o/` Could it be that you need me
To keep you out, to run you faster
Promise me you’ll let me be
The one, the worst of all your enemies
Pretending you’re a friend to me
Say that we’ll be nemeses o/`
Joyce is there to explain Sal’s role in this. By the time the cops get around to talking to her, they’ll know she’s not a threat, and things will also have cooled down enough that they won’t be in “OMG SHE HAS DARK SKIN TAKE HER DOWN” mode.
Heavensrun
The real tragedy about the problem with racism in police departments is that it makes african americans defensive and paranoid around law enforcement, which makes cops more suspicious of them, which makes them treat them unfairly, which makes them more paranoid and defensive, and it just keeps going like that until a riot happens somewhere.
I’m not black, but I am trans and there’s a very toxic combination of things that happen to your sense of safety and how you feel when in presence of people who are ostensibly there to serve and protect when that has frequently come with harassment. And it’s not all paranoia based. I’ve had traffic pullovers escalate when the officer noticed I was trans.
Sal, being black, and living in a world like ours where there is an inordinate amount of unarmed black kids gunned down by cops without much in the way of official rebuke is going to affect how she views them without the lifetime of being harassed for the way she is and how she looks. It’s sadly a critical piece of safety for young black people to be nowhere near a police crisis situation.
Heavensrun
Yeah, it’s not paranoia when they’re actually out to get you. I wasn’t trying to use the word “paranoid” to dismiss those feelings, I was just trying to convey that there’s a feedback loop at play there which just makes a bad situation worse.
The way you behave when you interact with a police officer influences their perception of you, and if you’re (possibly justified in) worrying about how they’re going to respond to you, they’re more likely to think something’s up. On the other hand, cops actually do have built in personal biases that might lend to them legitimately treating you badly. It’s a messy, awful situation to be in, whether you’re black, trans, or any other group that stands a non-zero chance of being on the bad side of whoever pulled you over for a broken taillight.
It -also- doesn’t help that law enforcement is a popular choice of career for dickheads with authority complexes, because it means that peppered in among the people who actually want to protect and serve are a bunch of assholes on power trips.
elebenty
So true.
All of it, but that last paragraph doesn’t get nearly as much attention. If there is a gun and any level of authority involved, you can bet a percentage of the people in that position are asshats. They may not all be narcissistic, but something in their history or psyche draws them to those fields. (See also firefighters with arsonist tendencies.)
Viktoria
It’s not just that the position attracts assholes, it’s also about the best way to turn someone racist I can think of. You’ve got cops from mostly-white neighborhoods commuting to mostly-black areas for their job. So you’ve got white dudes who have white neighbors, white family members, white co-workers, and white friends whose only interaction with black people is when they’re arresting a black person for a crime. It’s absolutely no surprise that these dudes think every black person they meet is a criminal, what has ever happened in their lives to challenge that assumption?
Very true on every point. And equally true for elebenty and Viktoria’s extensions. Mix unchallenged assumptions with confirmation bias, people who have good reason to be nervous around you, and unchecked authoritarian streaks and that’ll lead to badness even before the bad actors start fucking it up even worse.
This. Sal isn’t worried that long-term this mess will get pinned on her. She’s worried that if she’s there while police are responding to “a shooter kidnapped a kid” that that’s asking for a free bullet shower or at the very least, some very rough physical harassment on the part of the cops.
I have a question that might be really dumb. Are avatars somehow randomly assigned to people that haven’t selected one? I don’t think I ever had that option. I’ve always wondered how that worked.
If you did not setup an avatar at the Gravatar-site, it will be “randomly” assigned based on your email-address. It will stay the same until either you use a different email-address or Willis uploads new avatars.
I dunno, maybe one “stabbed through the hand with a knife” point.
Zagreus
Sal got stabbed through the hand and she got an even bigger chip on her shoulder and an absolute unwillingness to admit she’s done anything wrong even after two counts of armed robbery.
Amber got threatened by Sal and became so severely traumatized that she developed a split personality and is violently triggered just by SEEING Sal.
The onus is on Sal to apologize. She’s done far more than Amber has and she still has the gall to play the victim. It’s disgusting.
Clif
You might have part of a point if Sal had any way to know any of this.
