Fuck your racist ass. Otherwise it was a good cartoon.
JY: By portraying a white man as a child molester, I am not suggesting that ALL white men are child molesters. Can’t we discuss this issue without someone tossing around the “R” word?
I believe Rob was referring to the black kid speaking with broken grammar, and coming from a family of crime.
JY: OHHH! I thought he was commenting on my clichè of the white suburban nightmare, and those peoples’ mannerisms. As for that other stuff, well… that’s just my lived experience.
No worries JY, white people are racist and I rarely expect better of them …. that’s just my lived experience ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
JY: That is also my lived experience 🙁 But please, PLEASE at least tell me you are black. I’m used to catching this sort of shit from self-flagellating white liberals, and it really just rolls off my back now.
It’s just racist cause you relied on stereotypes to (probably) the only black person in the comic. Your overly defensiveness doesn’t come off as a cool internet persona, it makes you seem like a dick.
JY: The fact that you think I am striving to cultivate a “cool Internet persona” is darling.
Yeah. Someone who can write one of the most gut-wrenching comics about childhood abuse surely has to at least have an inkling over why folks got uncomfortable with this page.
I get that you skewer a classic 1950s television dream of a suburban white family, but that mocks an ideal that was desired even though there was sickness behind it. This riffs on classic racist stereotypes, which are much harder to work with because the source material is already fundamentally ugly and horrible. If you could make it work in a larger piece, maybe, but as a one-off it definitely seems tone deaf.
Hey ! No one is defending the white trash with high infant mortality rate and digestive problems brought on by poor diet and heavy drinking ! I feel left out here.
>Tries to make poignant comment about child abuse.
>Also has the one black character speak in broken grammar, comes from crime and all their family is named ridiculous names because haha black names amirite.
>Gets called out
>That’s just how blacks be in my experience
Really takes away from the ability to draw compassion from your tone when you’re openly ridiculing others in the same breath. Especially if your response is going to say it’s your experience like you’ve never met a single black person outside of the copy of Bebe’s Kids you’ve watched 50 times. I feel like it shouldn’t be hard for somebody trying to get a point like this across to understand why people are balking at the idea of you trying to also be like lmao them darkies just be funny huh? It’s completely divorced from what you’re trying to convey.
JY:”Especially if your response is going to say it’s your experience like you’ve never met a single black person outside of the copy of Bebe’s Kids you’ve watched 50 times.”
But of course, I never said that. Before writing a hot-blooded rejoinder, always take the time to ask, “whose thoughts am I responding to: my opponent’s, or my own?”
Your invocation of Bebe’s Kids is instructive, as you are implying that I could be drawing my impression of “darkies”, as you call them, (again, your word, not mine) from that cartoon. But Bebe’s Kids was created by a black comedian, and was about people he knew. Are you then saying that he also would not have a right to make jokes at their expense? I doubt that. But then, why should he be allowed to get away with it? Because he’s black? I would call that patronizing.
I’ll go further: I don’t recall Bebe’s Kids ever actually playing into the very stereotypes you accuse me of promulgating. I could be wrong– maybe there was a person named “Lemonjello” on the show– but if not, then what does that say about you, that you see black folk that way?
The point I believe you are trying to make is that you are offended by my implied stereotype of black people, and really don’t care to what degree this PARTICULAR cartoon could be based on PARTICULAR people I have known. You ignore entirely the full scope of my work and how I have portrayed blacks, Asians, etc. in my other comics, which would tell a different story.
That said, I am not ignorant of the benign motive behind your comments. You have encountered what appears to you to be a needless stereotype, and want me to know that you find it tasteless. The fact remains, however, that people of different ethnic groups and/or different social strata DO have their own colloquialisms and their own peculiarities. Had I drawn Chardonay as a southern cracker child named Sheila-Sue who spoke with Alabama idioms, had a meth-head mother in jail and had two brothers named Cletus and Clubfoot, you would have had no problem with it, I suspect And yet, you would not have thought I was pigeonholing ALL white people because of it.
By the same math, you should not automatically assume I am stereotyping all black people because of one joke.
True story: Once I had a person over to my house (a friend of my housemate who I had not met before), and that person, who I had only just greeted, pointed to the Weapon Brown t-shirt I was wearing and asked, flatly (and I assure you, to my surprise), “Is that a nigger?”
Now obviously, your impression of that person’s character will greatly depend on whether the person asking the question was white or black, and there are some people who will clutch their pearls either way. My point is: reality is not politically correct, and stories based in reality can’t be either.
