on the back because of how much smarter they and their fiction are.
But mostly, because once again, this idiotic “WE MUST HAVE COMPLETELY UNIMPEACHABLE TEXT THAT SPELLS EVERYTHING OUT, SUBTEXT IS BADONG AND I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO INTERPRET TEXT”, is trotted out to discredit anything that might make a minority happy.
Not to mention, that the argument’s got an uncomfortable subtext to it. Basically, we’ve got a marginalized group character saying that an oppression related to their marginalized status exists.
But then a large number of readers repeat a particular argument that basically goes, no, that marginalized group member is lying about their experiences or is seeing things that aren’t there.
Which, raises an uncomfortable question. If she’s lying? Why? If she’s mistaken and seeing what isn’t there…?
Well, that’s often the charge leveled at marginalized group members whenever they dare notice and call attention to an oppression, especially if it is a subtle societal oppression. They are hyper-scrutinized and yelled at for seeing things that “aren’t there”, unlikely alternative explanations (especially ones that presume wrong-doing on the marginalized group member’s part) are tossed around, and the person’s real life experiences are discounted or questioned.
And so, the argument raises the spectre of that, unfortunately, which isn’t a problem per se in moderation, but when it’s as ubiquitous as it’s been of late, that starts getting more and more uncomfortable. I don’t think that’s on you Ctrl+C D@, but I can see where Rutee’s frustration is coming from, because it’s a similar frustration I felt when people were trying to find reasons why Mary’s transparent transphobia was a total accident and Mary only meant to say she was being rowdy.
I’ve never believed that Sal was lying about there being obvious ways that her and Walky’s parents treat them differently, my question early was more on why we still haven’t seen what Sal got in her box.
There’s something going on between her and her parents that I’d like explored further at some later point, but for right now since we’re on the subject of the care packages, it’s something I felt I wanted to know. Hell we still haven’t seen waht’s in Walky’s box yet either, and having seen another instance of how the siblings are treated differently would be something interesting to see.
Right now the only thing I’ve seen(in the current time, not hte flashbacks) of how their mother treats Sal is with outright ignoring her. I’d love to see what kind of “gift” this woman sends her estranged daughter.
This is exactly the fight I kept having on the Korra page (From Legend of Korra) on Wikipedia – a huge, nonstop fight to get her relationship with Asami on the page (and on the show page) where nothing about subtext and musical cues and third-party sources talking about it and framing mattered, none of it counted, Korra And Asami Were Not Together And Were Absolutely Straight.
Then Bryke (the creators) came out and wrote an article in plain text saying “yes this is exactly what we were doing and we went as far as the network would allow us.” Only then did I get a grudging acceptance.
(At which point the party line became “it was pasted on and shoved in our faces with no buildup or subtlety,” again ignoring everything I’d written and footnoted from dozens of critical sources talking about how it had been building for a year.)
(sigh)
(hugs)
I feel your pain.
We have that with Euphonium too, except that /a/ made it their mission to shit on anyone who saw the obvious subtext, and there still aren’t giant neon signs, as there are with korrasami. I mean, the original novelist praised them for their relationship, and was super happy that one of Kumiko and Reina’s intimate scenes together ‘captured the sheer eroticism of the moment’ that she was going for too, but the creators apparently felt barely-sub text was sufficient for anyone they felt like speaking to, so shitlords on /a/ and the like felt there was No Proof Whatsoever.
That whole ‘tacked on and with no buildup’ thing was total bullshit though. Were you not fucking watching the series? Of course they were a thing! Gah, heterosexists are blind.
I just think it’s fun to think up with worse and worse possibilities…
(“I bought a present for you to give to your brother because you probably forgot his birthday” from a couple days ago was the best so far.)
I’d agree, but Billie explicitly framed her statement around race, around being “reasonably white-passing”. The bulk of the guilt might be about being the preferred daughter, but the undertone of white guilt is undeniably there.
I don’t see that as “white guilt”, but acknowledgement about why she was the preferred daughter.
I do think people are complex. While I have no doubt Billie’s whiteness helps her with Mama Walkerton, I don’t think it’s likely that’s the only reason. Or maybe I just hope her relationship with her isn’t totally horrible and based on racism.
Absolutely. Nothing’s that simple. Billie was Walky’s friend. Her parents neglected her. She needed adult parent figures. We don’t know much of her during childhood, but I’m sure the relationship was more complex than ‘grab random “white” girl to replace daughter’, but at the same time I’m sure that figured into why she was acceptable to them.
Another little bit I haven’t seen or thought of before, but it doesn’t seem like Billie’s little DUI problem has harmed her relationship with the Walkertons at all. Just a thought for those still thinking it’s all because Sal’s the bad girl and Walky’s the good kid. Billie’s still the favored “daughter” despite the legal problems.
As somebody who’s half, but is white-passing where I live (not everywhere, I’ve discovered) it does make sense to me that Billy feels guilty for being ‘too white’. I’ve heard similar from other people who are biracial.
That being said, her words and attitude both seem off to me. Eventually you get to the point where you realise you don’t get to decide how people see you, so you better take the cookies from wherever you can.
Ditto. It’s conversations my cousins have had being mixed race themselves, but that being said, I’m way too white to discount an actual POCs feelings of discomfort on how a racial issue was handled.
Sure. Eventually. She’s still a kid though.
I knew it by the time I was Billie’s age, easily. And I would expect Billie to have learned it quicker than me with parents like hers. She’s already learned to take the cash they dole out, but to go beg affection elsewhere, from Linda, who actually provides.
Basically I’m agreeing with Yoto on points 1 & 4. And while I would understand that she feels some white guilt, I also agree with Yoto on the later half of point 5: the sarcastic “God forbid she take some pride in getting a gift from a family friend.”
shes 18
Nah.
There’s a clip of a black woman cooking on Fox News from last year during the Thanksgiving season that made the tumblr rounds for a disgusting best of racism from the white hosts. One of them asks her condescendingly if she’s going to be serving Kool-Aid to go with this huge fancy meal.
The woman sort of weakly chuckles and says uh, no, no Kool-Aid, and tries to steer the conversation back.
(Kool-Aid is the liquid version of watermelon, in case you aren’t upon your gross racist stereotypes.)
Anyway, I had to watch the clip multiple times AND THEN Google Kool-Aid and stereotypes, because I’m a white thirty something and no one wanted to ever damage my innocence as a teen by teaching me about racist microaggressions. (Hell, I only learned about the watermelon thing like five years ago!)
But you know who immediately recognized the micro aggression? The woman’s daughter. Who looked maybe nine years old. She was helping her mom cook, and when the host asked, she got this LOOK on her face. She gave the camera a side-eye.
Kids who aren’t white don’t always get to be kids. Racism slaps them in the face at an early age.
Also I wouldn’t have posted that story if I had fully understood what you were replying to, Rutee! Sorry. I hope it’s interesting for someone anyway.
It was interesting, and sad, for me.
(And here I thought Kool-Aid was just that drink that conspiracy nuts don’t seem to like.)
How does liking watermelon, which I have been called an alien for not liking (I’m white, the people who’ve called me that have been white, Latino, and Philipino), become a specifically black stereotype? As far as I’ve been lead to believe watermelon is God’s juicy gift to man in an inedible green package.
I’m quite fond of it too, but it’s an old association, dating back to slavery days and deliberately pushed in the Jim Crow days to make black people seem greedy and childish.
It’s pretty much only an American thing and near as I can tell, the link is much stronger in the old South.
For what it’s worth, I’m with you (and definitely not an alien). The juice alone might be okay, if a bit weak and watery (hence the name), but it almost always comes with flesh so slushy it’s just on the wrong side of “barely even there”, and of course the seeds…
I do actually really like [i]artificial[/i] watermelon flavor. And I’ve thought/suspected that concentrating the actual juice might bring it up to the flavor intensity I prefer.