Zagreus
Which is why I’m desperately hoping that Amber is about to tell Sal everything and then Sal will shamefully admit she’s gone too far. It’ll be incredibly cathartic at this point.
Skizz
I think there is a lot more wreck in these two trains before catharsis time.
PlainMarie
+1
Yet Another Laura H.
You say “catharsis,” but the polls will say “Slipshine…”
Caf
That we know of, is Amber aware of who Sal is, WRT the robbery?
Sal still has no idea that “Amazo” is Amber or that Amber is that girl who stabbed her hand, and has not recognized Ethan as the boy she took hostage.
segnosaur
Yes she is. She panniced when she first saw Sal, went to Ethan to tell him “she’s here”, and then confronted them in a WalMart parking lot when they were drinking beer.
To be fair, Sal 1) probably never realized she’d traumatized young Amber, and 2) hasn’t realized that current Amber is young Amber. ( And 3) hasn’t realized Amazi-girl is either Amber. ) So regardless of onus it would be silly of us to expect her to make an apology she has no idea at all should be made.
All of that. She might not even fully register the importance of the event to Amber even if she was to be told, because while to her it was the formative moment at the beginning of her disassociation, it was just a bad mistake-laden day she’s spent her childhood recovering from for Sal.
And the other thing is that Sal is the one the trauma is fixated on. The one who Amazi-girl has settled on being her nemesis and the sole symbol of her transformation as a person. But, she is not the mother of Amazi-girl. Blaine is. Blaine was the one beating her while she was down, blaming her personally for the incident and giving her the complex that it was up to her to fight through her anxiety and protect her friends “no matter what”. It was Blaine that gave her the crippling fear of doing the wrong thing with his constant emotional abuse. And Blaine denied her proper trauma-related mental health care afterwards, instead feeding that “you need to toughen up so you can stop things like that” mindset with things like martial arts and continued emotional abuse.
Sal was just the inciting incident. It’s genuinely unfair of Amber to be pinning a whole slew of “you made me” baggage on her, because she really didn’t and Sal has gone out of her way time after time to try and de-escalate things with Amazi-girl and give her good advice as one woman dealing with her anger to another.
But, Amazi-girl is not quite ready to fully give up the mythology of her creation and place full blame where it belongs because that ties too deeply into her fears about being “her father’s daughter” and has the extra disabilities of her DID and her panic disorder.
Leorale
+1 to Cerberus. (That happens a lot, I appreciate what you write.)
DarkVeghetta
I fully agree on both counts.
M-M
+1!!!! I think it’s also important to note that Sal went through the criminal justice system. She paid her debt, however harsh or light it might have been. Amber doesn’t have to forgive her or feel warm & fuzzy towards her, but Sal fucked up, paid for it, and has changed her ways.
merbrat
Sal does not associate Amber with the robbery. She doesn’t remember their faces, even after meeting Ethan. She didn’t *see* Amber stab her hand, as she approached from behind. She just thinks Amber is weird, and Amazi-Girl is nuts. Sal doesn’t associate the with each other, or with her past.
Norah
It’d be disgusting if Sal knew that Amber was the girl in the convenience store and refused to apologize, but she doesn’t know yet. And her comment about being a black kid with a record and not wanting to meet up with police is valid, considering things that have been happening in the last couple years.
Only, it actually isn’t valid now as those should be closed records now, being that it was a juvenile record and all.
MatthewTheLucky
I don’t think that she was worried about what was on it, so much as that it existed.
Needfuldoer
They would be, as long as Sal petitioned the courts to seal her juvenile record after she turned 18.
Lin
In Indiana, the records are expunged after you petition the court (which takes a while and can cost money). It isn’t automatic and can be opposed by an agency. Considering Sal’s problems with authority, I wouldn’t be surprised if she hasn’t done this yet.
And honestly, after being in contact with the juvenile justice system, kids and young adults have a valid fear of being profiled. Youth of color don’t even need to have that contact to have the fear – they are profiled, they do have non criminal behavior treated as criminal, they are policed more.
Starscreamer
The “things that have been happening the last couple years” have been blown way out of proportion. Over half (not talking about the man that was shot in the back, that was horrific and I hope the cop burns) these incidents are over-exaggerated and under-reported. Michael Brown was not an innocent victim. Nor was Trayvon Martin (even though his attacker is a dick).
