Cartoon: The Modern Sisyphus

[spoiler]PANEL 1
The first panel has a close-up of a Black person’s hands pushing a boulder uphill. The title of the strip, “Modern Sisyphus,” is written on the boulder.

PANEL 2
We see a black woman, wearing casual office clothing, pushing a boulder uphill. A few yards above her, at the top of the hill, a white man stands listening with his arms crossed.
WOMAN: I realize that you never owned slaves or raped anyone. I’m talking about systematic racism and sexism, okay?

PANEL 3
The woman has pushed the boulder to almost the very top of the hill.
WOMAN: Yes, I’m qualified to be in my job… No, I don’t hate white men… No, sexism and racism didn’t end thirty years ago…

PANEL 4
The woman has lost her grip on the boulder and watches, appalled, as it quickly rolls back down the hill. The man walks away, disappearing off the right side of the panel.
MAN: If you just stopped focusing on these things, you’d be happier… I gotta go now.

PANEL 5
The woman stands looking down the hill in the direction the boulder went, slumped a little.

PANEL 6
Still slumped a little, the woman tiredly walks downhill.
WOMAN: Sigh…[/spoiler]

This entry posted in Cartooning & comics, crossposted on TADA, Feminism, sexism, etc, Race, racism and related issues. Bookmark the permalink. 

16 Responses to Cartoon: The Modern Sisyphus

  1. 1
    RonF says:

    The issue isn’t that the person on top sees the boulder and tells you that if you stop focusing on it you’ll be happier. The issue you have is that the person on top doesn’t think that systemic racism and sexism exist at all. They believe that racism and sexism exist only on an individual basis. They don’t see the boulder.

    Then there’s the problem that modern education ignores our Western heritage to such an extent that 80% of the people out there haven’t a clue who the hell Sysiphus is and thus don’t understand their own culture and background enough to comprehend the cartoon’s references.

  2. 2
    shalom says:

    It is indeed a shame that the Greek school system fails to adequately expose children to their cultural heritage.

  3. 3
    Simple Truth says:

    At first I thought he was kicking the boulder down…it skewed the cartoon a bit for me.
    The things she says when she’s rolling the boulder uphill remind me of something a coworker told me. She’s been married to her husband for four years and finally decided to take his name legally. When she was showing her proof of legal name change, the IT department didn’t want to change her email address to her new last name because “it might not last.”
    I cannot, for the life of me, imagine that being said to a white woman. Insidious, subtle racism is the new KKK.

  4. 4
    Jake Squid says:

    I’ve seen IT say that to white women, Simple Truth. It doesn’t really make it any better, but it definitely happens.

  5. 5
    Danny says:

    Simple Truth I work in the IT department of a bank and I can tell you for sure that the desire not to change someone’s name in the system covers all instances, not just women of color. (In fact in the 5 years I’ve been there we’ve only had to do a name change for one black woman and one hispanic woman versus about a dozen white women.) Although at my own job its more laziness then truly thinking it won’t last.

  6. 6
    Robert says:

    White male here, and I’ve asked a university IT department to change my email address on a permanent basis (not even something as transient as a marriage) and got told no way, no day. It’s just a combination of such things being a real pain, and laziness on the part of the IT folks.

    See? There’s no racism or sexism here! You’d be so much happier if you stopped focusing on these things, Simple Truth.

    (Hey, where’d that boulder come from?)

  7. 7
    Sebastian says:

    My wife and I decided to amalgamate our names. The IT head gave me a ribbing when he was changing my username. I’m part black. Never for the life of me did I feel it was racism… I for one am much happier ignoring the boulder. (Sometimes I bump into it, but I never go down the slope to fetch it)

  8. 8
    mythago says:

    RonF @1: Just for grins I’m interested as to your cutoff for ‘modern education’.

  9. 9
    acm says:

    Am I the only one who finds this cartoon ambiguous? I mean, we all know that Sisyphus has to keep rolling the ball uphill, but there, for just a moment, the black woman in the cartoon is burden-free — one gets the sense that maybe the guy at the top was right, and she’s just determined to go down there and get the boulder rather than climb up without it. Maybe if it was a hump on her back that couldn’t be removed… dunno.

  10. 10
    RonF says:

    It is indeed a shame that the Greek school system fails to adequately expose children to their cultural heritage.

    Shalom, one’s heritage is not merely that of one’s bloodline. The United States was founded on principles whose origin can be traced back in many cases to Greek political and moral philosophy. In fact, a reasonable number of the Founders learned Greek and had read Greek philosophy in Greek as part of their education. References to Athens, Sparta, etc. can be found in their writings. So your snark is ill-founded.