In my personal experience, the black food stereotypes are basically all southern foods. Friend chicken and watermelon? Everyone in the south eats and loves it. I don’t know why mocking black people for it became a racist thing, but it makes me sad.
Yeah its the sort of self conscious character break to exposit on the situation. Kinda like how bugs bunny talked to the the audience by adressing another character? Maybe…
And eventually, after even that stage, you realize you can get your own cookies and you don’t have to play a fucked up role in someone else’s family drama for them.
I’m not sure about Billie’s lines being forced in this strip. If anything, they seem true to her underlying personality. Some of her issues is because, in her head, there is still a significant part of her that thinks of herself as Princess Billie, the Alpha of the High School. The idea that she deserves good things to happen to her and to have things that she wants solely on her terms is a very real and very toxic part of her personality and one of the reasons why she is having difficulty developing healthy relationships.
To me, the whole point of the panel 4 to panel 6 sequence is for Billie to let that spoiled brat out and speak it aloud so that she could suddenly hear herself and realise just how horrible an attitude it is. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s going to apologise to Sal right now. Either that or get stone drunk and be found unconscious in a vacant room somewhere.
I wonder if there was also some rich privilege auto-response there. Like, oh of course I earned getting free stuff because of who I am and of course I shouldn’t be expected to share with those who are cookie-less and it’s when Carla challenged that that she fully said out loud how she has “earned” her place with the Walkertons as a sort of replacement family.
Which is ironic because Carla also has rich privilege and that might be part of why she also feels entitled to getting free cookies from someone else’s gift.
I don’t get this. It was a gift. How is Billie saying “no you can’t have any of my (care package from a friend)” to someone who AFAIK isn’t even her friend an expression of privilege? The race stuff, the stuff with Billie’s parents versus Walky/Sal’s parents, I hadn’t thought about. But Carla’s not coming from a reasonable place to begin with, so Billie having to blurt out that complex justification makes no sense. It feels clunky.
My bad, I was more musing that it was the way she was reflexively defensive about free stuff with an “I earned this” rather than anything about the cookies in general, because yeah, she shouldn’t be expected to share her cookies. Those are her racism cookies, damnitt! 🙂
I’m still a little baffled as to how a character gets into a position where they need to justify keeping their cookies via breaking down the racial motivations behind their relationship with their friend’s mother when they could have just said “a family friend sent me these cookies, I’m not sharing them with you, Carla, you’re the person who’s deliberately an asshole to everyone and it’s unreasonable to expect me to hand them over to you.”
I get that this is Billie knowing exactly why she got a big bag of cookies and why Sal got a tiny little box, but to have her blurt all this out to Carla, someone who’s just dickishly saying “hey give me your stuff,” doesn’t even jibe with the confrontational behavior Billie’s shown in earlier strips.
This strip felt really awkward to me too, Yoto.
One of my favourite bits of this comic from a racial standpoint was how mature Billie was at the end and aftermath of Freshman Family weekend. Seeing that collide with her early petulance here in a sort of abrupt way isn’t great.
She looks cute in panel 3 and 4, though.
Speaking of racist cookies…
Yes this was a real thing we had in Australia back when I was a kid. -_-
*Prepares to Click Link*
I wonder if they’re Golliwog cookies?
*Clicks Link*
OMG I’M PSYCHIC.
The words ‘chocolate flavoured’ are a bit of a warning sign…
Not sure what it means in Australia, but in the US it’s code for “Contains no actual chocolate so don’t even waste your time”
That mascot is a little terrifying.
That’s pretty tame by golliwog standards.
“Passing privilege” is horseshit, insofar as white dudes don’t suddenly become victims of centuries long bigotry if someone calls them a cracker ass honkey.
Conditional privilege, like how Billie is only privileged as long as she belongs to the white homogenous sludge until someone finds out she’s half Chinese and suddenly becomes the recipient of a million “so you’re only half as good at math right” jokes, is not privilege.
I respectably disagree. If you’re “white-enough”, like Billie, you really can be allowed preferential treatment in regards to many things. Job opportunities, for instance.
That being said, it’s a weird kind of backhand privileged where white people give you shit for not being white enough, and you get shit from whatever other race you’re part of for being too white. So privileged in certain areas and not privileged in others. Like many things
It is exactly that weird kind of backhand privilege. I refuse to call it privilege when it comes with that big a caveat, where you’re only safe until they pull the rug out from under your feet.
White, straight, and male privilege exist because those groups inherently experience favouritism.
It’s like discussions of if Jewish counts as White.
Well, you go unnoticed in more neighborhoods, but the KKK still wants to kick your ass, so, it depends?
Huh, probably shoulda put “I” and “my” instead of “you” and “your” in order to better convey my intended perspective.
I think this is why I find ‘privilege’ a very fraught term when talking about individuals. Billie may experience a level of white privilege, but I wouldn’t call Billie ‘priviledged’ in a broad sense. But where do you draw that line? Is Walky ‘priviledged’? Even individuals in similar groups, (even in the most priviledged groups!) may experience privilege at different levels in their lives, depending on personal circumstances and behavior and luck. It’s standard deviation.
On a societal level, I think it’s important to address the fact that white, straight, male, and certain hard to define socio-cultural classes each have an automatic plus in life, and we should think about bringing everyone else up to a similar level. But on a personal level, I don’t think we can (or should) place our cards on the table and try and decide who has it most shitty – Billie vs Sal, go!
I think Walky is privileged within his own household, but how privileged can he be? He’s a dark skinned man in middle America. His mom can go gaga over his straight hair and his obedience, but who else is that going to matter to?
I just wholly, completely disagree with the idea that privilege can count when it’s conditional. Billie’s liked by the Walkertons because she’s whiter than Sal, and suddenly it’s that whiteness that causes someone else to hate her. It’s not being white enough that costs her a job she’s applying for. It’s being too white for somebody else.
I can’t call that a privilege in the same way I unilaterally benefit from being white and male, and don’t benefit from “straight passing” because that’s something I only have until someone finds out I’m into dudes.
It’s definitely not the same privilege as something inherent, but it’s a privilege. Being read as a dominant group member you are not can come with perks, including as others have said in hiring, promotions, and sometimes avoiding some of the direct negative public responses.
But as you note, it’s a fraught “privilege” because it’s based on a misunderstanding on the part of the dominant culture and when that “privilege” comes crashing down, it can sometimes be to the worst forms of oppression because now the person is seen as a “deceiver”.
But it’s still a thing. A trans woman who “passes” as cis receives less active harassment when she walks down the street. My bi “it’s complicated” had a much easier time of things when she had a “boyfriend”, than when she was open and out as bi. I’ve had to recloset myself and pass as what I was not just to survive and be hired, because it’s really hard to be hired for most anything as a trans person.
And there’s all manner of stories of actresses allowed careers that other black women were not simply because they “pass” as white. Hell, it’s still a thing where those actresses who “pass” as white are more likely to get more and more varied roles than someone who doesn’t.
It’s a lie of a privilege, one that can be removed by someone “clocking” you (like Dr. V who was driven to suicide, because her life “passing” as a cis woman was directly threatened by an idiot sports writer who thought the fact she was a trans woman would make a great hook for a story) or simply if you are unwilling to deal with the uncomfortable dissonance and overly discomfort of those kinds of closets (a number of those “passing” black actresses nonetheless had deep depression because of how much the stress and unfairness and closeted nature weighed on them).
It’s the privilege equivalent of a cloud. Physically tangible and able to affect things, but easily dissipated into thin air with the slightest shift in climate.
Maybe cuz I’m bi, but I seriously have trouble with the phrase “passing privilege”. Cuz it’s used a lot in the LGBT circle to justify biphobia. Bi people don’t belong here, they’re not really oppressed because they have “passing privilege”.
Likewise with invisible disability stuff in the disability circles. “People with invisible disabilities aren’t really discriminated against because they have ‘passing privilege.'”