These “things” have been happening for the last couple of *centuries*—so you’re right about them being “under-reported,” in that sense. As for whether the victims are “innocent” or not, that’s beside the point. The issue isn’t whether black angels are being shot; it’s that black people get murdered for behaving in ways that would *not* get other people killed, because black lives are seen as less valuable (and less “innocent”), by definition.
Roch the Crusher
In both of the cases that have been brought up here, a white person absolutely would have been shot in self defense… assuming that the facts which are alleged are true, of course. Not being trained in forensics, I suppose it’s possible someone is lying to me about that.
In both the case of Trayvon Martin and of Michael Brown, it is alleged that they escalated a simple case of, “Whoa there, stop where you are, I need you to answer some questions” into a desperate fight for the lives of both parties. Both seem to have managed to close to melee range and attack before being fired upon, which displays hesitation on the part of the other to fire and to kill.
Instructing young black men that the police and the justice system are their enemy, and therefore that they should do whatever possible to stay out of police custody, is setting them up for failure and pain. No matter what color your skin is, you should be courteous and cooperative when being arrested. You do not, nor should you, have an option at that point; if you attempt to use force, you will get hurt.
Spencer
Trayvon Martin was hunted by some asshole with a gun who was repeatedly told to stop chasing after him. And you ever fucking notice that whenever a young black man is shot we always try to build a narrative on why it was okay to do so?
And more importantly, cops are there to protect us. I could literally call them every name in the book and it should still be expected they protect me because that is their goddamn job. We shouldn’t expect members of the population to be extra careful around those jackbooted thugs under fear of getting shot for not being contrite enough.
And not to drag us too far down the rabbit hole, but you both might want to spend a goodly portion of time examining why you happen to believe that every gunned down unarmed black teenager did something to deserve it (and why you believe a white person would have been treated the same) when we’ve seen how cops will go out of their way with white criminals to talk them down even when they are pointing loaded firearms at cops.
Dr. T
I won’t argue in defense of Brown, but I will for Martin. I ask you to consider the following scenario:
You are walking to your grandmother’s house when you notice someone following you in his car. He is clearly trailing you and has a look that gives the impression that he has ill intentions for you. You have very good reason to believe that you are about to get assaulted. What do you do? Do you confront him or run?
Let’s say you run rather than confront the guy stalking you. The guy starts chasing you, which probably confirms your impression that he wishes to harm you. You run hard for several minutes and think that you got away, so you stop for a minute to catch your breath and try to reorient yourself (you are in a strange neighborhood, after all). As you are recovering you notice that your stalker has caught up to you. What do you do? Do you run again in a neighborhood that you do not know? Bear in mind that he has a car, so outrunning him is unlikely and he has just proven that. With that in mind, what do you do?
Well, in that case 99.99% of all people will go on the attack in their own defense. It’s not like you would be randomly attacking someone; you would be attacking the guy that stalked and chased you, all without ever identifying himself as someone who was part of the neighborhood watch. You would be defending yourself, as did Martin. He just defended himself against someone who chased him with a gun.
Rutee
Martin was an innocent victim – If Martin and Zimmerman both been white, Martin would *STILL* have a nigh-undefeatable self-defense charge, because Martin was being stalked by an unknown assailant who was threatening them (I specify both because ‘white person gets off for attacking brown man’ doesn’t mean much). And keep in mind, Zimmerman ONLY had a case with SYG! Martin’s case is strong under NORMAL self defense laws – he didn’t need SYG’s expansion of the definition! So no, Martin is literally an innocent victim.
Brown was a petty, unarmed thief. It literally does not matter whether he’s ‘innocent’. He was not a threat, and shouldn’t have been shot to death – period. But you know, white people are always looking for every excuse to strip protections from us that they expect daily.
chubisus
I don’t believe Sal has ever been unwilling to admit she’s done wrong. At most, she got angry at Walky for repeatedly bringing the robbery up against her (reasonable since she’s done her time, so to speak). I’m also not sure Sal has ever played the victim in regards to her injury from Amber. She’s even done Amber a favor here (besides saving her life), in spite of the fact that Amber tried to attack her in a parking lot the last time they met.
Amber, on the other hand stabbed Sal after she was already in custody. Aggravated assault; not cool. And then she repeated this behavior by targeting Sal for beat downs.
