Here is the strip in question.
Making fun of people camping out for Star Wars, I get. But what’s with the “Must be nice to be white” line?? Only white people can get away with being slackers?? Only white people like Star Wars?? Everything is a race issue for Aaron McGruder?? What is the point being made?
I’m not offended, just confused. I liked some of the earlier strips , particularly the ribbon and flaggie series, so it’s not like I dislike the strip. Help me out here.
Only white people can afford to take time off from working to stand in line?
Er, if I were to redraw that strip, change the ethnicities around and have the punchline read “It must be nice to be black” to describe somebody shirking work to wait in line for a movie you know what’d happen? The NAACP would chace me up a tree and set fire to it, that’s what. Every paper in the country would yank my comic strip and it’d be headline news. This doesn’t even raise an eyebrow. Bloody hell.
The Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly made similar observations several weeks ago. How tongue-in-cheek it was (it’s usually a column that uses humor to score his points), I’m still not sure if it was at all. His column was with regard to black athletes’ quotes to the press and media.
Shaq was quoted as saying how embarrassing it would be for him to be dunked on by a white guy. Mike Tyson, that cry for psychological help, went off at a press conference when he took a swing at Lennox Lewis’ bodyguards, and then taunted white reporters by calling them white-boy motherfuckers/pussies (sexist as well as racist). He gave other examples, but those suffice for illustrative purposes.
I remember hearing the old (Gloria Steinem, IIRC) feminist acid test?switch female for male and then see if it sounds sexist.
Switch white for black in these cases and you have Al Sharpton having a heart attack because these statements would be so blatantly racist that he couldn?t express his outrage fast enough and I see him exploding.
I’d really like to hear a guy like McGruder’s take on this. I do enjoy his strip.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Inky- *
Er, if I were to redraw that strip, change the ethnicities around and have the punchline read “It must be nice to be black” to describe somebody shirking work to wait in line for a movie you know what’d happen? The NAACP would chace me up a tree and set fire to it, that’s what. Every paper in the country would yank my comic strip and it’d be headline news.
[QUOTE]
Right, because it’s factual that white people have more money and more leisure time than black people, and it’s your opinion that black people are lazy or don’t work. Get it…? Fact. Opinion. See?
…the hell happened here?
Geez, ya’ got me. I think that just might make my point for me. These days inherent prejudices against black folks are intolerable – inherent prejudices against white folks are empowering (to those holding them). “Any success we have is against overwhelming odds, thus all-the-more important. Any failure is surely the fault of ‘The Powerfull Other™’ holding us back, and surely not our own failings”.
"it’s your opinion that black people are lazy or don’t work. Get it…? Fact. Opinion. See?"
Huh!? How did you read this into my opinion that changing the ethnicities of the two characters around would deem this comic racist in popular culture? Just think, one clerical error on McGruders part (say, an editor accidently switching the approptiate text bubbles from one person to the other) would ignite a bad radial arguement. Wheras this mean-spirited bigoted comic won’t ignite a single letter of complaint.
Eer, “Racial Arguement” that is. Preview is your friend…
Okay, sorry, imagine I said ‘it’s an opinion’ etc. Sorry, didn’t mean to actually allege that you held those particular prejudices. You know, that hypothetical and non-specific ‘you’ (similar to the one that began this sentence). I apologize.
Nonetheless, care to debate the actual issue? You restated your view that the comic is ‘mean-spirited’ and ‘bigoted’ without addressing the point my post made, i.e. the distinction between fact and opinion.
Near as I can tell, yes.
WL do you really think it is a fact that “white people” have more money and more leisure time than black people? Or perhaps, just perhaps, that is a, er, um, stereotype?
Sua
Hell yeah! Along with the ultra-zealous bible thumper who does B.C. he has one of the most intolerant sleazy little strips out there. Not only does he often make these racially offensive stereotyping comments, even worse he is NOT funny.
Many comediens have flogged this tired old “why whites are stupid, lame, bad dancing, no dunking idiots” joke bandwagon before-- but at least they had the decency to be funny.
“Boondocks” is as funny as an impacted wisdom tooth.
-me
I remember a character called Archie Bunker…
It’s rather along the same lines.
Are both Riley and Huey racist? Yes.
Are many other characters in the strip, white, black, and mixed racist? Yes.
The cartoon is making fun of race and racial attitudes in America.
Does Aaron McGruder really believe that white people are lazy and rich? No. He’s making fun of a stereotype in the same way he does with every other character in the strip.
Now I’ll move away from the comic strip to discuss one of my pet peeves. The whole “if a white person…” reversal thing doesn’t work. You can pretend that racism (and sexism and discrimination based on sexual orientation and a whole host of other things) don’t exist in order to get worked up over something like this, but it seems to me you’d be missing the point.