It’s not a privilege to have your humanity be conditional. Nor is it a privilege to be cut off from the only group that can be a reliable support structure when dealing with these things because of the fact that the dominant group decides you’re sometimes maybe partly people. Conditionally. When they feel like it.
This. Is. Not. Privilege.
It’s oppression of the divide and conquer variety.
Get LG folk all pissed off that bi people can look het if in het relationships, cut off bi and LG folk from each other. Both oppressed groups have their support network cut down and their resources cut down. Who wins? Het folks.
Get visibly disabled folk all pissed off that people like me can “look normal” (with a boatload of effort and energy that leaves us too drained to do anything else that day) and have them cut us off when we need support for stuff like asking for accommodations or putting pressure on a place being oppressive or whatever (See also, the time the disability advocate at my uni refused to support me with my complaint over cigarette smoke inside buildings because since I can pass, I don’t count and I don’t really need to breathe anyway. Limited resources so rather than putting pressure on the school to actually enforce an already-existing policy, I’m going to continue to campaign for elevators in all the buildings. As if it’s a zero sum game, and as if my breathing is less serious an issue than someone in a wheelchair being able to get to all floors. For the record: All access issues are important and deserve attention, but my point is the fact that I pass for healthy and abled when I’m working very hard to keep my NT mask on does not mean I can magically tolerate cigarette smoke or that I don’t need support from the disability community when trying to pressure an institution not to be ableist shitbags who think that getting smokers to move 10m away from building air intakes – like the law and university policy already require – is more troublesome than me having daily asthma attacks and possibly requiring ER trips). What happens when visibly disabled folk refuse to help on the count of the fact that invisibly disabled folk have passing privilege and therefore don’t really need help, is that invisibly disabled folk get pissed that the visibly disabled folk don’t have our backs, for all their fancy talk of solidarity or what have you. So we don’t come out for visibly disabled folk because if you won’t have mine why should I have yours? Resentment builds and each camp becomes more divided. What happens? Each group is isolated, smaller and weaker. Who wins? Abled folk.
“Passing privilege” as a term, is a tool of divide-and-conquer power politics. Because IME, when people invoke “passing privlege” as a thing, they’re doing it to pretend you don’t need their help for an oppression issue because you’re not really oppressed. Or they’re doing to justify their exclusion of you from an event or group that you actually do belong to. Wayy more often than not, it’s used to perpetuate the status quo rather than challenge it.
Which is not to say that passing isn’t a thing that happens. Or that passing doesn’t make things easier in some respects. But it’s just… Hard to articulate but a lot of groups seem to think that if you pass everything is magically all better and you never experience oppression ever. They don’t realize that your own group will often cut you off if you pass (often in so many words – as a bi woman in a het relationship I’ve been told I “don’t count” as LGBT because I pass, as just one example), and they don’t realize that conditional when-I-feel-like-it acceptance to the dominant group isn’t actual acceptance, and that you’re part of the main group only as long as it’s convenient for them. When they can hold you up as a model minority, or have you perform as a walking encyclopedia on all things your oppression experience regardless of how invasive or insensitive or degrading or time-consuming or draining the questions are, they love you. The moment you’re at all difficult or anything other than a docile bobble-head of a yes-person, you’re just a stupid r***** like the rest of them.
That’s a good point about how the slight, mercurial, temporary, and always with painful cost “privilege” of passing is used by some communities to justify biphobia and ableism against “invisible” disabilities. And yeah, I think in biphobia in general, there’s a lack of awareness that passing privilege is much like closet privilege, in that it sucks and is awful to live through.
Like, yeah, you get less active direct shit when you’re closeted, but you still get a lot of shit and you still feel like shit constantly in ways that are often life-ruining and that’s a part of the overall oppression.
And so yeah, the illusion that “passing” is this instantly wonderful thing is something that has been repeatedly disproven in a number of communities, but especially the trans community, because for awhile we were court-ordered to be “passing” and “disappear” in order to be allowed to have access to what we needed and it became quickly apparent that that offers way fewer protections than an active out community.
Which makes it a difficult subject to talk about especially in the LGBT community because of its history.
That all being said, there is definitely a tangibly different albeit temporary, illusory, and precluding being in a closet that’s personally constructed for you way one is treated when one is deemed by dominant society to “pass” than when one doesn’t.
And how rough that can be is often why individuals are scared to live in closets or feel such pressure to “pass” as dominant group members (I’m thinking especially of all the social pressures for trans people to “pass” simply to make their daily harassment less all-consuming). But it definitely is not the same thing as a white privilege or a male privilege by any stretch of the imagination.
Passing is absolutely a thing. It’s a systemic advantage that is unearned. It’s just not one worthy of anger, and REALLY not a thing for bi, pan, or similar folks. Having a much lighter skin tone is /helpful/, especially if people need to see your ID to figure out you’re not white (Or sometimes need to). People needing you to reveal something helps a LITTLE. Just not exactly super much. But it’s still a thing.
Frankly, the idea of ‘passing privilege’ for bi people ultimately makes me throw up a little. I mean, gay people just need to /not mention who they’re married to/ or similar. or go out in public! Then nothing is learned of your sexuality! You know, the same strictures bi people would have to adhere to.
http://i.imgur.com/i4qwQKH.png
Considering my venting post I just made, have an art to offset it.
What is the world coming to when you can’t even enjoy a damn Oreo without being reminded of racism. The most BS part about it is that just looking at it starts it all.
Everyone knows Oreos are the perfect racism metaphor. Everyone loves the white part, but the black cookie part is what holds it together!
What about vanilla oreos? Or fried chicken oreos? Or watermelon oreos?
Yes, those are actual fucking things. Google it.
1 google later:
http://www.eater.com/2014/7/17/6185339/fried-chicken-oreos-are-totally-fake-oreo-confirms
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/19/watermelon-oreo_n_3466729.html
Well you were half right. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Damn, now I really want some fried chicken oreos.
Maybe they have in Japan. I know that they got there 200 flavours of Kitkat, but I don’t know about Oreo
WHYYY?
Even worse, I prefer the new golden oreos. Something about Asians being a “model minority” perhaps?
I mean, if someone offered me a golden oreo I’d sure as fuck eat it.
Golden Oreos are the most racists of Oreos because they’re obviously trump Oreos.
But they are the only ones that will retain their value after the collapse of civilization!
Just like the bottle caps in Fallout?
“They’re good cookies. Good cookies. Amazing. The best cookies! That’s executive action. Because my file, you know, I don’t need anybody’s money.”
No, those would be orange Oreos.
I don’t even like the white part anymore. I dunno whether it’s just that my tastes have changed as I’ve gotten older, or if they actually have increased the Crisco content, but it’s all about the chocolate cookies for me. Double Stuf is really not an improvement.
The lemon ones are pretty good, though.
Always mint. All the time.
I haven’t had mint ones since back when they were called Grasshoppers and Oreos only came in regular and Double Stuf. Grasshoppers were the best, though. I was pissed when they stopped making them.
I noticed that the cream in the Oreo got even grosser (never liked it) right around the time they had to take trans fats out of everything. The cookie texture changed too. Hydrogenated fats might be the devil but DAMN if they don’t make delicious cookies.
The cookie part is what tastes good. The sludge just gives it the much-needed variation in texture.
*raises finger to comment* *rethinks* *considers phrasing* *decides to press on anyway*
I’ve heard Oreo as slang for “Black on the outside White in the middle.” “Not really Black” type stuff.
Deliberate cookie choice?
Pretty sure, yeah. Which, on that note, well played Yotomoe.
I’ve heard it as slang for an interracial relationship.
… Darnit, Carla, stop being adorable…
…but, but, I got a cookie. I’m supposed to enjoy it…
Nice one!
Honestly, the first person she should try sharing with is Sal.