I’d say apologies from both are in order, but Amber would have to start if only because she’s the only one “in the know” regarding their shared past. Admittedly, it would also be fine if Amber could just play it cool and they never interact again beyond bare minimum. As we learned, however, Amber continues to escalate…
Has Sal even mentioned the injury on panel yet? It seems the whole point of the motorcycle gloves worn at all times is so she can not ever have to explain that whole incident to anyone.
And yeah on the aggrieved assault. It’s also worth noting how callous that “record, how annoying” comment really is. Sal committed a petty theft and was duly arrested and went through a good chunk of the system for it. Amber committed grievous assault causing enough damage to result in permanent scarring in front of police officers and based on the flashbacks seems to have been de-escalated by the police and then she was immediately turned back over to her (admittedly abusive) guardian, with little in the way of official punishment.
So, intentional or not, Amazi-girl is claiming a sense of smug superiority over a situation where Sal got a stricter punishment and Amber got off for a worse crime largely due to Amber’s race and possibly overly shy demeanor. And this is not to mention that she committed this same crime of aggravated assault earlier this month, again, with no arrest (this time due to not being at the scene of the crime when cops arrived).
And ignoring that Amazi-girl is probably stumbling into a thicket of systemic messages Sal has been probably hearing half of her life about the general value of “criminals”, and especially black kids with records, not to mention the general racist harassment she has likely sustained by cops and other authority figures over the years for being black and a bit of a counterculture rebel.
So if we’re talking about serving as each other’s triggers, these two really are. For Amazi-girl, Sal is the ultimate red flashback panel that causes her brain to shut down and go into stupid jerk mode. For Sal, Amazi-girl is the embodiment of the judgmental white authority that has flooded her with microaggressions her whole life.
It is somewhat telling about their relative progresses with their triggers that Sal still tries to reason and de-escalate and offer good advice and Amber actively refuses any outreach so as to continue justifying the personal conflict. (And it makes sense, Sal had to confront those and sort them early on to not end up in jail, while Amber is only just starting to sort through her mental baggage and is only first starting to make the mistakes of her recovery).
Lord Stoneheart
Has Sal actually talked to anybody onscreen about the robbery? And she has no idea that Amber=Amazi Girl, or Amber was the one in the convenience store that day. All she knows is that someone in a costume seems to have a grudge against her for underage drinking.
Billie and the twins are from the same hometown. (At least they went to school together…) She probably has a better picture of Sal’s past than any of the other main characters.
Kinda sounds like Sal’s the racist. Not Walky. Cause look at the way they’re drawn. Neither is whiter or blacker. Though it bothers me that such a thing should matter in today’s world.
Lord Stoneheart
So by suggesting that their parents treated them differently based on certain traits associated with race (notice the difference between Walky’s hair and Sal’s hair before she murders the curls out of it), Sal’s the real racist? Uh…
Nightsbridge
Everyone knows the racism-pointer-outer is always the worstest person everer!
This statement is facetious.
Heavensrun
There are traits that are associated with “being black” and “being white”, and they are not all physical.
It’s about behavior. Black people in society are treated better by general society the more “unthreatening they are” and this is usually defined by a host of characteristics that are seen as “whiter behavior”, specifically, straightened hair, non-southern or non-slang vernacular, academic success, not calling people out on racism, and so on.
It’s why studies have shown that black individuals who are seen as having “black names” or having what is seen as having “black modes of dress” are often treated as less professional, less capable, and more dangerous than those who are not. It’s why things like “hoodies” became national dog-whistles for White America.
Yup. Also, funny enough, true of anyone who points out any axis of oppression or source of inequality. Noticing things and pointing it out makes you doubleplus hitler ungood. And this is obviously true for reasons other than the fact that honestly deconstructing complex systems of bigotry and inequality in this country makes those with privilege uncomfortable owing to the way they equate noticing things like that and not being a part of the problem as critical to being a “good person” and so are more likely to get defensive and dismiss observations out of hand rather than accept that we’re all swimming in a toxic mess of culture and systemic oppression and that recognizing and processing that is a crucial step for our entire culture to grow and move past it, solving the inequities of what has gone before and that this enriches both minority group and privileged group both.
(For this last point, note how the world hasn’t collapsed when women were no longer kept out of most jobs outside the home and how that has helped both men and women create healthier relationships and more stable households).
