Chapter 17 – Page 17
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Annotations Every Day - Written by T Campbell & Flo Kahn - Illustrated by John & Jason Waltrip
Guilded Age
The Saga of the Working Class Adventurer – New comics every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday!
Typo: prefer TO?
Thanks for the spot. Fixed.
♫Traditionnnnn…Tradition! Tradition!♫
Here, in the grove, we have traditions for every thing :
How to eat, how to dress, how to sleep. Who not to marry.
You may ask, “when did this tradition begin ?”.
I’ll tell you … I don’t know.”
man… when the white man faces racism, you are living in strange times…
just saying.
Now, now, he might be SPECIESIST, but Naror’Nj is not racist. He wouldn’t be complaining if she had brought home a sky elf, or a shit elf… okay, maybe a little complaining if the latter.
I’ll admit I thought he was gonna recognize the name “Battleshire” and have some huge stigma against Byron’s people. We don’t know much about them but I have to imagine with a name like Battleshire they’ve probably made themselves well-recognized and ill-liked in at least a few places. It’s actually turned out much more tame than that. Guy’s a lumberjack and Senior’Nj don’t want no humans marrying his daughter.
Facing racism as a white guy is easy. Just do what Byron did: Go to a place where there are few white guys and nobody likes them.
I’ve been to Hawaii and found myself the only dirty white haole in a room full of people. Ironically, some locals assumed I was a racist little bastard before I ever opened my mouth because I was white. Just goes to show that people are assholes the world round.
Well seeing as how Hawaii became part of the United States when the U.S. military overthrew the current queen during it’s big “I’ma gonna be an Empire!’ stage, there may still be some stigma.
Justifying it doesn’t change the fact that it is racism.
Actually, that was just prejudice.
To be racist there has to be some kind of notion that white people are genetically inferior or genetically disposed towards crime or immoral acts…
Which there may well have been, but I doubt it became a speaking point.
Incidentally, I can face similar prejudice from “fellow whites” (how ridiculous), if I go into the kind of drinking hole where outsiders aren’t welcome. You know, the ones where everything goes quiet when you enter.
According to trope, you have to punch out 3/4 of the clientèle before they lighten up, after which heartiness ensues. As if.
I’m not sure where you get that idea. Any form of race-based prejudice is racism — not just specifically supremacist beliefs.
And that can last for decades before you become called “part of the community”… depends on how long it takes for a new foreigner to come.
People just love beeing able to call other people… well, “The Others”.
I’ve heard that definition of racism before, and it’s a load of crap. Racism is just prejudice against race, period.
The thing about racism against folks of European stock is that, by and large, it’s no big deal for us. Regardless of what people think about us or say about us, or even do to us, the fact remains that, in the vast majority of the Western world, we are still the defacto ruling class, with all the advantages. It’s an ugly fact of life, but there you are.
So when you hear a white person whining about racism, don’t tell them they’re wrong, because they might not be. Tell them that they’re being morons for complaining about what, to them, is really the most insignificant of minor issues. *We have no right to complain about racism against us* because it doesn’t hold us down or otherwise disadvantage us in any way.
“*We have no right to complain about racism against us* because it doesn’t hold us down or otherwise disadvantage us in any way.”
B.S. All people not only have a right but a duty to decry racism by any party. Willful ignorance and blindness is the same regardless of who commits it.
You can’t stamp out racism by tolerating it along racial lines (i.e. by perpetuating it).
I said we shouldn’t *complain* about it. I never said we shouldn’t do anything about it. There is a very big difference between those two things.
Reminds me of a Chris Rock bit.
Also Louis CK:
No, you said it doesn’t hold us down in any way, and that is BS. If you are a white guy who gets singled out for a beating by a group of black guys for wandering into the wrong neighborhood, it is just as bad as if you are a black guy who gets beat up by a bunch of red necks for wandering into the wrong neighborhood.
Now, in the U.S., yes, the caucasian population has suffered less than the minorities, so it makes sense for the eye of scrutiny to point in the direction it does, but on the individual level, it just comes down to our savage instinct we ALL have hidden within us to hate people who are outside of our pack, and PEOPLE OF ALL RACES, CREEDS, ETC need to learn to suppress that hate, period.
I disagree on one point you make. People don’t need to suppress hatred. Suppressed hatred doesn’t go away, it just comes out in more insiduous ways. People who suppress their hate don’t have less hate, but they behave as though they are full of goodwill. It’s a falsehood that can have some extremely frightening consequences. I think the better course of action is for people to try to learn to understand each other. It’s much harder to hate people you understand. Relating to people (and then treating them as equals) is usually a direct result of understanding them.
