Cartoon: Intellectual Excuses for Misgendering

Posted on October 22, 2019 by Ampersand

Important note: If you want to just say “nice job!” or talk about the drawing or Matt Walsh or “Agents of Shield” or “Unbelievable” or whatever, you can comment in this thread.

But if you want to argue with the point of the cartoon – if you want to argue that misgendering is ever okay – then that’s not allowed in this thread. And really, consider not making the argument at all. But if you must, take it to the mint garden.

Help me make more cartoons like this one by supporting my Patreon! A $1 or $2 pledge really helps.

The dude here is based on the very popular right-wing columnist Matt Walsh – but also on dozens of others I’ve seen, trying to make being cruel to trans people sound like a high  virtue instead of just them being mean.

It’s not something I have a lot of patience for anymore, and this strip reflects that.

This strip, and also the previous strip (“Ten Reasons We Won’t Abolish I.C.E.”) were drawn to the first two seasons of the TV show “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” Somehow light adventure TV shows are just right for drawing to – they’re simple enough to follow while only paying half attention, likable without being so absorbing I get diverted from drawing, have season-long plots, and there’s lots and lots of episodes to listen to. (Prior to “S.H.I.E.L.D.,” I drew to all the seasons of “Supergirl.” Oddly, both shows are to a great extent about immigration issues – do we fear immigrants or welcome them?).

What’s not good to draw to is truly great, stellar TV. I recently watched all of the Netflix series “Unbelievable,” and it was one of the best TV shows I’ve ever seen – certainly the best detective show I’ve ever seen – and I doubt I would have gotten a line drawn during it if I’d tried. If you’re in the market for a feminist detective show based on true events, I highly recommend it. (Content warning: The villain of the series is a serial rapist).

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, plus a tiny “kicker” panel below the bottom of the strip. Each of the four panels shows a man and a woman walking through a hilly park; she is walking away from him, looking annoyed, and he’s following, lecturing pretentiously.

He is wearing a yellow dress shirt, collar open, and has a beard and rectangular glasses. She is wearing a dim orange dress, with a thick belt and a headband.

PANEL 1

He’s talking and holding up one forefinger in a “I’m making an important point” way.

MAN: I will NOT use your “preferred pronouns.” The reality is, you’re a man. That means “he” and “him.”

PANEL 2

The “camera” has zoomed in to a closer shot of the man (we really only see the back of the woman’s head in this panel). The man is now speechifying, one palm on his chest and the other hand raised a bit, and looking solemn and pretentious.

MAN: Anything else is a LIE. And you can lie to yourself all you want, but you cannot force ME to lie on your behalf. I’m morally and ethically obligated to tell the truth, regardless of how that makes you feel.

PANEL 3

The “camera” has zoomed out to a more distant shot of them walking through the park. She’s still in front, not turning back to look at the man. There are a few trees in the background, and a wooden picnic table in the foreground.

MAN: It’s not my goal to hurt you. But I have principles. I value truth. You understand what I’m saying?

WOMAN: I do.

PANEL 4

She walks forward, still not turning; behind her, the man has stopped walking, and looks a bit startled.

WOMAN: You’re saying you’re a gigantic asshole.

KICKER PANEL

The bearded man from the first four panels is talking cheerfully to Barry (the cartoonist); Barry is facepalming.

MAN: What impresses me most about myself is how SUPER rational I am!

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Transsexual and Transgender related issues | 14 Comments

Reading Claudia Rankine’s “Citizen”

Posted on October 20, 2019 by Richard Jeffrey Newman

From page 49:

“Not long ago you are in a room where someone asks the philosopher Judith Butler what makes language hurtful…Our very being exposes us to the address of others, she answers. We suffer from the condition of being addressable. Our emotional openness, she adds, is carried by our addressability. Language navigates this.

For so long you thought the ambition of racist language was to denigrate and erase you as a person. After considering Butler’s remarks, you begin to understand yourself as rendered hypervisible in the face of such language acts. Language that feels hurtful is intended to exploit all the ways that you are present. Your alertness, your openness, and your desire to engage actually demand your presence, your looking up, your talking back and, as insane as it is, saying please.”