480 thoughts on “High-strung”
Ana Chronistic
WEFs FOREVAR
lejwocky
foreverrr
Tacos
WEF?
gkheyf
Wurst enumeyz 4eva!!!
Coco Pommel
For-ev-er. And ev-er. And ev-er.
gkheyf
………andever^_^
David
For he shall draw it for ever and e-e-ever.
Just Saying
:O
jy3
Worst Enemy Forever, I think.
That Damn Rat
There’s a word for that, it’s Nemesis.
John
o/` Could it be that you need me
To keep you out, to run you faster
Promise me you’ll let me be
The one, the worst of all your enemies
Pretending you’re a friend to me
Say that we’ll be nemeses o/`
Deanatay
When they’re adorable, you can call them Nemmies.
(They REALLY hate that)
Ana Chronistic
IDK, my WEF Amazi-Girl??
Ana Chronistic
“Anyone who dies by my hand, I always consider a friend.”
Deanatay
He was my enemy, but then he did me a solid.
By dying.
And I appreciated that.
Who Izzy
Old cellphone commercials ftw
Historyman68
And the song they play
Is by that guy with the messed-up face
Going “precious and few are the moments that you
And your own worst enemy share.”
Doctor_Who
“Ah mean, there’s barely enough beer t’ go ’round at the Walmart hangouts as it is.”
Thor
“Don’t worry about that motorcycle that’s registered to me. They’ll never use that to connect me to this whole mess.”
Durandal_1707
Joyce is there to explain Sal’s role in this. By the time the cops get around to talking to her, they’ll know she’s not a threat, and things will also have cooled down enough that they won’t be in “OMG SHE HAS DARK SKIN TAKE HER DOWN” mode.
Heavensrun
The real tragedy about the problem with racism in police departments is that it makes african americans defensive and paranoid around law enforcement, which makes cops more suspicious of them, which makes them treat them unfairly, which makes them more paranoid and defensive, and it just keeps going like that until a riot happens somewhere.
Cerberus
I’m not black, but I am trans and there’s a very toxic combination of things that happen to your sense of safety and how you feel when in presence of people who are ostensibly there to serve and protect when that has frequently come with harassment. And it’s not all paranoia based. I’ve had traffic pullovers escalate when the officer noticed I was trans.
Sal, being black, and living in a world like ours where there is an inordinate amount of unarmed black kids gunned down by cops without much in the way of official rebuke is going to affect how she views them without the lifetime of being harassed for the way she is and how she looks. It’s sadly a critical piece of safety for young black people to be nowhere near a police crisis situation.
Heavensrun
Yeah, it’s not paranoia when they’re actually out to get you. I wasn’t trying to use the word “paranoid” to dismiss those feelings, I was just trying to convey that there’s a feedback loop at play there which just makes a bad situation worse.
The way you behave when you interact with a police officer influences their perception of you, and if you’re (possibly justified in) worrying about how they’re going to respond to you, they’re more likely to think something’s up. On the other hand, cops actually do have built in personal biases that might lend to them legitimately treating you badly. It’s a messy, awful situation to be in, whether you’re black, trans, or any other group that stands a non-zero chance of being on the bad side of whoever pulled you over for a broken taillight.
It -also- doesn’t help that law enforcement is a popular choice of career for dickheads with authority complexes, because it means that peppered in among the people who actually want to protect and serve are a bunch of assholes on power trips.
elebenty
So true.
All of it, but that last paragraph doesn’t get nearly as much attention. If there is a gun and any level of authority involved, you can bet a percentage of the people in that position are asshats. They may not all be narcissistic, but something in their history or psyche draws them to those fields. (See also firefighters with arsonist tendencies.)
Viktoria
It’s not just that the position attracts assholes, it’s also about the best way to turn someone racist I can think of. You’ve got cops from mostly-white neighborhoods commuting to mostly-black areas for their job. So you’ve got white dudes who have white neighbors, white family members, white co-workers, and white friends whose only interaction with black people is when they’re arresting a black person for a crime. It’s absolutely no surprise that these dudes think every black person they meet is a criminal, what has ever happened in their lives to challenge that assumption?
Cerberus
Very true on every point. And equally true for elebenty and Viktoria’s extensions. Mix unchallenged assumptions with confirmation bias, people who have good reason to be nervous around you, and unchecked authoritarian streaks and that’ll lead to badness even before the bad actors start fucking it up even worse.