It would be a nice gesture…. but it would almost certainly result in Sal throwing them in her FAAAAAACE because of pride and stuff.
Especially since she’s just as aware of the Panel 4 reality as Billie.
We could have just left it at the cute moment at panel #2 but no we’re doing this.
…… I ship it.
But Carla will lose her femurs if she tries anything with Billie.
Since Ruth is feeling guilty about failing to punish Mary for her transphobic remark, she’ll probably just punch Carla instead.
how about no.
Too late. The USS Carlie has set sail, captained by me. (Barla sounds stupid, so it’s Carlie, everyone who wants to sail along accept it or go overboard tbh xD)
“Captain, what’s that?”
“It appears to be an iceberg..shaped like a femur?”
I see much jealousy from Mary and Ruth.
Do not pass white.
Do not use as excuse for privilege.
Give back $200 or its equivalence in cookies.
Instead of $285?
Que?
$200 is 70% of $285. It’s a poor joke, I know. Was tired when I did like 8 comments last night.
Billie, passing those cookies to Carla is not going to remove the foot from your mouth.
A shame, it’s kinda hard to eat cookies while a foot’s in one’s mouth.
Nonsense. You just have to chew harder.
It’s much easier if you are a cannibal. I mean they literally make a living from cannibalism.
I feel like Willis has got more and more obnoxious with forcing the storyline, its at the point where I read ‘OH NO THE BIGOTS ATTACK’ and my response is ‘ok.’. I just dont feel any more emotional investment in these characters, but only really in the plot questions. Bluh. Im still reading but, I feel like as his art quality gets better, his storytelling degrades.
This is an older plot. Willis is really into social justice and always has been, and sometimes he gets a little bit zealous with it. He did get really hamfisted with Toedad, who ended up being a Bad Guy rather than the significantly more nuanced character I expected him to be, and he might continue that vein or he might go back to the complex and interesting character interactions I started reading this comic for. Hard to say.
Why does the Gunman have to be “nuanced”? Why can’t he just be a complete asshole? People like him absolutely exist.
(Hell, somewhere in either the comments or Willis’s Tumblr, someone posted a news story about a man doing something heartbreakingly similar to what the Gunman did to Becky).
I think the Gunman’s better off as a complete monster. Because then Carol defending him creates that much more conflict.
“Why does the Gunman have to be “nuanced”?” Because it makes for a better character. Plus, nobody just becomes a “bad guy”. Ever read some histories behind serial killers and psychopaths? They’re almost never born that way.
No, it doesn’t. It makes for an unrealistic character.
The Ross McIntyres of the world are not nuanced.
They are, invariably, bigoted assholes, who are every bit as bigoted deep down as they are on the surface – if not more.
Heh. This.
The advice about “nuance” misses the point of the advice “nuance” is meant to address. And that’s complexity or rather having a character’s motivations make complete sense given their attitude, life experiences, personality, and history.
Cause that’s what makes a rich character. When you can see Carla in her handful of appearances and see the signs of a rough background that leads to the projection of overconfidence and the slight tools she uses to turn her perceived negatives and vulnerabilities into strengths. That shows a lot of care in craft and its reflected in the moments where she’s more fleshed out.
Toedad is not nuanced. But he is fully fleshed out and consistent to his motivations and character. It makes perfect sense the chain of broken logic and petty hypermasculinity that lead him to escalating the situation with Becky to its ignoble end. His actions are fully informed by his faith, his feelings of failing against Satan, and even his beliefs in his role as a father.
He’s a real person and as such, he resonates strongly with people who have known a Toedad. Who’ve been under his ire. He rings true, because his actions have a perfectly understandable characterization and that carries more emotional impact than a character who is made “nuanced” for nuance’s sake.
Also, I would disagree regarding the “become the bad guy” thing. In that, Toedad doesn’t believe he’s the bad guy. In fact, in his worldview, his actions were the heroic attempts to literally fight off the Devil’s minions who were adamant in denying him personally from saving the soul of his remaining family. And because of that worldview, he made justifications for truly abhorrent and vile behavior.
And that’s true to life. There’s no shortage of truly awful people, people who spend their lives trying to make kids kill themselves, who kill their children for not “growing up right” or who make merry sport of bigotry, who ran hate campaigns and join organizations like the Klan or the hashtag we dare never speak the name of. Who will find a justification for why they’re not the baddies or at least, if they are the baddies, they’re the super cool baddies who look super awesome and besides they were pushed into it.
“The Ross McIntyres of the world are not nuanced.”
They are, actually. Everyone has a story with unique origins to their beliefs, goals and reasons for holding them, and so on. It’s a fact of life, regardless of how good or bad someone is. To portray someone as mindlessly, inherently bad is its own form of unrealistic.
Except he has origins, beliefs, goals, reasons for his actions. Hell, I provided a lot of the play-by-play of the worldview being faithfully recreated, a worldview Willis literally grew up with, when those comics were being run.
Just because they do not make him sympathetic, does not make him fully informed by his culture and his personality.
Nah. Some people are just bad. They are being presented as bad because they are bad. If there’s no symapathetic bone in Toedad’s body, why make one up? It doesn’t exist. He’s an asshole. I don’t understand why you would want ‘nuance’ on an asshole. His reasonings and motivations have been made abundantly clear. They are not redeeming. Maybe that’s why he’s so jarring. He is bad. His motivations are bad. That’s it.
We know what Ross’s backstory is.
It is the same goddamn backstory as every single person who has pulled this shit in real life.
A disgusting stew of religion, privilege, homogeneity, and toxic masculinity.
There are variants in the story – what specific religion and culture, and how that effects how the others manifest – but it’s a straightforward story.
There is no ‘nuance’ to it, nothing to make these assholes sympathetic and suitably ‘realistic’ to the people who can’t help but think ‘no, they can’t just be assholes, they MUST have some deep backstory that means that the horrible things they do make sense’.
It must be nice to live in life with such a naively black and white worldview.
No, it’s horrible living in a reality where fuckholes like Ross MacIntyre exist, and are constantly being given the benefit of the doubt by people who insanely naively think that they don’t.
It must be absolutely lovely to live in a goddamn sugar bowl where there is no such thing as bad people.
Just because someone’s motivations for being a terrible person make sense to them doesn’t mean we need to in any way honor those motivations. Yes, Ross has a whole life story that made him the Toedad he is today. It was still his choices that led to his Toedadism. I don’t see that there’s really any room for nuance there.
It might make for a better character if Ross mattered in the long run. But this isn’t his story, it’s Becky’s and we saw all we needed for her story.
Not saying that the Gunman doesn’t have a complicated history.
Just that it doesn’t make him at all sympathetic in the now.
Sociopaths are literally born that way.
Serial Killers do indeed grow into that. Do you think their stories are universally redeeming? For fuck’s fucking sake, nerds, do you read what you type?
Why don’t we hear about all the good sympathetic qualities to people who deliberately target more vulnerable people (usually women and sex workers) and brutally murder them for their own personal pleasure?
Maybe I’m misreading, but your posts seem to be leaning towards attacking commenter, R.
Sorry if that’s not the case.
Sociopathy doesn’t do that. Actively choosing to defy common sense (trying to hurt someone because a randomly powerful person says it should be done without giving a justification) is what does that.
That and someone in the patreon strips for those had said they actually had to stop reading because it was too close to their real life circumstances. And there were definite moments that resonated uncomfortably close to home for others.
Honestly, with all the… more traditionalist commenters who occasionally pop up to note how the storylines focusing on the more marginalized people and the stories never written about.
I can understand where they are coming from. After all, if you are used to stories looking a certain way and being about certain things and about a narrow band of individuals and circumstances, this can probably feel alienating and uncomfortable and “heavy-handed” and overly infected with his “social justice” bent and so on…
But personally, I’m often grateful and happy that he’s been writing about these issues simply because there are very few places to see that sort of story and see that sort of story actually done well and truthfully to those experiences (in this I’m speaking more of the ones I can personally attest are done very accurately to my own experiences).
