It is far too easy for people to judge someone for having bad attitudes, as though Good People never have bad attitudes, and having bad attitudes automatically marks you as a Bad Person. As if we’re all as simple as characters in a story, Black Hats and White Hats.
This is why it concerns me when a person who happens to hold racist views is boiled down to just that aspect, as if nothing else matters, and as if being able to unlearn racist viewpoints is as simple as “dude, that’s wrong” “oh yeah, I see that now, wow you changed my viewpoint and now I’m a good guy.”
Being open to change is a vital quality, but if you express a bad viewpoint and get people jumping down your throat like you’re a bad person, you’re less likely to change (because now the quality that needs to change has been cemented to your sense of self–you might even start trying to justify why you think that way).
With the Sarnothi in particular, though, there’s nothing irrational about being concerned, cautious, skeptical, etc., about these people who’ve just been dumped into the pool of human awareness, and have superweapons and the ability to hijack TV transmissions, and where even the kids come equipped with dangerous weapons (sharper teeth than humans have, claws, poison spit). I know that got covered in a previous comic as being not *that* different from human kids, but it’s natural that it would be concerning.
Or, rather, there’s nothing *more irrational than normal human irrationality* about these feelings. In the same way that we inflate the dangers of traveling to a foreign country, and minimize the dangers of walking around our own city. Predictably Irrational, like the rest of our brains.
On the “only Bad People are bigoted” thing: In El Goonish Shive, the character Diane is introduced with some pretty strong homophobic comments (IIRC, she calls a gay guy “defective male”). Later, when she unexpectedly becomes a major character, the writer commented that they had considered going back and changing what she said back there.
I strongly countered that idea, because it feeds into the idea of Good Attitudes as a static, unchanging feature of Good Characters, and makes it sound like people who have Bad Attitudes can never change them and go on to become Good Characters. It feeds into the idea that good people are never racist or bigoted, and that if you’re sure that you’re a Good Guy, you never need to self-examine for parts of yourself that might need to change.
But the progression of Diane from being bigoted against homosexuals to being accepting of homosexuals is actually a really good thing to have! She is not a bad character, in general, but has some negative traits, and she has worked to overcome some of them (especially after learning that a couple of her best friends are gay). What an admirable trait, the willingness to change your mind, and to admit that your previous attitudes were incorrect!
We need more characters like that, providing a good model for how to improve as a person, no matter where you start from, and providing hope for those in the world who currently hold abhorrent attitudes. “Some People Change” and all.
On the same note, Kilyle, I’m playing in a DnD (Pathfinder, actually – but the difference is slight) campaign where there are exiled races (Orcs, Gnolls, Goblins, etc – basically the monstrous races) and as such there’s systemic racism in society against said races due to this system having been in place for centuries. My character, a Sylph (part air elemental), is low-key racist against the exiled races, but views the generally outcast races such as Half-Orcs as just normal people due to heritage not defining you (despite unwittingly fulfilling many of the stereotypes about Sylphs).
It seems to me that Andi has always been a character fraught with insecurity and haunted by her past. Her mother seems to have given her the idea that everything is automagically scary if you don’t know what it is.
New foods don’t have to be scary, new people don’t have to be scary, new books don’t have to be scary. Life is rough, but it’s even tougher if you are scared of every new thing. I feel sorry for her.
But id Does look like she’s trying harder!
oh andi, chill! we´re talking about a single boy here, no older then your kid – no matter the species, at that age they might be annoying, but utterly harmless
Not that Andi’s response doesn’t worry me, but she doesn’t know that Sarnothi kids are utterly harmless, and in fact, with claws and poison spit, they aren’t utterly harmless. She is stuck with the fact that all parents have to deal with the idea of their kids’ friends being a new, somewhat unknown, factor that is probably (but not certainly) ok. I certainly worried occasionally about my kids’ friends.
This actually reminds me of the issue with the Muppet who’s got AIDS.
Like, most of the time, interacting with a person who has AIDS (or Hepatitis, or similar blood-borne pathogens) is not going to infect you, so there’s no reason to be shy about a handshake or a kiss on the cheek or using the same bathroom, etc. Having Kami dismantle some of the worries is a good thing.
But there *are* additional worries. Most notably, direct contact with contaminated blood. If the person with AIDS gets a bloody nose, and you help clean it up, and you’ve got a cut, that’s enough to possibly get infected right there. (Same with Hepatitis.) Which is, generally, why adults learn to treat every bodily fluid as potentially a serious pathogen, and to be very careful in cleaning them up… but kids (the ones targeted by Kami’s outreach) don’t know that. And if you teach them that there’s no way for the person with AIDS to infect them, then they’re not gonna know that.