@Soirbleu oh yes, we definitely need to learn to understand each other too, but we also need to understand ourselves. On a deep level, our brains key defensive-aggressive responses to encountering people who are different from us, it is part of our savage pack instincts (anyone from outside of the pack is an enemy). Just like with fear, you just need to tell yourself that “okay, that is just a primitive response. I need to understand the situation and move on and not give in to these impulses.”
The first thing to do is for our societies to grow past the entire notion of ‘race’ (more accurately ‘breed’) as a line of demarcation within our species.
Given our common heritage, any act of ‘racially’ driven iniquity is inherently self inflicted.
[“If you are a white guy who gets singled out for a beating by a group of black guys for wandering into the wrong neighborhood, it is just as bad as if you are a black guy who gets beat up by a bunch of red necks for wandering into the wrong neighborhood.”]
Oh sure, and that happens all the time.
Wait, no it doesn’t.
And, of course, on the rare occasion where something like that *does* happen, the police will take the white victim seriously and work quite hard to find and arrest any black guys they figure they can put anywhere near the scene. Now imagine the two races reversed in your almost entirely fictional scenario. In huge swathes of the U.S., arguably *most* of the U.S., police departments don’t take black victims nearly as seriously as their white counterparts. And since poverty and unemployment are far worse for blacks than for whites, they are less likely to be able to get good medical care for the injuries, making the whole attack even worse.
Seriously, any white person in the U.S. who pretends their race is ever a disadvantage is a huge asshole. It does not hold us down. It simply does not.
@ShadeTail way to miss the point. Let me simplify since you didn’t understand. I agree that there are more instances of blacks being persecuted by whites than vice versa, and I agree that it is very wrong. But it doesn’t make the white guy getting beat up any less wrong than vice versa. THE POINT IS ALL OF US NEED TO GET OVER OUR HATE OF PEOPLE WHO ARE DIFFERENT FROM US.
MichaelHaneline: Are you always this dishonest? You claimed this:
[“No, you said it doesn’t hold us down in any way, and that is BS.”]
And that is hilariously wrong. To say, as you did, that being white holds white people down is utterly and stupidly wrong.
Furthermore, whether you like it or not, the problem is not merely that everyone hates each other. The problem is caused by a systemic and pervasive racism that favors white people over everyone else. Insisting that this can be fixed with a load of feel-good mush about how everyone just needs to stop hating each other shows that you’ve closed your eyes to the real problem.
So no, I didn’t miss the point. You just have no idea what you’re talking about.
ShadeTail, you’re right. It’s totally imbalanced. The system has serious problems with racial equity. But as a white person who went to school in a predominately black neighborhood, I can tell you that stuff that you said doesn’t happen? Happens. Not a ton, but it does (and nonviolent racism, yeah, that does happen a ton. It’s anything but rare). There’s plenty of racism against white people out there, it’s just that as caucasians we benefit from all the perks of white privilege, so as you said, by and large, it is no big deal for us. Dunno how you expect it to be fixed other than “complaining about it”, though… You want to give me a more effective method for trying to end racism other than open and honest discussion about race relations? Recognizing racial privilege is damn important but I don’t see how people will understand it if they aren’t able to discuss what they think is right and what isn’t.
@ShadeTail
“No, you said it doesn’t hold us down in ANY way, and that is BS.”
Emphasis on the “any” the second time, because that was where I took issue. You keep making these blanket statements like you think it never happens period, mixed together with statements that says it does happen but apparently its okay because black people have it worse, and any white person who ever complains about it is an asshole.
I DO know what I’m talking about. I worked in a school this past school year where roughly 1/75 students is white, and those kids have to watch their back. When one of these kids get singled out and jumped when staff or campus police isn’t around, simply because he’s a “cracker”, don’t tell me that kid is an asshole when he sobs and cries and is emotionally fucked up and doesn’t think its fair that he’s being singled out because he’s white. Stop taking the individuality out of it.
I understand how bad black people have it in the United States, OKAY? I’m really NOT saying they don’t. My mentor and father figure growing up is a black man named Alfred Leon Johnson who grew up during the Jim Crow laws. He gotten beaten up as a child by a bunch of full GROWN white men for using the wrong BATHROOM. He joined the navy at 16 to get out of his neighborhood, put himself through college, got a masters degree, became a master of the martial arts, a public school teacher in the inner city, and a mentor to many young children, and it was huge struggle the whole damn way. He has been trying for the past 20 years to add racial harmony to the LAUSD curriculum, but people like you who think that is just a bunch of “feel-good mush” won’t have it. He’s not just experienced racism from whites, he’s seen it in the schools with just black and Hispanics students and how they turn on each other for the same reason: hate of people who you don’t understand, who you fear, who you’re jealous of, who you can’t relate to, or JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE DIFFERENT FROM YOU. It’s not just some fluffy bullshit, we REALLY DO ALL NEED TO LEARN TO UNDERSTAND AND ACCEPT EACH OTHER, because otherwise we keep rationalizing our hate, and it keeps perpetuating, and it will NEVER, EVER FUCKING STOP.