For me, some of these storylines have helped me deal with some rather fresh and nasty traumas and see representations I never expected to see. And maybe that’s not what people who are used to seeing themselves in their fiction come to comics to read, but there’s a lot of stories out there that speak to interests they have and not so many for me. So I have a hard time feeling that bad about how they feel alienated by storylines that actually address real issues in an informed yet sardonic way.
This is the news story that you are talking about. http://www.advocate.com/crime/2016/2/25/dad-arrested-pointing-loaded-gun-teen-daughter-when-she-came-out
Be aware the article contains the fathers threat to kill his daughter.
Also the father’s religious beliefs factored into his reaction similar to toe-dad.
This man’s particular beliefs are to blame not his religion the same way Toe-dad’s beliefs are to blame.
Willis doesn’t show any evidence of Linda being a racist shit and people complain that Sal’s making it all up.
Willis does show evidence of Linda being a racist shit and people complain that it’s overbearing.
So much this. It’s like clockwork. Hell, TLM did both of those this comment thread.
I wasnt complaining before. Im complaining now that it seems like all these similar plots of “Everyone hates people for being different” just completely stamp out the sorta dark yet optimistic feel of this comic and has got to the point where its normalized and im not getting any emotions from reading it.
It’s not really Willis’ fault if you’re becoming blasé… Are you in your late teens? Because it’s a common thing at that age.
I don’t agree with your overall assessment, but there is some real scary moral absolutism going on in this thread. Not that Toedad is somehow meant to be sympathetic, he’s not, but dismissing nuance as untrue to real-life is upsetting to me.
….but that is Sal’s story. It has always been. She is a Cool Rebel with a Troubled Past because of Friction With Her Family while her brother is an Immature Jerk who is too Privileged to understand Her Situation, but at college they have the chance to meet again as adults rather than children…
Like, there is not a single strip with Sal that has not in one way or another addressed this story-arc.
Just like Becky’s story ark has always been that she is fleeing a childhood that didn’t allow her to be what she is, or that Joyce’s story is that she is leaving a childhood behind that wanted to make her a bigot (something she refused to be in the meeting with Dorothy, Ethan and the New And Improved Becky). It’s nothing new – the theme of oppression has been one of the main pillars of this comic from day one.
All of this. The interplay of being more aware of these oppressions and growing as a person because of it is on of the cornerstones of the comic and has been since its pre-planning mock-ups. Not just because the characters demand it based on who they are and what informs their arcs, but also because that’s been the point of the comic for the author.
Willis has stated several times that part of this comic is his own therapy, exploring the hard road of shedding his bigotries that he was carefully raised to have through contact with people who were the groups he was raised to hate and becoming more and more aware of the issues they face, both dramatically and more subtly.
It’s why Joyce, the character with that exact arc is one of the most autobiographical in the comic.
People who are acting like having so much awareness on microaggressions and dynamics of harassment and abuse is some new deviation from the comic have been largely missing the point about the comic.
Part of it, I suspect, is that we’re moving from the stage where the basically nice girl with prejudices confronts them and grows out of them to the stage where our characters have to confront others, who are actually set in their ways and sometimes not at all nice, at least to their targets.
The first is the easy, happy story. Joyce grows up, we laugh at her a bit and then we’re happy for her. She’s the nice bigot that some posters keep asking for and she comes out of it practically on her, just with a little exposure outside her old comfort zone.
The second is harder, less comfortable. Not everyone is nice and willing to change.
Of course, it’s all been there from the beginning. The villains of these storylines were established and foreshadowed long ago, but it was easy to look past until now.
Huh. Trump supporters must have had a bake sale.
*Drumpf
Welcome to the tea party. Want a cookie?
I don’t think I’ve ever had ginger snaps, but I hate ginger, so I would probably not enjoy them. I mean, I hate the spice, not the hair color, the hair color I love. And Ginger Spice the person is cool too (love ya, Geri). But the actual spice ginger can go die in a fire ;p
what about ginger ale or ginger beer?
I don’t drink, so the beer is out anyway, but I do remember my mom giving me ginger ale to drink when I had stomach aches as a kid? Tastes like medicine to me now, so no thanks^^
ginger beer is non alcoholic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginger_beer
okay it can be alcoholic, but I meant the soda
Oh! Don’t think this exists where I live. But in any case I am at least 99% sure that bases on empirical evidence re: me and ginger, I would not enjoy it xD
You probably would not, a lot of people don’t, it might be the strongest soda ever. A stronger batch can make your insides feel like their burning the first time you drink it. Do you live in Europe?
That does not sound pleasant. I mean, even ginger ale always had that kind of effect on me, though maybe not as strong.
And yeah, Germany. (I just googled whether we have the ginger beer soda here and we do not, because nothing is allowed to be called beer in Germany that isn’t beer xD)
its really good actually (to me at least), its just not that sweet. Funny enough I once gave ginger beer to german foreign exchange students, I made sure to grab the strongest bottle I could find.
Mmmm. Ginger beer.
On second thought. Mmmmm. Dark and Stormies.
Not all ginger beer is alcoholic. It’s actually the ancestor of ginger ale.
Lemon ginger tea when sick?
There is almost nothing in that sentence I enjoy lmao. I don’t like tea, ginger…. or being sick xD Lemon is fine, as long as it’s not pure. I know, I am the worst.
Then I agree, ginger must be banned from your kingdom… ideally in the direction of my kingdom’s borders.
I’m going to be drawing up a trade agreement asap 😉
Reminds me of being a kid in Michigan. Having a cold meant the tea. Having a flu meant a slow weaning of room temperature ginger ale. As far as getting sick can go, good times.
Carla’s not sure she wants those cookies now.
The method to Billie’s madness.
Good Carla! Here, have a cookie
Racism cookies: For when you want to feel 1000 times worse for enjoying cookies than you already do!
Well, luckily the cookies aren’t symbolically a light brown… that could be mistaken for light colored in dark light… er… um… yeah…
Look, I’m not racist, I just happen to like sugar cookies, okay? It’s a PREFERENCE
After all, those sugar cookies worked hard, went to good schools, and really earned their place on my plate. Honestly, it’s really unfair of you to suggest that anything other than sober fair analysis went into this cookie decision. And besides, we all know about those double chocolate cookies and their lack of “proper” flavor values. Nuff said.
It’s not cookieist, some of my best friends are double chocolate!
Why on earth would you already feel bad for enjoying them?
Because eating cookies can cause you to gain weight, and as we all know that is an unforgivable sin.
But it might gain Billie negative remarks from Ruth, with all the mixed messages that implies.
Because of the potential for weight gain. A lot of people feel guilty for enjoying cookies because they gain weight or they want to lose weight and the desire for cookies makes it harder to do so.
…and they prefer guilt over moderation and/or ramping up physical activity to counterbalance the cookies?
Storytime: In Sweden there is a cookie called Chocolate Balls previously called N***** Balls, because of racism. Now it is a HUGE THING that people are not allowed to call it the old name any longer without getting called out for it. It’s even gone so far that the rightwing populist party uses it as an informal platform. (“We want a return to the good old days when you could use the real name for things”). Many a sheltered kid has their first exposure to privilege-theory from the chocolate ball debate.
…so yeah, racist cookies – in Sweden we call it Politics.
That is utterly fascinating.
In Germany there is a chocolate desert filled with cream that is now called Chocolate Kiss and it used to be called exactly that thing that the Balls were called in Sweden. When I was a kid they were TOTALLY still called that. It maybe started slowly getting phased out 15 years ago? Crazy, right?
(Germany, I’d say Western/Northern Europe in general, has a shitload of these kinds of racisty things going on, like blackface and whatnot, that are only really REALLY slowly starting to get the outrage and attention they deserve!)
