Questions
Questions
Questions
These are all wildly inappropriate questions to ask a random stranger without some prior explicit context between the people.
Are you surprised when a good meaning person asks when a slightly chubby woman is due, when she isn’t actually pregnant?
Actually, yes, because that's been widely known as a risky question to ask for so long it would surprise me. Then I would question them actually being a well-meaning person.
Not surprised, but I'm also not convinced it's well-meaning so much as ignorance to the effect of their own actions. Otherwise, I think were mostly on the same page. It generally should be considered uncool to ask someone a personal questions without a valid reason to do so, regardless of age, genital status, or arbitrarily assigned category loosely based upon skin or the overall attitude of one religious group towards another.
For all the people missing the point of this comic particularly in the U.S.: Look at who has held political and financial power for the last two hundred years, including this one. There are lots of pictures and paintings of people. Do you notice anything in common between nearly all of them besides having wealth and power? Think about the position of everyone else not fitting that description and tell us all again why you personally feel attacked and why this comic is not relevant.
It's funny how the people writing comics like these don't see that they are perpetuating a stereotype themselves.
Racist sterotypes are worse than sterotypes about racists.
pOiNTInG oUt rAciSm iS ThE sAmE aS bEInG RaciSt
I think I get what you’re saying. If we don’t talk about things, it ceases to be part of our culture. Reminds me of something Morgan Freeman said:
"Stop talking about it. I'm going to stop calling you a white man," Freeman says to Wallace. "And I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman. You wouldn't say, 'Well, I know this white guy named Mike Wallace.' You know what I'm sayin'?"
I don’t know if it’s practical in a world culture of billions of people, but I understand the thought process.
That view feels overly romanticised to me, tbh; the idea that the way to stop racism is to just not acknowledge it. That not drawing attention to things will just make it go away.
There's a lot of institutionalised racism in many countries, either due to racism itself or as a knock on effect from other failed systems.
And, of course, there's just plain bigotry that is passed patent to child and from social group to social group. That's not going to stop by just censoring media.
The message of this comic is, basically, "here's some unconscious biases you could be making". Reading it as "this is how you're supposed to talk to black people" is... Well, if that's the reading you make, then whether the comic exists or not isn't going to change anything.
It feels like this sort of thing makes people feel uncomfortable and they try to justify the removal of the media rather than grappling with the concept of privilege (which, tbf, is hard for people to do).
You got it.
We can't beat racism by continually pointing out racial differences. This is just more racism and isn't helpful.
You got it. Racism is treating people differently based on race.
The only way to end it is to stop drawing on differences.
That's unrelated to this comic though, Morgan Freeman is correct that people shouldn't arbitrarily bring someones race into a conversation.
But this comic isn't doing that this comic is pointing out racism, and racism should always be pointed out and labelled as such when it is seen, because as a society we need to browbeat the shit out of people who are consistently racist and you can't do that unless you go and say "that's racist"
Waaah, "not all white people," waaah!
Now I’m worried that I’m blind to that stereotype, too. Care to elaborate?
Now IM NOT SAYING I AGREE OR THAT THIS BIAS DOESNT EXIST but I think that what they are getting at is that pointing out the stereotyping you do perpetuate it to a degree. Sort of a flip side to how sometimes people just assume that every black person has experienced overt aggressive racism or every gay person has had a huge coming out moment where they had to "break it" to their parents.
Like if I was jewish and I made a joke about how cheap I am and someone at work didnt get the joke because they had never heard the "covetous jew" stereotype. So then I'd have to explain it to them and put that knowledge into their head.
White people are all racist would be one stereotype shown here but there's a few
ITT: Virtue signalling.
Oh, the irony.
Isn't pointing that out your own attempt at virtue signalling... ie you're so much better because you're above it all?
I have a better hypothesis; the comic its self is about the virtue, morality, and ethics of different social behaviours....
....so if that's the topic in the comic, then THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT EVERY SHOULD BE TALKING ABOUT!
Like, do you expect people to not be discussing the comic in the comments? What else did you expect? See how your little holier than thou comment doesn't actually make sense in the light of this.
At some point you have to think for yourself about what you see, rather than regurgitating familiar political slogans as if that's actual thought.
So comical.
Ok, all that aside, that third chick asking about college--- what does that shirt mean...? No clothes hangers? Is that an abortion statement or does she just like folded clothes over hung ones?
Definitely a pro-choice statement: "Don't make women resort to [risky abortion techniques]"
I assumed it was an abortion statement (pro-choice, as in, "don't make women resort to unsafe back alley clotheshanger abortions").
No lies, i think it's actually saying no to plastic clothes hangers, since clothes hangers are an enormous source of plastic waste.
I like that take, and I'm going to go charish my lovely ceder hangers for more than just their rustic smell.
I think a funnier version of this was Ms. Morello from everybody hates chris lol
It's almost like time progresses
I think you're missing the point of the comic. Time is progressing for both women, and the people talking to them in the comments have questions based on where that woman is in her life and development.
While both women are in the same stage of life, the questions being asked are not the same questions.
The people asking que to the the woman of colour are brining a bucket load of presumptions to the conversation.
The comic is pointing out how racial prejudice or even innocent assumptions are forms of microagressions, as the questions asked to the white woman are mostly purely information gathering, where as the questions towards the black woman first require her to correct a misconception before she can even answer the question.
Snowflakes in these comments hurt when someone’s lived experience is pointed out when it’s not even saying they’re the ones being racist. Same people who get upset at fast food workers getting higher wages as if that has any direct impact on them (other than the whole getting our economy and society into a better place).
First question in the interview I had a few years ago: "Do you have a green card?"
I was born here asshole. I'm brown skinned.
Exactly, and for any white people in the comments about to say "well they have to ask everyone to know you can legally work,I get asked about my citizenship status too in the job interviews, it's just a box HR has to tick"
Yes, it is just a box HR has to tick, which is why they will usually ask after a few other questions, and in my pasty pale experience, they ask me "and just confirming you're legally eligible to work in [country], are you a citizen... Or a PR" and the trail off, they don't ask about working visas or our equivalent of green cards, they assume I'm going to say "yes, citizen" and move on.
Meanwhile my partner, who is also white, but from his accent he is clearly not "from here" will also get similar treatment, they wait until a few questions into the interview, they ask about his legal work eligibility, they will mention working visas in the question, but it's still coming from a place of genuine information gathering.
My brown cousins on the other hand? "do you have a work visa?" is one of the first questions they get asked. Not even "do you have the legal right to work here? Like a Work visa or citizenship", just straight up "do you have a work visa?" because the assumption is that they are not a citizen or PR because of their skin colour.
Lol I've seen this first hand so many times. "When did you come to Canada? Is this your first winter? Have you seen snow before? Was it hard learning English?" Like, do you think Canada just recently opened its borders and everyone who isn't white must be new?
I’m not brown but I was once mistaken for Mexican immigrant. The way the person treated me in that instance was really eye opening to me for how folks can get treated that I never otherwise would’ve have experienced.