What people need to do is stay out of my business, out of my way, and just generally not antagonise me. Personally.
Other than that, I don’t give a toss. They can just do their stupid human things with their stupid human arguments and stupid human concerns.
Homo sapiens my arse. More like Homo fatuus.
That stage is ongoing.
Not so, that very statement is racism:) Racism isn’t determined by who’s in a position of relative power or privilege. It’s a function of viewing situations through a filter of perceived racial preferences. As a result, white males from the American South endure some of the most common racial prejudice in the modern world. It struck me as interesting when I observed it as a transplanted Yankee. And became quite personal when I first dated, then married a southern black woman. Very much disapproved of by much of her family, as well as some of the general population in this vicinity.
He’d rather she brought home the moss elk.
Maybe Syr’s dad would prefer a…. “Moss Elcor”. Get it? Get it? Oh screw you.
Wait, what’s wrong with tusks?
I think that implies orcs or trolls, like Harky.
still don’t know what would be wrong with it. Orcs are Awesome.
Orcs.
Tusks would make a better trophy than axes is what I’m saying.
This reminds me so much of the arguments I’ve seen people had over things like the use of Comic Sans to announce the Higgs particle, or the use of the Oxford comma.
Less bloodshed, so far.
I don’t get the alt-text this time.
http://guildedage.net/webcomic/chapter-14/chapter-14-page-1/
I think they t-axed the Queens’ patience.
The whole complaint is that he is a lumberjack. Is it so hard to say “He’s not a lumberjack, he’s a warrior. This axes are not for wood, they are for people. No poor, innocent were harmed by these.”?
“You’d probably prefer I bring home a berserker!”
“Anything would be better.”
“Oh, good. Because that’s what he is. Shall I unlock the cell or have one of the servants do it?”
haha… clever. Slap-bet says that’s what will happen.
So if Syr’Nj is royalty and covered in tattoos, why haven’t we seen any more royal tattoos on the ruling family?
Maybe because none of their torsos have been sufficiently revealed.
Faereksch’Nj is showing enough skin around the collarbone to show off Syr’Nj’s tattoos. Maybe she doesn’t have them because she married into the Nj line?
Nah. Syr’Nj’s tattoos are all just science notes. Nobody else does it in her family. ;)
Now I can’t help but have a Thomas Dolby song echo in my head.
How does everyone know her parents names? Naror’Nj is common now, but everyone in the comments seems to know people’s names before I ever see them mentioned?
Comic tags.
I love the near-symmetry in the first panel.
So what are her parent’s names in reference to?
May as well ask why Faereskch’Nj married Naror’Nj. Maybe it was just tit for tat? Or perhaps Naror’Nj has an acutely focused sense of duty?
Personally, I’m trying to figure out what the heck is up with that moon. Is it the “Moss Elk In The Moon”? Perfume bottle? Fancy cast-iron water pump?
I’m a fan of Moss Elk in the Moon. “\/”
(Elk horns…I hope. Someone might want to help me out with the moss elk in the moon face…)
WEMILTF. Hm…doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
Vote for Moss Elk: He’s better than Obama and Romney combined. And a whole lot saner than any third party candidate.
As far as the rest of the world is concerned, you people don’t have political parties, not any more. The Democrats abolished the machinery that everyone else considers essential to parties with the McGovern/Fraser Reforms following their abyssmal 1968 results. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s still really disconcerting to read you lot discussing parties when you actually mean lose rabbles of barely coherent, backstabbing, and at most temporarily aligned megalomaniacs. It should not be possible for blue dog “democrats” to have more in common with Republicans than with their fellow party members.
Pretty sure this is more an artifact of the two-party system than of the primary rules. Tough not to have big-tent parties with as much intraparty as interparty variation when you can’t have splinter factions splitting off and forming coalitions. Indeed, the parties used to be quite a bit MORE diverse than they are now. And Blue Dog Democrats may talk conservative and influence how policies are developed, they tend to vote far closer to the Democratic party line.
Respect to her mother for keeping her head calm and keeping those two off each others throat…
one thing when i see Naror’nj refer to his wife and daughter as ‘flower’ and ‘blossom’ i keep thinking that all he’s saying is “Flower Flower Tree Flower” (the traditional elven spoken word)