And the old people yelling about ‘political corectness’, they exist here, too. Of course they do. Basically what they’re saying is ‘I want to still be racist without being called out on it, can’t we go back to those good old days?’ Those idiots exist everywhere. In the US a very orangey man is currently riding those people alllll the way to the polls.
Which is proof that whines about political correctness are really about dominant group members not being willing to handle the fact that social norms change and what once was given a free pass really shouldn’t anymore.
Like, they are so used to not having to change for anything, that the slightest growth of culture is seen as a direct attack on them.
Exactly! The chocolate balls is just one example. There are so many “Racist things we have always done, but when we do them now people call us racists and we don’t want to be called racists”-things that have become HUGE THINGS in Sweden that it is utterly ridiculous.
“We have always:”
– Called Pippi Longstockings father a N***** king (rather than a “South Sea king” as in the new printing)
– Seen a three second long animation of a caricature black doll in a disney cartoon during Christmas.
– Shelved the earliest, most racist Tintin comic books in the children’s section in a particular library in Stockholm rather than in the adult comic section one floor up.
– Singing a particular song about gingerbread men in the children’s christmas plays at daycare (one particular school dared to change the program one year)
– A particular brand of candy with a yellow-face Chinese caricature as logo
– …and those damn cookies.
All these things have repeatedly been front page news and hotly debated by top politicians. They are held up by the more-or-less-outspoken racist political parties as proof of Political Correctness Gone Mad.
So, yeah, enjoy this news flash from the Socialist Feminist Utopia Sweden…
I mean, your super racist party (I want to say Sverigekotama?) got seats. I knew y’all had some pretty bad shit going ont oo, everyone does. But yeah, most Meriken leftists just know Sweden has it better than here.
Sverigedemokraterna, at least according to Scandinavia and the World.
Indeed!
http://satwcomic.com/swedish-politics
Germany’s super racist party is also on an upswing at the moment, because of the Refugee Crisis. All of this is so predictable and sad =/
I’m not sure if they replaced the wording of Pippie Longstockings Father’s role in the German Version or if they kept the wording and made a comment about the word. What’s not happening is pointing out, that at that time, this might have been a child’s fantasy what happened to her father who was lost at sea. But that it showed an uniformed and racist world view, as why the hell should any south sea tribe make a random white man swept upon their shore their king?
I’d rather prefer not changing the stories but talking about why the have wrong ideas and, incidentally, wrong words.
BTW: Conservatives tended to hate Astrid Lindgren because of her anarchist ideas (a child living all by herself without adult supervison! In 1941!). We cannot know what her point of view would have been if she lived now, her story Kati in America (1950) describes the segregation in the southern states of the US (sorry about the wording, ianans) in very shocked words. So this suggests she would be an ally.
Oh, we don’t have to wonder about Astrid Lindgren’s views on racism.
“I dislike all kinds of separation of humans in nations and races, all kind of discrimination between black and white, between aryas and jews, between turks and swedes, between men and women.
Since I was big enough to think independently I have disliked the blue-and-yellow patriotic Swedish, all those things about “if anyone comes too close to our mountain… [a pretty hillarious patriotic song]”, that is as disgusting to me as Hitler’s german nationalism.. I have never been a patriot. We are all human – that has always been my special patos of life. ”
Astrid Lindgren, 1957 (hastily translated by me – all errors are mine)
https://astridlindgrensnas.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/astrid-lindgrens-egna-ord-om-rasism/
Thanks for that link 🙂
OMG we had the same thing in Sweden. I don’t think anyone cares about that any longer though.
Actually, I remember starting the awkward bakery conversation (where you could buy the singly) with asking for a “Schokokuss” in the early 80ties. I’m not sure when the word became mainstream usage, some company who sells the stuff in boxes made a huge marketing effort to have their brand name become a generic name for it.
Cesaria’s and Bagge’s comments illustrates a problem I encounter when inappropriate names are talked about.
Bagge wrote about N**** which I read as a certain word, and Cesaria chimes in with her experience about a German sweet. Only because I know the German sweet was not named with how I read the word Bagge wrote about, I know that I either misinterpreted the Swedish word or others will misinterpret the German one. Or maybe from a POC point of view, both words are equally offensive?
If the offending word isn’t mentioned, it is all open to my knowledge or fantasy what it was. I can understand the wish to not repeat an offending word but at the same time, it makes it impossible to know what is really talked about.
This troubles me.
Negerboll
Negerkuss
Be troubled no more
The German N word is just as bad as the English one. Sure, it’s a word associated with slavery in English and there are always *those* people that will argue that the Germanic word is just “a translation of the word black”, so it can’t be offensive. But yes it can and yes it is. Because it has taken on this meaning over time. It doesn’t MATTER what it may have originally meant. Now it’s a slur and shouldn’t be said, just like the English N word.
Jupp. The word was also used excessively by racial biologists in their mission to measure how races were different from each other. Like, I have a hard time thinking of how a word could be MORE obviously racist.
Still that way in the Netherlands. They’ve been slowly phasing that out. And then there’s the ridiculous amount of people trying to claim that Sinterklaas’ helpers aren’t a caricature of black slaves.
Oh God, we had something similar in the fifties. Not blackface, but a Jewish caricature. For whatever strange reason no one seems to miss that one…
Same thing here with Balthazar (of the Three Wise Men). There’s always children dressing up as the Wise Men on January 6th and every year, like clockwork, someone will do blackface. I don’t understand how it’s so hard for some people to understand that we don’t DO THIS ANYMORE because it’s FUCKING RACIST. Ugh. Europe is hella slow on the uptake about this =/
Or maybe it’s Caspar, I am not religious enough to know the names of them^^ But you know what I mean, one of them is black and it’s always, inevitably, a mess with blackface.
Gaspar is traditionally identified as Indian, so the one most likely to be portrayed with blackface, yeah.
(Melchior is Persian and Balthazar Babylonian.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnNYXgV7L-c&list=RDlnNYXgV7L-c
The problem with offensive speech is that it is very frequently regionally and even contextually specific. Words that are offensive in one area are normal proper nouns or verbs elsewhere and are uttered by people of all races without a twitch because there is no societal association with offence.
The lesson? Bigotry is universal but its language is not.
That may be true. But it’s also true that many times people who ARE offended simply pick their battles, and people who are not offended have no idea that people are offended.
So true. These words were always offensive and hurtful to the communities they affect, it’s just those battles are ugly, long, and dehumanizing, so it takes time for a community to work up to drumming up education on it and there are plenty of times when people in the community will walk rather than invite the stress of it all into their life.
That is only true if the word is in a language that the community speaks. However, an identical-sounding word in their language is not offensive at all. That’s the point I’m making.
Sounds interesting. I can’t remember I’ve heard an example though (the german and swedish cookies above are straight examples of the N-word).
Maybe. But if a member of an oppressed group alerts you to the fact that a word (even one you’ve maybe been saying all your life, in whatever language) is offensive, then you stop saying it. It’s really as simple as that.
In Britain, we had a lot of those battles in the ’90s. I was oblivious at the time, being a white kid, but I do remember when Robinson’s Marmalade quietly dropped their cheery little mascot, which I shall refer to here as a “golly***”.
One time when I was little, I asked what all the different kinds of mixed nuts were in a bowl over a Christmas holiday. My dad told me “this ones a pecan, this one’s a walnut, and these ones I don’t know but we just called them N—– Toes!” and laughed like it was some grand joke, and then my mom berated him for saying something like that to me (not for the context of that certain word, mind you… just that he used it, because she considered it along the lines of saying a curse word and this was back when we were all “good Catholics”… -_- ). I remember being really confused because I didn’t know what that word meant and why it was “off limits” yet at the same time hilarious.