It troubles me that these issues become so Either-Or. Like, either people with AIDS are going to infect me by looking at me funny, so I better never go near them and certainly never touch them or anything they’ve ever touched, OR there’s no risk at all from anything they do and there’s no reason to be careful about anything.
Some with the Sarnothi: Yes, they’re mostly like human children, and a previous page demonstrated that human children can do serious harm (biting, clawing, etc.) as well. But ignoring the differences, and the need for some additional training or new social norms, can also do harm. “Don’t share food that might have Sarnothi spit on it” might be an vital lesson to avoid some hospital trips… and, since kids aren’t known for understanding nuances, that might be just “don’t ever eat food that someone else has taken a bite out of.”
Utterly harmless is incorrect. He has fangs, venomous saliva and claws. He’s definitely not harmless. We don’t know him well enough to know if Amanda pushing buttons and being sarcastic and crass will push him into a fit of anger or if he knows better than to attack and resort to violence. Maybe play wrestling or spats are normal growing up in their society. He could harm Amanda if he wanted to.
Pretty sure other kids (barring very few exceptions) can weaponize saliva, though.
And keep in mind, she was largely cool with it UNTIL she found out that A) they’re an entirely different species, and B) that said species launched a laser into the sky large enough to be seen across the State. That would give most parents pause, even if they DO know better.
I mean yes, freaking out about aliens + lasers + government conspiracy is absolutely expected. Dunno why she’s worried about an individual sarnothi kid though.
Okay, I read this and thought, “good she has her concerns but is trying to be accepting and not show any knee jerk reaction.”
I didnt really feel a need to write about that… I wrote just to say to the Andi-haters (cause there are alot) I know you will find someway to spin this to justify your dislike of Andi, and hell she deserves some flak, but she is trying to grow and change.
That is what this comic is about, change. Everyone can change, as long as Andi continues positive change, I hope that people can change their hatred of her.
Characters who struggle with negative viewpoints and change over time are actually a vital role model that should not be undervalued. We need examples of racists, sexists, classists, ableists, and other types of bigots who start off with a negative view of the group they’re bigoted about, and shift to a positive (or at least neutral) view, given time and exposure to people from that group.
John Granger discusses the “bigoted hero” kinda deal in his series on Harry Potter. He points out that Ron, though undoubtedly one of the good guys, is bigoted against many groups of people (giants, werewolves, etc.), even though he knows (and likes) one person from each group.
As he points out, the Harry Potter series is golden for calling attention to our own propensity to judge others without having enough information by which to make an accurate judgment. I think it’s in “The Hidden Key to Harry Potter” that he discusses how each book in the series leads us to make an inaccurate judgment along with Harry, and then, by the end, to realize how mistaken we were. This tactic reinforces the anti-prejudice lesson inherent in each book and in the series as a whole.
(I’m just sad that Rowling failed to bring this to fruition with the treatment of the Slytherin in the final book. “Sorry, we don’t trust you in this battle so we’re locking you all up” and having a couple key Slytherin adults who weren’t quite as horrible as you might think is no substitute for proving that the anti-Slytherin bias was illogical and wrong.)
the only alarm bell this should be ringing is Amanda has a BOY CRUSH AMANDA HAS A BOY CRUSH, and in typical Amanda fashion she picked someone that will Freak out her mom and REALLY piss off her Step Sister…
Based on her reaction in the last strip, I would say Amanda does not have a crush on the Sarnothi and has another reason for wanting to invite him over.
I never really liked Andi to begin with, she’s kind of a crappy person, with that being said, I don’t really blame her insecurities or concerns about the Sarnothi. It’s actually completely reasonable.
I’m more worried about Amanda. She’s a crappy person too and I find it hard to believe that she’s just trying to make friends. She’s shown in the past she’s a manipulator and it makes me wonder if she’s only inviting this kid over to learn Sarnothi curses or insults or something.
Yea not sure what she’s up to but Amanda’s triggering some alarms. 😀
And Andi at least is trying to be open minded, that’s actually admirable.
It is far too easy for people to judge someone for having bad attitudes, as though Good People never have bad attitudes, and having bad attitudes automatically marks you as a Bad Person. As if we’re all as simple as characters in a story, Black Hats and White Hats.
This is why it concerns me when a person who happens to hold racist views is boiled down to just that aspect, as if nothing else matters, and as if being able to unlearn racist viewpoints is as simple as “dude, that’s wrong” “oh yeah, I see that now, wow you changed my viewpoint and now I’m a good guy.”