This captures so perfectly something I have never been able to put into words about my experience of antisemitism, my fear of it, my sensitivity to it, how it feels and why it becomes a source of shame when it is directed at me. I am thinking about James Gilligan’s notion of shame as the desire not to be seen because no one wants to be seen who is, who feels, who has been branded, unworthy of love. (Though, if I remember correctly, Gilligan took the idea that to be ashamed is not to want the eyes of the world on you from someone else. I just can’t remember who right now.)

Posted in anti-racism, Anti-Semitism, Race, Racism | 1 Comment

A Haiku For Saturday, October 19th

Posted on October 19, 2019 by Mandolin

The cold rain shivers.

I dart, indoors to indoors,

generous shelters.

Posted in Poetry, Rachel Swirsky's poetry | Comments Off on A Haiku For Saturday, October 19th

“Where to Find Free Short Stories Online”

Posted on October 17, 2019 by Mandolin

Really flattered to see that “Memory of Wind” is one of Sarah Ullery’s favorite stories on Tor.com! I really bled over that one; it ended up intersecting some very personal issues. Sarah Ullery lists a bunch of places to find free short stories online — give it a glance. [link]

1 Comment

Should we ban the phrases “illegal alien” and “illegal immigrant” from comments?

Posted on October 14, 2019 by Ampersand

A rule of this blog is that undocumented immigrants are not to be referred to as “illegals” or “illegal.”

But I do allow “illegal alien,” even though it’s not a phrase I’d use myself. Back when I made the rule, my thought was that it was a phrase used both by legal agencies and by mainstream news sources, so it seemed a bit weird to ban it here.

But that was over a decade ago. Things have changed since then.

NYC is banning the term “illegal alien” when used to demean someone. And neither the phrase “illegal immigrant” or “illegal alien” are used by mainstream news sources much (although they’re both common in right-wing news) – in fact, those terms are banned in many news outlets.

On the other hand, it’s still a common phrase in laws and in the courts.

Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor said in an interview:

To dub every immigrant a criminal because they’re undocumented, to call them “illegal aliens,” seemed, and has seemed, insulting to me. Many of these people are people I know, and they’re no different than the people I grew up with or who share my life. And they’re human beings with a serious legal problem, but the word “illegal” alien made them sound like those other kinds of criminals. And I think people then paint those individuals as something less than worthy human beings. And it changes the conversation when you recognize that this is a different—it’s a regulatory problem. We’ve criminalized a lot of it, but it started as, and fundamentally remains, a regulatory problem, not a criminal one.

On the whole, I’m leaning towards banning “illegal alien” and perhaps “illegal immigrant” from Alas going forward. Jeffrey Toobin speaks for me when he says:

There does seem to be a consensus against the use of the term by the people most affected by it, who happen to be a vulnerable minority seeking a better life, and that’s good enough for me.

I’m going to leave a few days for comments before enacting a new rule. But I think I’m unlikely to change my mind on this one.

Posted in Immigration, Migrant Rights, etc, Site and Admin Stuff | 81 Comments

Cartoon: Top Ten Reasons We Won’t Abolish I.C.E.

Posted on October 9, 2019 by Ampersand

Please help me make more cartoons like this one, by supporting my Patreon! A $1 or $2 pledge really matters to me.

I truly believe that I.C.E. is an agency that’s rotten to its core. Hardly a week goes by without reading about another I.C.E. abuse of power. Just a few headlines will make the point:

Detained Immigrants Claim They Were Forced to Work Without Pay

FBI Investigates Shooting of Undocumented Driver by ICE Agents in Tennessee

100 Immigrants Pepper-Sprayed At Louisiana ICE Facility

The U.S. will not provide vaccines for migrants — even after three migrant children have died in the past year from the flu.

ICE Detention Center: We’re not responsible for staff sexually abusing migrants

And those headlines are all from the last few months. I could list dozens more.

And then there’s I.C.E.’s terrifying detention centers, which seemingly exist to subject migrants to inhumane conditions, and which evoke memories of WW2 concentration camps.

A former I.C.E. director recently spoke to a member of Congress, in a Congressional hearing, with the disdain of someone who thinks he shouldn’t be answerable to elected officials.  The entire culture of I.C.E. is corrupt; they see themselves as above the law and above human rights. I don’t think they can be reformed, only disbanded and replaced with a new agency – one that is not a subsidiary of the Department of Homeland Security.