– see black girl character
– see she’s a caricature of some stereotypes of how people have ACTUALLY BEHAVED IRL
– proceed to freak out
– conveniently ignore the stereotypes of the uppity British white kid (I immediately thought he had an English accent just from what he said) who’s a condescending art snob, and the dumb, redneck-ish white kid who gives waaaaay too much information about his dad’s colitis and clearly has poor social skills
– fail to also notice ALL the kids have unsavory traits and personalities
There is literally a child being raped in the story and people are concerned about a black family having black families’ issues. I guess reality is racist then, huh?
JY: I do want my commenters to be able to speak their minds on any topic that Clarissa raises. However, I also do not want to leave you with the impression that I agree that Chardonnay is having “black family issues”, any more than Clarissa’s issues are “white” issues. Their lives just suck.
JY: I don’t usually insert my remarks into my commentors’ posts, but this one runs pretty deep, so I will bend my rule.
That Chardonay bit is needlessly jam-packed with the greatest hits of Black archetypes and stereotypes. We have The Mammy, The Jezebel, weirdly ethnic (but not really) names, perceived lack of intelligence, and criminality in only 4 panels!
JY: Is the grandmother the “Mammy”? I just thought of her as, you know–a grandmother. Who exactly is the “Jezebel”?
It’s not for me to tell you how to respond to what you read, but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
I don’t think any of us would be here if we didn’t recognize the sheer horror that can lurk all too often under the facade of the perfectly nuclear family that’s, lest you forget, perfect! That’s what drew us all in and any criticisms of this page do not lessen the salience of the central themes.
Now I don’t know what the intended the effect was here, but for me, this whole bit honestly jolts me out of the story altogether, detracting from Clarissa and effectively creating a speed bump as we’re briefly introduced to her weird little classmates lived experiences. And I get it. You’re going for realism here and real life is messy and awful to many of us.
My concern lies in the fact that this is the only racialized reality explored thus far. And unfortunately, where Clarissa’s story revolves around the subversion of classic nuclear family tropes, Chardonay’s follows stereotypes to a tee. Even Neil with too much red crayon going on has his story subverted because he didn’t just really love the color and go nuts–he had a very deliberate reason and was eager to share it. In little Chardonay’s case, not only are these stereotypes pervasive in depictions of us, but they fail in the realism department unless we’re using TV shows and movies as our sole source material. Her story isn’t a subversion of anything. It’s a tried and true way to get easy laughs out of non-Black folks (and, I’m guessing, that one Black friend they have) because there’s nothing new there and it follows expectations while confirming what people thought they knew to begin with.
I’m not asking for political correctness here. I’m just wondering where the particularly incisive critique of what we deem normal versus the realities we hide under plastic-shiny veneers is in this instance?
JY: I can hardly deny that this is exactly what it appears to be: some jokes rooted in ethnic stereotypes. At the very least I can say that this depiction is pulled from some of my life experiences, and not just aping any old racism. Have I known many, many more people who do not fit these stereotypes? Of course! But this wasn’t the moment to explore that.
I guess my thinking is: a white person is “allowed” to zing “poor white trash” all they want, and a black person has permission to mock “ghetto” aspects of black culture. But it is always taboo to be the person of one culture mocking the other culture, even if the critique is no more acidic than what the person of the same culture might do, and the Clarissa strip, if nothing else, is always willing to bust a taboo.
I never hamstring myself over concerns of “punching down”. I make my choices and I live with them. It always cracks me up to watch Dave Chapelle do his impressions of white people, because white people DO be like that (oh shit… I’m doing it again 🙂 ). I’m no Dave Chapelle, but I still enjoy rushing in where angels fear to tread.
As to where lies the social “critique” in Charodnay’s wee storyline, I felt it was captured in the last panel where, after the girl exposes her own family’s ugly little trauma, the teacher’s only reaction is that she didn’t color the drawing correctly. This sort of parallels Ms. Lincoln’s aloof response to Clarissa’s drawing later on.
Shame some people can’t look past racial matters to appreciate the story. Are they going to complain that God is racist if they meet a black person in real life with these (tragically common) family issues?
JY: I think these are fair critiques, and I am happy to provide my considered responses.
JY: I really didn’t like where Monkee’s comment went, and I think at this point everything that needs to be said has been said. Thank you! Convo closed!
Fuck your racist ass. Otherwise it was a good cartoon.
JY: By portraying a white man as a child molester, I am not suggesting that ALL white men are child molesters. Can’t we discuss this issue without someone tossing around the “R” word?