Being open to change is a vital quality, but if you express a bad viewpoint and get people jumping down your throat like you’re a bad person, you’re less likely to change (because now the quality that needs to change has been cemented to your sense of self–you might even start trying to justify why you think that way).
With the Sarnothi in particular, though, there’s nothing irrational about being concerned, cautious, skeptical, etc., about these people who’ve just been dumped into the pool of human awareness, and have superweapons and the ability to hijack TV transmissions, and where even the kids come equipped with dangerous weapons (sharper teeth than humans have, claws, poison spit). I know that got covered in a previous comic as being not *that* different from human kids, but it’s natural that it would be concerning.
Or, rather, there’s nothing *more irrational than normal human irrationality* about these feelings. In the same way that we inflate the dangers of traveling to a foreign country, and minimize the dangers of walking around our own city. Predictably Irrational, like the rest of our brains.
On the “only Bad People are bigoted” thing: In El Goonish Shive, the character Diane is introduced with some pretty strong homophobic comments (IIRC, she calls a gay guy “defective male”). Later, when she unexpectedly becomes a major character, the writer commented that they had considered going back and changing what she said back there.
I strongly countered that idea, because it feeds into the idea of Good Attitudes as a static, unchanging feature of Good Characters, and makes it sound like people who have Bad Attitudes can never change them and go on to become Good Characters. It feeds into the idea that good people are never racist or bigoted, and that if you’re sure that you’re a Good Guy, you never need to self-examine for parts of yourself that might need to change.
But the progression of Diane from being bigoted against homosexuals to being accepting of homosexuals is actually a really good thing to have! She is not a bad character, in general, but has some negative traits, and she has worked to overcome some of them (especially after learning that a couple of her best friends are gay). What an admirable trait, the willingness to change your mind, and to admit that your previous attitudes were incorrect!
We need more characters like that, providing a good model for how to improve as a person, no matter where you start from, and providing hope for those in the world who currently hold abhorrent attitudes. “Some People Change” and all.
On the same note, Kilyle, I’m playing in a DnD (Pathfinder, actually – but the difference is slight) campaign where there are exiled races (Orcs, Gnolls, Goblins, etc – basically the monstrous races) and as such there’s systemic racism in society against said races due to this system having been in place for centuries. My character, a Sylph (part air elemental), is low-key racist against the exiled races, but views the generally outcast races such as Half-Orcs as just normal people due to heritage not defining you (despite unwittingly fulfilling many of the stereotypes about Sylphs).
It seems to me that Andi has always been a character fraught with insecurity and haunted by her past. Her mother seems to have given her the idea that everything is automagically scary if you don’t know what it is.
New foods don’t have to be scary, new people don’t have to be scary, new books don’t have to be scary. Life is rough, but it’s even tougher if you are scared of every new thing. I feel sorry for her.
But id Does look like she’s trying harder!
oh andi, chill! we´re talking about a single boy here, no older then your kid – no matter the species, at that age they might be annoying, but utterly harmless
Not that Andi’s response doesn’t worry me, but she doesn’t know that Sarnothi kids are utterly harmless, and in fact, with claws and poison spit, they aren’t utterly harmless. She is stuck with the fact that all parents have to deal with the idea of their kids’ friends being a new, somewhat unknown, factor that is probably (but not certainly) ok. I certainly worried occasionally about my kids’ friends.
This actually reminds me of the issue with the Muppet who’s got AIDS.
Like, most of the time, interacting with a person who has AIDS (or Hepatitis, or similar blood-borne pathogens) is not going to infect you, so there’s no reason to be shy about a handshake or a kiss on the cheek or using the same bathroom, etc. Having Kami dismantle some of the worries is a good thing.
But there *are* additional worries. Most notably, direct contact with contaminated blood. If the person with AIDS gets a bloody nose, and you help clean it up, and you’ve got a cut, that’s enough to possibly get infected right there. (Same with Hepatitis.) Which is, generally, why adults learn to treat every bodily fluid as potentially a serious pathogen, and to be very careful in cleaning them up… but kids (the ones targeted by Kami’s outreach) don’t know that. And if you teach them that there’s no way for the person with AIDS to infect them, then they’re not gonna know that.
It troubles me that these issues become so Either-Or. Like, either people with AIDS are going to infect me by looking at me funny, so I better never go near them and certainly never touch them or anything they’ve ever touched, OR there’s no risk at all from anything they do and there’s no reason to be careful about anything.