This strip took forever. I actually had the strip entirely penciled when I decided I wasn’t happy with it, and ended up throwing out and replacing four entire panels.

But I’m pretty happy with how it came out. Drawing Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern in their “Home Alone” roles was especially fun – often I find drawing caricatures to be a struggle, but these guys came out easily.  The close-up of the man panicking about migrant invasions was also a lot of fun to draw. The uniforms in panel one weren’t fun to draw – I’m not a big uniforms buff – but it made me feel like I was Matt Bors or something (Bors is great at drawing uniforms).

 

Oh, and one more headline, in case you’re looking for a place to donate:

How to donate to help migrant children and families at the border

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has a big title panel at the top, followed by ten smaller panels.

TITLE PANEL

The title panel has a drawing of a close-up on a chain-link fence. Behind the fence, but still readable, are the words “Top Ten Reasons We Won’t Abolish…” And then, in larger, rougher lettering in front of the fence, the sentence continues: “I.C.E.”

PANEL 1

In the center, a man wearing an I.C.E. uniform – including bulletproof vest and a hard helmet – is smiling and holding an “aw, shucks” kind of pose, with a hand held on one cheek in an embarrassed fashion. Behind him, two other men – one dressed like a right-wing protester looking for a fight, with protective vest and camo pants, and a MAGA hat, and the other wearing a Nazi uniform – early praise him.

MAGA HAT DUDE: Because those I.C.E. uniforms look sharp!

I.C.E. DUDE: Aw, gosh. Thanks, guys!

NAZI: You can’t spell “nice” without I.C.E.!

PANEL 2

A conservatively-dressed (jacket and tie) man, sitting behind a desk, speaks to the viewer, spreading his arms, palms up, in a “let’s not go crazy” sort of gesture.

MAN: “Abolish” is an extreme position, and if we’re extremist in protecting human rights, aren’t we just as bad as the extremists abusing human rights?

PANEL 3

A woman in a striped shirt and a puffy jacket speaks to the viewer. Behind her, a darker-skinned person wearing a knit cap, a big jacket, and a skirt sardonically comments.

WOMAN: I.C.E. provides paychecks to thousands of vicious racist goons! Where else could those people go?

KNIT HAT: Police?

PANEL 4

In an extremely close close-up, a white man speaks to the viewer, lips contracted in fear, eyes incredibly wide, holding his hands to his face like the kid on the poster for “Home Alone.” His word balloon is drawn with shaky lines.

MAN: Because the b-b-brown people are invading and they’re g-going to replace us and soon there’ll be no white people left in America!

PANEL 5

A man and a woman talk in a park; the man looks angry.

MAN: Getting rid of I.C.E. means open borders!

WOMAN: But in 2000, before I.C.E. existed, borders weren’t-

MAN: DON’T DEFLECT ME WITH FACTS!

PANEL 6

The robber characters from the movie “Home Alone” stand smiling at the viewer. The shorter robber, who was played by Joe Pesci, speaks.

ROBBER: If the Home Alone movies taught us anything, it’s that children being left alone because I.C.E. snatched up their parents is wacky fun!

PANEL 7

A woman speaks to the viewer from behind a chain-link fence. She’s calm but sad, and she’s hooked the fingers of one hand through the chain links.

WOMAN: Because a lot of people think “never again” was only a suggestion.

PANEL 8

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson speak; Jefferson has both fists raised above his head in a “frat boy celebrating” like gesture.

WASHINGTON: Because forced labor performed by brown people trapped in inhumane conditions is what America’s all about! Right, Thomas?

JEFFERSON: Hell yeah, George!

PANEL 9

Two men are standing in front of a stone wall, talking. The first man, who is white, is making an expansive “oh, come on!” gesture; the second man, who appears Latino, has his arms crossed and is speaking cheerfully.

WHITE MAN:  Because if we “cancel” I.C.E. for inhumane treatment, where does it end? Do we cancel the border patrol? Private prisons?

LATINO: I can live with that.

PANEL 10

A woman sits in the middle of her bed. The shot is a bit distant and from above, making her look small and lonely. (Or so the cartoonist hoped.)

WOMAN: Abolishing I.C.E. would be really hard and the whole issue is such a bummer. So instead, I’ll sit home and quietly loathe myself. Cool?