I believe Rob was referring to the black kid speaking with broken grammar, and coming from a family of crime.
JY: OHHH! I thought he was commenting on my clichè of the white suburban nightmare, and those peoples’ mannerisms. As for that other stuff, well… that’s just my lived experience.
No worries JY, white people are racist and I rarely expect better of them …. that’s just my lived experience ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
JY: That is also my lived experience 🙁 But please, PLEASE at least tell me you are black. I’m used to catching this sort of shit from self-flagellating white liberals, and it really just rolls off my back now.
Yeah, this comic is hardcore, but has a good meaning. Oh and screw the people bitching about the cartoon. They’re trolling.
It’s just racist cause you relied on stereotypes to (probably) the only black person in the comic. Your overly defensiveness doesn’t come off as a cool internet persona, it makes you seem like a dick.
JY: The fact that you think I am striving to cultivate a “cool Internet persona” is darling.
Yeah. Someone who can write one of the most gut-wrenching comics about childhood abuse surely has to at least have an inkling over why folks got uncomfortable with this page.
I get that you skewer a classic 1950s television dream of a suburban white family, but that mocks an ideal that was desired even though there was sickness behind it. This riffs on classic racist stereotypes, which are much harder to work with because the source material is already fundamentally ugly and horrible. If you could make it work in a larger piece, maybe, but as a one-off it definitely seems tone deaf.
Hey ! No one is defending the white trash with high infant mortality rate and digestive problems brought on by poor diet and heavy drinking ! I feel left out here.
Innocent child getting abused by family? I sleep on that.
Black kid speaking with broken grammar? REAL SHIT!
>Tries to make poignant comment about child abuse.
>Also has the one black character speak in broken grammar, comes from crime and all their family is named ridiculous names because haha black names amirite.
>Gets called out
>That’s just how blacks be in my experience
Really takes away from the ability to draw compassion from your tone when you’re openly ridiculing others in the same breath. Especially if your response is going to say it’s your experience like you’ve never met a single black person outside of the copy of Bebe’s Kids you’ve watched 50 times. I feel like it shouldn’t be hard for somebody trying to get a point like this across to understand why people are balking at the idea of you trying to also be like lmao them darkies just be funny huh? It’s completely divorced from what you’re trying to convey.
JY:”Especially if your response is going to say it’s your experience like you’ve never met a single black person outside of the copy of Bebe’s Kids you’ve watched 50 times.”
But of course, I never said that. Before writing a hot-blooded rejoinder, always take the time to ask, “whose thoughts am I responding to: my opponent’s, or my own?”
Your invocation of Bebe’s Kids is instructive, as you are implying that I could be drawing my impression of “darkies”, as you call them, (again, your word, not mine) from that cartoon. But Bebe’s Kids was created by a black comedian, and was about people he knew. Are you then saying that he also would not have a right to make jokes at their expense? I doubt that. But then, why should he be allowed to get away with it? Because he’s black? I would call that patronizing.
I’ll go further: I don’t recall Bebe’s Kids ever actually playing into the very stereotypes you accuse me of promulgating. I could be wrong– maybe there was a person named “Lemonjello” on the show– but if not, then what does that say about you, that you see black folk that way?
The point I believe you are trying to make is that you are offended by my implied stereotype of black people, and really don’t care to what degree this PARTICULAR cartoon could be based on PARTICULAR people I have known. You ignore entirely the full scope of my work and how I have portrayed blacks, Asians, etc. in my other comics, which would tell a different story.
That said, I am not ignorant of the benign motive behind your comments. You have encountered what appears to you to be a needless stereotype, and want me to know that you find it tasteless. The fact remains, however, that people of different ethnic groups and/or different social strata DO have their own colloquialisms and their own peculiarities. Had I drawn Chardonay as a southern cracker child named Sheila-Sue who spoke with Alabama idioms, had a meth-head mother in jail and had two brothers named Cletus and Clubfoot, you would have had no problem with it, I suspect And yet, you would not have thought I was pigeonholing ALL white people because of it.
By the same math, you should not automatically assume I am stereotyping all black people because of one joke.
True story: Once I had a person over to my house (a friend of my housemate who I had not met before), and that person, who I had only just greeted, pointed to the Weapon Brown t-shirt I was wearing and asked, flatly (and I assure you, to my surprise), “Is that a nigger?”