There are disparities. It’s unfair. Minorities and women are systematically discriminated against. Part of that means that minorities and women can tweak the majority view more freely than the majority view can tweak back. Scarce compensation for a lifetime of discrimination if you ask me, but, hey, that’s sort of where things stand at the moment.
“Switch white for black in these cases and you have Al Sharpton having a heart attack because these statements would be so blatantly racist that he couldn’t express his outrage fast enough and I see him exploding.”
—Will someone PLEASE switch white for black? I wanna see Al Sharpton have a heart attack and then explode.
Sua Sponte, yes. I really and truly think that. Iffy on the latter assertion, perhaps, because it would be difficult to truly prove, but the former, no doubt in my mind. I don’t really see that it’s too contestible, actually, and I’m somewhat surprised that you’d question it. I had thought that income disparity along racial lines was pretty commonly accepted.
elf6c, this strip has nothing to do with “why whites are stupid, lame, bad dancing, no dunking idiots,” and I can’t think of a past one that makes those assumptions either. Would you mind providing some examples?
I also take issue with your argument that the strip is not funny. I frequently find it hilarious. But there’s not much either of us can do to win that argument.
alciabiades the fair, I think you are absolutely right. Absolutely.
I think you need to go back and read the strip again. Slowly. Look at the picture. Look at the person speaking the line in question. Is it Aaron McGruder? Take your time… That’s right! It isn’t! It’s a character he made up!
Now here’s another thought. Sometimes characters in fictional works espouse opinions that differ from those of the author who created them. It happens all the time. Really.
In the case of this strip, the character in question (and I read the strip when I can, mostly Sundays, and I forget his name right now) is… well, what would be the equivalent of a hard-core feminist from a black-rights perspective? So, yeah, you can argue that for that particular character, everything revolves around race. But that doesn’t tell us anything about the author. Mark Twain wrote a few books with racist characters. Hell, one of the all time great works of English Literature casts Satan as a sympathetic character. But I don’t think many people (these days, anyway) would consider Milton a Satanist.
In this particular strip, as is often the case with this series, the joke is that the main character sees the situation through his blacks-as-repressed-people colored glasses. And what makes this strip work so well for me is that the viewpoint that it seems to be presenting is always undercut with its own irony. Take a look at the strip for the following day for a great example. IMHO, this is the best comic strip in print since Bloom County.
So substitute black for white all you want. All you’ve proven, arguably, is whether a comic strip character is a racist. Me, I don’t get that worked up over the opinions of people who don’t even exist.
Well, as I said, it does seem that near everything is a race issue to A. McGruder, or at least something that he can turn into one for the benefit of his characters.
Sometimes I find it amusing, sometimes it’s preachy and annoying (I remember him spending about two weeks bitching bout how the blacks were still slaves after July 4, 1776. True, but I don’t need two weeks of commentary on it like it’s my fault). Sometimes it just comes out of left field and despite the fact that the characters are saying it it still comes across as a statement if only because it just hangs there, racist and unfunny.
I can, after the inital “what the hell?”, find it funny if only because the strip as a whole satirizes the kids. Despite their “black power, rage against the white machine, voice of the ghetto” message they live in a well to do white suburb which pricks their bubble quite often. However, I can easily see where this strip, out of context especially, could be rather offensive.
On “Timid Deer Lane,” no less!
That’s just because his two main characters, Huey and Riley, look at everything through their “black men repressed by THE MAN”-tinted glasses. But as tourbot pointed out, their views are often undercut by their own irony, which (IMO, anyway) shows how silly their positions are.
Me, I think Caesar (Huey’s friend in school) is the most well-adjusted of the bunch, but you can’t build a comic strip around a well-adjusted character; normalicy makes for poor comedy. 
And today’s Boondocks (5/14/02) shows there’s more to the strip than race relations – there’s dissin’ and smack-downs from movie fans, too. 
Good lord…at least Lynn Johnston has to do an entire controversial storyline before she catches hell for it. And now people are ripping into Aaron McGruder over one line??
Bit of advice…take a look at this guy. He has no job. No education. No plans. Nada. And the reason is because he’s totally obsessed over Star Wars. It’d be different if the job situation was so terrible that he couldn’t find any work or he was the victim of unfair hiring practices, but no…he’s just totally obsessed over Star Wars. I doubt that a lot of black men would have that kind of option. Which is the point Huey was making here.
Furthermore, I find it a bit disturbing anytime someone uses any backhanded comment by Huey to completely discredit EVERY MESSAGE HE’S EVER SAID. I admit, I agree with him on a lot of things (such as, a television network called Black Entertainment Television should have, you know, black entertainment), and I find it silly that his occasional missteps can be seen as a sign that he’s wrong about absolutely everything.
Good lord…some of the most boring strips in the world continue to plauge our newspapers decades past their prime, and we have these huge arguments over one freaking backhanded comment in Boondocks. Geez.