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Immigration, Migrant Rights, etc, Institutionalized Racism | 43 Comments

Cloud-Haired Woman

Posted on October 7, 2019 by Mandolin

watercolor sketch in red of a woman with poofy, curly hair and a v-neck top with little “x”sThis reminds me of the art my parents had from the sixties, feminist with interesting proportions and bodies. I called it cloud-haired woman after a character in Marianne, the Magus and the Manticore, my favorite of Sheri Tepper’s books which made a strong impression on me as a child. (I haven’t read it since.)

Posted in Drawing | Comments Off on Cloud-Haired Woman

Cartoon: Back Then, No One Knew Blackface Is Offensive

Posted on October 6, 2019 by Ampersand

If you like these cartoons, please help me make more by supporting my Patreon! I make a living mostly off of a bunch of fans pledging just $1 or $2.

The Frederick Douglass quote in this cartoon is a paraphrase; I changed his words to better fit the tone of the cartoon. The exact quote is “… the filthy scum of white society, who have stolen from us a complexion denied to them by nature, in which to make money, and pander to the corrupt taste of their white fellow-citizens.”

The immediate catalyst for this cartoon was Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau apologizing after a 2001 photo of him at a party in blackface recently came to light. But it’s not specifically about Trudeau (which is why I went with 2002 instead of 2001 in the cartoon). Even today, blackface controversies come up with depressing frequency. Earlier this year,  Virginia’s governor and Virginia’s attorney general both had blackface scandals.

And every time, apologists for the old blackface photos say the same thing: You can’t judge the past by today’s standards.

This is an old canard, and it comes up whenever any past instance of bigotry is discussed. And sometimes it’s fair; exactly what word was used to describe trans people really was different thirty years ago, for example.

But just as often, it’s ridiculously ahistoric nonsense. And it certainly is nonsense with blackface. When I was a teen, in the 1980s, we all knew that blackface was racist. Even us white kids, although we didn’t fully appreciate the reasons blackface is racist, understood that most Black people found blackface offensive.

That is, in fact, the reason to wear blackface – because we do know it’s racist and taboo, That’s why wearing blackface feels transgressive to some.

The biggest challenge, drawing this strip, was Frederick Douglass, who had an interesting face – wide but with extremely distinct cheekbones. And trying to get across the particular way he had white streaks in his hair was fun.

Looking at panel 3, it’s clear that all my conceptions of distinctly “1980s” fashions are just clothes that Madonna wore sometime that decade.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This comic has four panels, plus a tiny “kicker” panel under the bottom of the strip.

PANEL 1

Two men, one Black and one white, are standing on a sidewalk talking. The Black man has an angry expression and is making big arm gestures; the white man looks very uninterested and is raising a hand in a “calm down” gesture.

LARGE CAPTION: TODAY

BLACK MAN: They found an old photo of him wearing blackface?!? What the hell was he thinking?

WHITE MAN: You can’t judge 2002 by today’s standards. People back then didn’t know blackface was wrong.

PANEL 2

Two women are seated at a round tale in a cafe, with coffee cups in front of them. One woman is Black, the other is white. The Black woman looks very annoyed; the white woman is grinning, making light of things.

LARGE CAPTION: 2002

WHITE WOMAN: Sure, we realize blackface is racist. But no one could have know that back in the 1980s.

PANEL 3

Two women, one Black and one white, are walking together in a hilly park. They are both dressed in stereotypical 1980s fashion: Big hair falling in front of their eyes, boxy jackets, etc.. The Black woman is scowling while the white woman speaks calmly, making the “explaining hands” gesture.

LARGE CAPTION: The 1980s.

WHITE WOMAN: We know that blackface is offensive, but that’s brand now! No one had any idea until recently.

PANEL 4

In the foreground, a Black man with a thick beard and impressive hair is orating, looking stern, while gesturing towards a man in the background. The man in the background is dressed like an actor from a minstrel show, and is wearing blackface.

A caption shaped like an arrow tells us the Black man is Frederick Douglass. A small caption next to Douglass says “paraphrased, but yes, he really said this!”

LARGE CAPTION: 1848

FREDERICK DOUGLASS: Look at this filthy scum! He’s stealing our complexion, just so he can pander to the corrupt tastes of other white people! What the hell is he thinking?