It was also weird because when a black guy moved into our neighborhood in the little backwater town in a southern we lived in at the time, my dad was the only one who treated the guy with any respect and welcomed him to come over, have dinner, watch football games, etc… until our neighbors achieved their goal of making him feel so unwelcomed he moved out a few months later.
Still confusing today because I see similar behaviors from them of being perfectly respectful to all kinds of people, but are more than happy to drop all sorts of nasty slurs and even make comments about how certain groups of people are troublemakers, lazy, blah blah blah.
Selective racism maybe?… All I know is it gave me many bad habits that I had to painfully reteach myself away from and that I doubt I’ll ever be able to fully make up for.
I guess it could be a mix of growing up with these jokes and stereotypes, so they’re still funny even if you know they’re wrong, or they’re funny BECAUSE they’re wrong. Some sort of black humor.
Also, it’s a lot easier to think/say “group X is Y”, than say that a flesh-and-blood person is bad due to their belonging to a certain group. Basically, the jokes are about stereotypes, but when confronted with real people, and seeing these stereotypes don’t apply, you drop that attitude.
You gotta pay the guilt tax when you’re consuming ill-gotten baked goods. It’s just polite.
…that sounded a lot better in your head, didn’t it?
How good can those cookies be, Billie?
They have soulful flavor?
(I think that joke offends in many ways. I can always not post it. Will it help if I point out I’m Irish? Oh well, they can write it down if they like it.)
Yep. Noticing things sucks.
I love how gormless Carla looks in the 5th panel. Just look at that.
It’s such a nice touch. Like she’s just… what? What the fuck did you just say? It’s basically like the non-angry, non-hurt version of her dead stop panel with Mary after she dropped her bomb.
And it’s made all the more impactful with Billie’s awkward cringe. Like, she’s just said out loud what she’s known has been true for the longest time, what has colored her every awkward interaction with Sal, and she knows that that has robbed her cookies of a lot of their innocent joy and wonder, because she can’t escape what they transparently represent.
That one panel is just such a good character moment.
And yet she still only gives one cookie away!
Let’s not get crazy here. It’s COOKIES.
Precisely; she’d have needed a full on Divine Revelation to give Carla a dozen!
‘You canNOT have just said what it sounded like you said. … Oh, you did.’
Carla doesn’t get why Billie has had a sudden guilt-trip, but she’ll run with it if it gets her ginger snaps.
Meanwhile, poor Billie is suddenly and uncomfortably aware of the scale to which Mrs Walkerton has used her as a club to punish Sal for existing. It is the sort of thing that tends to rob you of your appetite.
I just spent like 30+ minutes reading these comments. Very wide range. I’d kinda like a refund for about 5 of those, but I know you have a no refund policy, Willis. You can’t even leave cookies untainted, can you?
I am reminded occassionally that this an incredibly brave and brilliant comic.
Thankyou Willis.
Racism Cookies: Try the unique taste of privilege, and then realize what an asshole you are! All in one bite!
It takes a lot of effort to put yourself in the wrong in a conversation where someone walks up to you and says “Cookies, gimme!” but Billie can rise to the occasion.
Somewhere, a more asian looking girl is getting cookies from Billy’s mom.
Alice?
Goddammit Mrs. Billingsworth, do you not pay any attention to your daughter’s life? We’re not dating anymore. We haven’t been dating for months. I’m not even in contact with your daughter anymore. Stop sending me care packages.
The proper rebuttal was “and you don’t need *any* of them”…
I prefer snickerdoodles, myself.
Carla’s face: “I don’t know what answer I was expecting but it certainly wasn’t that.”
So, here’s my question: Is Sal’s skin tone actually darker than Walky’s? Now, to be as clear I’m not saying that Sal is making up the racial aspect of her mother’s relationship, or that Willis is a bad story teller who doesn’t story tell correctly. In fact, I can think of several plausible explanations, the most likely (in my mind) is that there’s a sexism thing going on as well: she was fine with a darker skin child while she wanted a lighter skin daughter. So while she’s okay with Walky’s skin tone, she’s not with Sal’s (I’ll also admit that I’m definitely oversimplifying with my language; I have like 5 minutes to write this so I can’t use my big girl words so easily.)
However, I just want confirmation that I’m not the only one who can’t tell the skin tone between the two and maybe (if art/people who can figure out how to do this can) someone telling me if their skin time’s are using the same pigment or at least highly similar pigments. Thanks!
Walky and Sal have the same skin tone. It’s the difference in their other traits, like Walky’s straight hair vs. Sal’s kinky hair, that motivated Walky’s preferential treatment.
Oh duh! Now I feel absolutely silly. They spent so long talking about white passing and appearing that somewhere in my brain I thought they must have been talking about skin tone, when I know that white passing is a whole bunch of other things as well. Question answered. Thanks.
I believe that Sal (or maybe it was Walky) once said something about Walky being ‘a more acceptable shade of beige’ but I don’t know how much of that was factual and how much of that was the speaker being flippant.
That was Walky. The line was, and I quote, “Well my sister is black but I’m generically beige.”
I think it was both, really. It was Walky being a smartass and also separating himself and his sister into different categories.
And almost certainly a reflection of how he and Sal were seen and treated in their family. Most likely a common “joke”.
Re: Generically Beige line
I find it pretty hard to believe that Walky’s dad would let him have that concept in his mind. Just as someone who is a minority and most likely experienced discrimination, how could he not disabuse his son of that notion?
Neither of my parents are mixed, so maybe it’s a little different, but the idea that slight differences like hair and complexion* separate us was always pushed against. I even remember meeting a fairly light skinned dude in high school who definitely feel the need to try and impress upon me that he was black, as if I would’ve denied him. It would literally never have crossed my mind.
However, I know that identifying as mixed and honouring your entire background does conflict with this idea. And it also seems like it parallels the super shitty one-drop rule stuff. But the way it was presented to me, it wasn’t that you couldn’t have your differences of culture and that those couldn’t be celebrated, but that “blackness” isn’t a metric to use to separate people.
Which brings me back to the idea that I find it hard to believe that Papa Walkerton never experienced any opinions/reactions about being too black or not black enough while growing up in America, being an academic (I think) or being in a relationship with a white lady that made him think “man it feels bad to be judged that way” and not let his kids or wife do that shit. I almost don’t buy it for Walky even though he was basically raised by television and the internet, but I don’t buy it for his dad.
Also Walky is talkative as all hell so I don’t think that class was the first time he ever dropped that ‘I’m beige, but my sister is black’ stuff.
*At the same time I was made aware of colourism, especially via who made it in the mainstream media.
When this issue was first raised, I noticed how several strips showed Sal and Walky together, in the same lighting, to rub in how very identical their skin colour really is. The comment thread at the time was a bit of an education. /Mostly/ in a good way.
TLDR: there was talk about how their parents see Sal as stereotypically “black-acting” and Walky as stereotypically “white-acting”, from people who’ve some experience of this problem.
Willis uses the exact same color palette for both twins. It’s other factors, like Sal’s hair being more obviously kinky than Walky’s (when she doesn’t straighten it), and Sal apparently self-identifying as black while Walky self-identifies as “generically beige”.
And I cringe every time someone says that Sal “acts blacker”, because in this context the implication is that “underperforms in school and holds up convenience stores” == “black”.
But, yeah, my take on it is that there’s a horrible synergy of racist and sexist stereotypes going on – that it’s more acceptable to the Walkertons that their son be black than that their daughter be black. They want their kids to be a strong, virile black man and a pretty little white girl, and they got a strong, hot black woman and a pretty little generically beige manchild. So they’ve traded the black girl in for a pretty sufficiently-white girl, and Linda’s working on the beige boy to turn him into the young black professional she wants, while Charles is deigning to notice his black daughter only long enough to remind her that she isn’t pretty when she doesn’t make herself look white.
Are college-ere secretly five?