Now obviously, your impression of that person’s character will greatly depend on whether the person asking the question was white or black, and there are some people who will clutch their pearls either way. My point is: reality is not politically correct, and stories based in reality can’t be either.
People commenting:
– see black girl character
– see she’s a caricature of some stereotypes of how people have ACTUALLY BEHAVED IRL
– proceed to freak out
– conveniently ignore the stereotypes of the uppity British white kid (I immediately thought he had an English accent just from what he said) who’s a condescending art snob, and the dumb, redneck-ish white kid who gives waaaaay too much information about his dad’s colitis and clearly has poor social skills
– fail to also notice ALL the kids have unsavory traits and personalities
Come on, people. Get a grip.
There is literally a child being raped in the story and people are concerned about a black family having black families’ issues. I guess reality is racist then, huh?
JY: I do want my commenters to be able to speak their minds on any topic that Clarissa raises. However, I also do not want to leave you with the impression that I agree that Chardonnay is having “black family issues”, any more than Clarissa’s issues are “white” issues. Their lives just suck.
JY: I don’t usually insert my remarks into my commentors’ posts, but this one runs pretty deep, so I will bend my rule.
That Chardonay bit is needlessly jam-packed with the greatest hits of Black archetypes and stereotypes. We have The Mammy, The Jezebel, weirdly ethnic (but not really) names, perceived lack of intelligence, and criminality in only 4 panels!
JY: Is the grandmother the “Mammy”? I just thought of her as, you know–a grandmother. Who exactly is the “Jezebel”?
It’s not for me to tell you how to respond to what you read, but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
I don’t think any of us would be here if we didn’t recognize the sheer horror that can lurk all too often under the facade of the perfectly nuclear family that’s, lest you forget, perfect! That’s what drew us all in and any criticisms of this page do not lessen the salience of the central themes.
Now I don’t know what the intended the effect was here, but for me, this whole bit honestly jolts me out of the story altogether, detracting from Clarissa and effectively creating a speed bump as we’re briefly introduced to her weird little classmates lived experiences. And I get it. You’re going for realism here and real life is messy and awful to many of us.
My concern lies in the fact that this is the only racialized reality explored thus far. And unfortunately, where Clarissa’s story revolves around the subversion of classic nuclear family tropes, Chardonay’s follows stereotypes to a tee. Even Neil with too much red crayon going on has his story subverted because he didn’t just really love the color and go nuts–he had a very deliberate reason and was eager to share it. In little Chardonay’s case, not only are these stereotypes pervasive in depictions of us, but they fail in the realism department unless we’re using TV shows and movies as our sole source material. Her story isn’t a subversion of anything. It’s a tried and true way to get easy laughs out of non-Black folks (and, I’m guessing, that one Black friend they have) because there’s nothing new there and it follows expectations while confirming what people thought they knew to begin with.
I’m not asking for political correctness here. I’m just wondering where the particularly incisive critique of what we deem normal versus the realities we hide under plastic-shiny veneers is in this instance?
JY: I can hardly deny that this is exactly what it appears to be: some jokes rooted in ethnic stereotypes. At the very least I can say that this depiction is pulled from some of my life experiences, and not just aping any old racism. Have I known many, many more people who do not fit these stereotypes? Of course! But this wasn’t the moment to explore that.
I guess my thinking is: a white person is “allowed” to zing “poor white trash” all they want, and a black person has permission to mock “ghetto” aspects of black culture. But it is always taboo to be the person of one culture mocking the other culture, even if the critique is no more acidic than what the person of the same culture might do, and the Clarissa strip, if nothing else, is always willing to bust a taboo.
I never hamstring myself over concerns of “punching down”. I make my choices and I live with them. It always cracks me up to watch Dave Chapelle do his impressions of white people, because white people DO be like that (oh shit… I’m doing it again 🙂 ). I’m no Dave Chapelle, but I still enjoy rushing in where angels fear to tread.
As to where lies the social “critique” in Charodnay’s wee storyline, I felt it was captured in the last panel where, after the girl exposes her own family’s ugly little trauma, the teacher’s only reaction is that she didn’t color the drawing correctly. This sort of parallels Ms. Lincoln’s aloof response to Clarissa’s drawing later on.
Shame some people can’t look past racial matters to appreciate the story. Are they going to complain that God is racist if they meet a black person in real life with these (tragically common) family issues?
JY: I think these are fair critiques, and I am happy to provide my considered responses.
(snip)
JY: I really didn’t like where Monkee’s comment went, and I think at this point everything that needs to be said has been said. Thank you! Convo closed!