Small kicker panel below the bottom of the strip.

The two women from panel two appear again; the white woman is talking eagerly, leaning forward a bit, while the Black woman rolls her eyes.

WHITE WOMAN: My white friends and I all agree that Blacks are too sensitive about blackface.

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Race, racism and related issues | 19 Comments

A Haiku For Friday, October 4th

Posted on October 4, 2019 by Mandolin

The cold rain shivers.

I dart, indoors to indoors,

generous shelters.

Posted in Poetry, Rachel Swirsky's poetry | Comments Off on A Haiku For Friday, October 4th

Cartoon: Equally Bad!

Posted on September 27, 2019 by Ampersand

Please help me make more cartoons by supporting my Patreon! I make a living primarily from lots of people pledging $1, and that’s kind of awesome.

Back in August, a racist drove to El Paso, Texas and shot up a bar, killing 20 people and leaving behind a political manifesto railing against immigration – with “invasion” rhetoric strikingly similar to rhetoric used by President Trump.  The shooter told police that his intention was to shoot Mexicans.

Shortly after, the forces of bothsiderism – both centrists and right-wing – wrote tweet after tweet and thinkpiece after thinkpiece arguing that we must not let the El Paso shootings – or the many, many other explicitly right-wing shootings we’ve seen this decade – distract us from the danger of liberal violence.

Their examples? Another shooter seemed to have been a democrat – although there’s nothing at all indicating that his motivations were political (one of his victims was his own brother). And antifa punches people, and throws milkshakes on them.

Yeesh.

Look, of course some left-wingers are violent. But we are a thousand miles away from equality on that score. In the U.S., right now, there’s a regular pattern of right-wingers committing mass shootings while endorsing views held by some of the most influential and powerful conservatives, including the President. There is no equivalent on the left. Pretending that things are equivalent isn’t being balanced; it’s being deceptive.

Looking at this cartoon now, I’m wondering why I put the right-wing dude on the left, and the left-wing woman on the right? I mean, I can see why – because from the perspective of the centrist, the right-winger is to her right, and the left-winger is to her left.  But it probably would have made more sense to consider the readers’ right and left instead.

That aside, I had a lot of fun drawing this strip. The extreme close-up in panel five, and of course the dancing in panel six, are both things that I hardly ever get to draw. I’m pleased with how it came out in black and white, and I haven’t yet decided if I’ll add color or not.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has six panels; two rows containing five panels between them, and then a final row with just a single large panel.

Panel 1

Three people stand on a city sidewalk talking.  There is “Mr. Right,” a bald white man wearing a dress shirt and a tie; a woman wearing glasses, a white collared shirt and a floral skirt; and “Ms. Left,” a black-haired woman wearing a hoodie and jeans.

Glasses has turned to her left, to address Ms Left.

GLASSES: Whats’ the worst thing you do, Ms Left?

MS LEFT: Well,.. Some of our extremists punch people, and not everyone punched is a Nazi.

Panel 2

Glasses has now turned to her right, to ask Mr Right a question.

GLASSES: And Mr Right, what’s the worst thing you do?

MR RIGHT: Oh, you know… Forced child separation, inhumane detention camps, and mass shootings inspired by the violent rhetoric of our highest elected leaders.

Panel 3

A close-up of Glasses, who is holding up a hand with a “stop!” gesture and looking upward as if thinking.

GLASSES: But if you both do violence… Then that means…

Panel 4

An even tighter close-up of Glasses. Her hands are up on her face, and her eyes are wide, as if she’s having a startling realization.

GLASSES: That both of you are…

Panel 5

A very tight close-up of Glasses’ face – her entire head doesn’t even fit in the panel.  She’s grinning too wide and sweating and looks very intense. Her dialog in this panel, rather than being contained in a dialog balloon, is done in huge, happy letters superimposed over the image.

GLASSES: EQUALLY BAD!

Panel 6

A large panel, showing Mr. Right and Glasses grinning and dancing joyously while they sing. Musical notes fill the air around them. On the far right of the panel, Ms Left is facepalming.

MR RIGHT (sings): Equally bad! Equally bad!

GLASSES (sings): Equally bad!

MS LEFT (thought): Why do I even talk to centrists?

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Media criticism | 8 Comments