    SimpleTruth:

    I cannot, for the life of me, imagine that being said to a white woman.

    Apparently you simply lack imagination. I would be very interested in hearing the basis for your position that it’s reasonable to presume that white women would be treated differently than black women in such a circumstance.

    mythago – perhaps a better choice of phrase would have been “current education”. The cutoff would be somewhere between when I was in school – where I was taught the Sisyphus myth – and now. But where that line can be drawn I wouldn’t know.

  11. 11
    Robert says:

    Cultural relativism has its place, but there are foundational stories which inform every fiber of our civilization, and if you don’t know them, it’s akin to not knowing algebra: it’s not necessarily a moral failing on your part (maybe you were deprived), but it’s an objective hole in Stuff You Should Know To Be Fully A Member Of Your Civilization.

    Other civilizations, which many of us have whole or part shares in through family heritage or national origin, have their own foundational stories which are part of basic cultural literacy, and it’s worth knowing the foundational stories of as many civilizations as you can cram into your skull – but wherever you live, there’s generally going to be a dominant culture (or a set of dominant cultures) and if you don’t know their stories, you are missing something.

  12. 12
    Robert says:

    ACM, I find it somewhat ambiguous in that we’re not really told why the boulder rolls down. Is it the guy at the top of the hill’s indifference, weighing so on the woman’s psyche that she gives up? Did she just hit a rough spot? Or what?

  13. 13
    nobody.really says:

    It is indeed a shame that the Greek school system fails to adequately expose children to their cultural heritage.

    Well, to the extent that beer is part of my cultural heritage, the Greek system at school seemed to do an exemplary job….

    I’m intrigued that other people are having similar reactions to this cartoon as I did.

    Sisyphus is such a good metaphor for the fact that members of minority groups (at least, those who are not closeted) face an endless task of explaining themselves to members of the majority. Thus, the cartoon depicts the woman undertaking the task she cannot escape – explaining herself. She reaches the top. The guy to whom she is speaking says something. Her work is undone. And she must start again from zero to redo her arduous work.

    If the guy says something suggesting that her efforts at educating him have fallen on deaf ears – he has not heard, does not understand, or simply disbelieves what she has said – then this seems like a perfect metaphor. Slam dunk for Amp!

    But the guy does not indicate that he has not heard what she has to say. He does not indicate that he does not understand what she has to say. He does not indicate that he disbelieves what she has to say.

    Instead, the guy offers her a strategy for coping with the problems she describes. Now, we might agree or disagree with this strategy. But it does not indicate that her work has been undone. And it does not suggest that she must start from zero in her task of educating this guy. At most, the situation suggests that she may want to build on her progress by undertaking a NEW labor of educating the guy why his strategy doesn’t work.

    If Amp’s goal is to depict the dynamics faced by members of minority groups explaining themselves to indifferent or hostile members of majority groups, then the Sisyphus metaphor is brilliant; I’m astonished I haven’t encountered it before. But if Amp’s goal is to lampoon the idea that members of minorities can cope with subordination by simply focusing on other things, then other metaphors would seem more apt. (“Gee, Ms. Bus Driver, you seem so stressed! Wouldn’t you like a blindfold…?”)

  14. 14
    shalom says:

    Comment deleted–I decided this is a pretty massive derail from Ampersand’s cartoon.

  15. 15
    Schala says:

    I also tried to change my name in my workplace email system, to be gendered correctly and not outed to every employee. They refused without an official legal name change, saying it related to my paycheck (the email itself does not) and would have filed income tax under the wrong name. So I was outed to every co-worker there, with no choice in the matter, because they didn’t want to (I changed my name legally only last year, but worked there 2 years ago – legally is costly (300$) and takes a while (6 months) and certain documents)

  16. 16
    Simple Truth says:

    I work in IT, just not in the IT department of this college. And for the record, she is a Latina who looks a bit Asian to most.
    I’ve seen it said to people who lacked legal documentation for their name change, but never for someone who had their documents in their hand. For the record, one of our students got married, and her name and account were changed in the system almost immediately. One of our very blond, pale skinned students.
    I suppose it could be blamed on laziness, or overwork if you’re feeling generous. I saw the way it made her feel, though; in her eyes, it was just one more in a long string of being told what “you people” do. Perhaps even if it wasn’t motivated by racism, there’s something to be said for paying attention to that kind of history.