Some with the Sarnothi: Yes, they’re mostly like human children, and a previous page demonstrated that human children can do serious harm (biting, clawing, etc.) as well. But ignoring the differences, and the need for some additional training or new social norms, can also do harm. “Don’t share food that might have Sarnothi spit on it” might be an vital lesson to avoid some hospital trips… and, since kids aren’t known for understanding nuances, that might be just “don’t ever eat food that someone else has taken a bite out of.”
actually, she DOES know that they´re harmless – she met selkie. who might have claws and poisonous spit, but only ‘fights’ back with snark.
Selkie is harmless. But that’s because she wants to be. There are a lot of Sarnothi and the chances are, they’re not all friendly like Selkie is.
If the Sarnothi decides not to be friendly, you’re basically up against a poisonous snake that can shoot laser beams
Utterly harmless is incorrect. He has fangs, venomous saliva and claws. He’s definitely not harmless. We don’t know him well enough to know if Amanda pushing buttons and being sarcastic and crass will push him into a fit of anger or if he knows better than to attack and resort to violence. Maybe play wrestling or spats are normal growing up in their society. He could harm Amanda if he wanted to.
Any other regular kid could punch her or stab her with a pencil too.
Pretty sure other kids (barring very few exceptions) can weaponize saliva, though.
And keep in mind, she was largely cool with it UNTIL she found out that A) they’re an entirely different species, and B) that said species launched a laser into the sky large enough to be seen across the State. That would give most parents pause, even if they DO know better.
I mean yes, freaking out about aliens + lasers + government conspiracy is absolutely expected. Dunno why she’s worried about an individual sarnothi kid though.
Okay, I read this and thought, “good she has her concerns but is trying to be accepting and not show any knee jerk reaction.”
I didnt really feel a need to write about that… I wrote just to say to the Andi-haters (cause there are alot) I know you will find someway to spin this to justify your dislike of Andi, and hell she deserves some flak, but she is trying to grow and change.
That is what this comic is about, change. Everyone can change, as long as Andi continues positive change, I hope that people can change their hatred of her.
Characters who struggle with negative viewpoints and change over time are actually a vital role model that should not be undervalued. We need examples of racists, sexists, classists, ableists, and other types of bigots who start off with a negative view of the group they’re bigoted about, and shift to a positive (or at least neutral) view, given time and exposure to people from that group.
John Granger discusses the “bigoted hero” kinda deal in his series on Harry Potter. He points out that Ron, though undoubtedly one of the good guys, is bigoted against many groups of people (giants, werewolves, etc.), even though he knows (and likes) one person from each group.
As he points out, the Harry Potter series is golden for calling attention to our own propensity to judge others without having enough information by which to make an accurate judgment. I think it’s in “The Hidden Key to Harry Potter” that he discusses how each book in the series leads us to make an inaccurate judgment along with Harry, and then, by the end, to realize how mistaken we were. This tactic reinforces the anti-prejudice lesson inherent in each book and in the series as a whole.
(I’m just sad that Rowling failed to bring this to fruition with the treatment of the Slytherin in the final book. “Sorry, we don’t trust you in this battle so we’re locking you all up” and having a couple key Slytherin adults who weren’t quite as horrible as you might think is no substitute for proving that the anti-Slytherin bias was illogical and wrong.)
the only alarm bell this should be ringing is Amanda has a BOY CRUSH AMANDA HAS A BOY CRUSH, and in typical Amanda fashion she picked someone that will Freak out her mom and REALLY piss off her Step Sister…
Based on her reaction in the last strip, I would say Amanda does not have a crush on the Sarnothi and has another reason for wanting to invite him over.
“Maybe I should read up on Roswell.” Oh Andi, Andi, Andi…! Words fail.
An alliance between Amanda and Tehk against Selkie. That’s what I’m seeing here.
…”Amanda. Are you planning something evil, what is it, and who is the target?”
I’m just happy that Amanda is letting her mom’s use of the term ‘sister’ go on by without comment.
I never really liked Andi to begin with, she’s kind of a crappy person, with that being said, I don’t really blame her insecurities or concerns about the Sarnothi. It’s actually completely reasonable.
I’m more worried about Amanda. She’s a crappy person too and I find it hard to believe that she’s just trying to make friends. She’s shown in the past she’s a manipulator and it makes me wonder if she’s only inviting this kid over to learn Sarnothi curses or insults or something.
BTW, if anyone wants to read up on confirmed conspiracy theories, there’s always The First Names Club and Operation Sea-Spray amongst others.