WOW. Way to open yourself in the most blindly and stupid… I don´t even. She must be offguard by the “breakup”. “I was the stand-in “daughter” someone else wanted…”? That´d fuckup anyone. That and the sudden realization, years later. By some cookies.
It’s not really a realisation.
Yeah, she’s known for awhile. She’s just not really said it out loud to people.
Or possibly even to herself. The desperation for some kind of parental affection can make it really hard to admit why you’re getting it. Especially if it was just a gradual process, especially once Sal was sent away.
I feel kind of bad because Linda is probably the only reason Billie is halfway sane since her parents neglected her so much.
Ew, no thanks, I hate racism.
And ginger snaps.
No, no Billie. The correct response was: “For having to put up with Linda Walkerton growing up.”
Billie likes the Walkertons. She’s even said that she’s accidentally called them Mom and Dad.
Yeah, especially since its been implied that her own parents are somehow worse, both in how the racism directly affects her and her mom’s treatment in the home and in general neglect.
And ultimately, I think that’s a really important dynamic in Billie’s relationship with them. Even the love she receives from her replacement parents now might be conditional, and it’s going to isolate her even further.
Linda isn’t obviously horrible to Walky either. Note that her non-sal kids like her. Like yeah, she’s one of the worst moms in the strip (#2 or #3, depending on whether you think Carol had this relationship with Becky before Becky came out) but it’s not the sort of obvious terrible you see.
Heck, Billie is probably sitting pretty great with Linda EXCEPT for this. She’s a daughter who is liked and has no expectations placed on her. Walky has to live up to shit.
Well, they liked her, at least…both of them are showing signs of realizing how she treated Sal was Not Cool. It’ll be interesting to see how the realization affects their relationship with Linda and whether that has any effect on her. (Something to prompt Charles to look at his internalized issues is also overdue, but not quite as urgent.)
Ehhhh, we’re talking about kids and their parent. This is probably the start of the road, but I really doubt the road is that short. They’re gonna try and hope she’s decent first.
Carla is developing Mike’s ability to get people to confess their entitlements by virtue of just staring at them.
To be fair, Billie ranks just above Becky when it comes to her ability to keep her trap shut.
A little off topic, but does anyone else get ‘unresponsive script’ error boxes on these web pages? I’m using Firefox 44.0.2. I enjoy this comic, but these error prompts are really disruptive, cause I get them all day long.
Turn off Shockwave if you’re using Firefox or use Chrome. It should clear it up.
How do I turn off Shockwave?
Assuming you’re using Firefox, go to Tools, Add Ons, scroll down to Shockwave Flash, and select Never Activate in the menu on the right.
Tell him you prefer bots with two eyes and two hands.
All the time. I’m pretty sure it’s badly-designed ads playing in Adobe Flash — they’ll routinely take up half a gig of memory, sometimes even a full gig, and somehow they’ll manage to play audio even though I’m sure they’re supposed to auto-mute. At about the same time I have trouble scrolling on the page (it lags badly, halting and stopping and freezing), and have the same trouble typing comments.
I’m using Windows, so I bring up Task Manager and just kill Adobe Flash with fire. That solves the problem temporarily, until Adobe relaunches and the problem slowly builds up again. There’s probably some setting I can go in to fix, but I don’t know what it is.
I’m occasionally getting the same thing, and I’m also running Firefox (but I’m not sure which version) with Windows 7. And it’s not just on the ‘Dumbing of Age’ site, so I will second your assessment that it’s probably some of these border ads that just about every site seems to have these days. My general cure is to close the system with Task Manager and restart Windows; that usually resolves the issue for a while — although since I’m paying for tech support from Best Buy’s “Geek Squad” I should probably drop the laptop off with them and let them fumigate the thing to get the bugs out and at the same time make sure my Kaspersky protection is up to date.
Panel 5 Carla’s face:
“You know what you did, Billie. You know what you did.”
*Panel 6
Crape’s is fer pibbles mit out teeth!,.,.,.,.,.,. {*v*}
I swear when I read this comic this morning Billie said “racist mom”. Maybe just my imagination? I think it’s strong enough anyway.
Why am I reading the comic twice, you ask? Oh, don’t act like you don’t.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVN_0qvuhhw
Okay. Can somebody explain to me how you can be married to a black guy, in what presumably is not an abusive relationship, and then hilariously favor/disfavor your kids on skin tone?
I mean. I don’t doubt that it’s possible and that it happens. But the logic, or lack thereof, is bending my brain here.
I’m guessing its something like confirmation bias where subconscious dislike compounded with denying Sal attention and subtly sabotaging her justifying the shitty treatment into an oroborous of bad parenting.
Because it’s not about skin tone, it’s about signifiers.
Sal has trouble in school. Her hair’s curlier than her brother’s. And this causes her misbehavior to register more strongly in Linda’s mind. Sal, to Linda, reads as “culturally black” in ways that Walky and Charles don’t.
You’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head with that description.
There is no real logic to these things. They only make sense when viewed at a particular angle at a particular moment. Taken all together, they are completely inconsistent and almost always contradictory.
Uh, no.
Just because Linda isn’t a card carrying klansman doesn’t make the racism that Willis is choosing to focus on in this story any less real or valid. It’s about cultural preferences dictating how the Walkertons view their kids.
TLDR: I can’t be sexist I like chicks.
or wait
was that what you were saying
ivemadeaterriblemistake.gif
Not at all.
I just found the logic of people doing horrible things to be fascinating.
The same way Charles himself can have some racist attitudes toward black people despite, himself, being black. The ‘problem’ isn’t being black, per se, it’s being ‘too black’.
Have you never met those racists who make an exception for this one black guy who is a swell guy? My uncle was like that.
This is just a more subtle variation.
Willis wrote her as a racist, so she’s a racist.
Anyone else here is just taking fictional characters way too seriously.
“Hmm… Tastes like entitlement.”
I bet they taste like dead rats.
I preferred Mary Ann, but I don’t think she ever got a cookie named after her.
I get the impression Walky is lighter than Sal but they’re drawn the same because it’s a cartoon.
It might be the features not related to skin color that made Walky more favored, such as hair or facial features. They’re still racial, and a lot of people give themselves free reign to judge based on them simply because they aren’t directly based on color, even though they’re still based on race.
Nope. I won’t link it again, since it gets your comment moderated forever, but there was a comic establishing that their faces look exactly alike. Book 5, chapter 3, “tall.” It’s during Joyce’s party, when Sal stops by, and Ethan thinks he recognizes her. Sal mentions her twin, and Danny talks about how he never noticed they were identical.
I do not understand the people assuming that Carla’s comment was being a jerk. She’s being silly. Who uses “gimme” seriously?
I could imagine Joyce saying “Is that a new Monkey Master DVD? Gimme!” Would everyone assume she was being a jerk, too?
Heck, that’s pretty much how my sister and I talk all the time when one of us gets something the other person likes.
Carla’s a brat but I hardly think she thought she was entitled to getting a cookie… She was just being silly in her way of letting Billie know she wanted one. Even if she wasn’t given one probably the most she’d do is make a snarky comment and yell a bit, then knock another couple of people with ambiguous sexual tension onto each other by not caring to slow down/move around people in her general travel path…. like the brat she is.
I mean, by that logic, Billie is being a jerk by saying “Mine!”
18 and 19 year olds are NEVER playful or joke with each other, duh.
I actually think Papa Walkerton could be a source of Sal’s racism and his wife’s as well. I’m hardly one to qualify but given he identifies as Half-White and his comments to Sal’s hair, it’s entirely possible Paps was as hard on Sal as Mama and she absorbed it.
I’m just gonna say, it is SO NICE reading 21 new-to-me strips in a row! (vacay w/o Internet).
I didn’t attempt the 11K comments, though.
Don’t do it ! keep your sanity !
Oh man I love it when I have a backlog of strips to go through.
It’s a hard thing, sharing ginger snaps.