Cerberus
This. Sal isn’t worried that long-term this mess will get pinned on her. She’s worried that if she’s there while police are responding to “a shooter kidnapped a kid” that that’s asking for a free bullet shower or at the very least, some very rough physical harassment on the part of the cops.
Durandal_1707
God dammit Amber, learn a lesson instead of being an ass.
gc
I love the way these avatars turn out.
leadsynth
I have a question that might be really dumb. Are avatars somehow randomly assigned to people that haven’t selected one? I don’t think I ever had that option. I’ve always wondered how that worked.
Amazistool
If you did not setup an avatar at the Gravatar-site, it will be “randomly” assigned based on your email-address. It will stay the same until either you use a different email-address or Willis uploads new avatars.
leadsynth
Oh!
dailybrad
She did Amber a favor, sure, but how many “threatened to stab your best friend with knife” points does that equate to?
M-M
I dunno, maybe one “stabbed through the hand with a knife” point.
Zagreus
Sal got stabbed through the hand and she got an even bigger chip on her shoulder and an absolute unwillingness to admit she’s done anything wrong even after two counts of armed robbery.
Amber got threatened by Sal and became so severely traumatized that she developed a split personality and is violently triggered just by SEEING Sal.
The onus is on Sal to apologize. She’s done far more than Amber has and she still has the gall to play the victim. It’s disgusting.
Clif
You might have part of a point if Sal had any way to know any of this.
Zagreus
Which is why I’m desperately hoping that Amber is about to tell Sal everything and then Sal will shamefully admit she’s gone too far. It’ll be incredibly cathartic at this point.
Skizz
I think there is a lot more wreck in these two trains before catharsis time.
PlainMarie
+1
Yet Another Laura H.
You say “catharsis,” but the polls will say “Slipshine…”
Caf
That we know of, is Amber aware of who Sal is, WRT the robbery?
John
Yeah, she figured it out a while back.
Sal still has no idea that “Amazo” is Amber or that Amber is that girl who stabbed her hand, and has not recognized Ethan as the boy she took hostage.
segnosaur
Yes she is. She panniced when she first saw Sal, went to Ethan to tell him “she’s here”, and then confronted them in a WalMart parking lot when they were drinking beer.
John
And Amber told Ethan that the girl who took him hostage is on campus, but Ethan still hasn’t quite made the connection to Sal.
begbert
To be fair, Sal 1) probably never realized she’d traumatized young Amber, and 2) hasn’t realized that current Amber is young Amber. ( And 3) hasn’t realized Amazi-girl is either Amber. ) So regardless of onus it would be silly of us to expect her to make an apology she has no idea at all should be made.
Cerberus
All of that. She might not even fully register the importance of the event to Amber even if she was to be told, because while to her it was the formative moment at the beginning of her disassociation, it was just a bad mistake-laden day she’s spent her childhood recovering from for Sal.
And the other thing is that Sal is the one the trauma is fixated on. The one who Amazi-girl has settled on being her nemesis and the sole symbol of her transformation as a person. But, she is not the mother of Amazi-girl. Blaine is. Blaine was the one beating her while she was down, blaming her personally for the incident and giving her the complex that it was up to her to fight through her anxiety and protect her friends “no matter what”. It was Blaine that gave her the crippling fear of doing the wrong thing with his constant emotional abuse. And Blaine denied her proper trauma-related mental health care afterwards, instead feeding that “you need to toughen up so you can stop things like that” mindset with things like martial arts and continued emotional abuse.
Sal was just the inciting incident. It’s genuinely unfair of Amber to be pinning a whole slew of “you made me” baggage on her, because she really didn’t and Sal has gone out of her way time after time to try and de-escalate things with Amazi-girl and give her good advice as one woman dealing with her anger to another.
But, Amazi-girl is not quite ready to fully give up the mythology of her creation and place full blame where it belongs because that ties too deeply into her fears about being “her father’s daughter” and has the extra disabilities of her DID and her panic disorder.
Leorale
+1 to Cerberus. (That happens a lot, I appreciate what you write.)
DarkVeghetta
I fully agree on both counts.
M-M
+1!!!! I think it’s also important to note that Sal went through the criminal justice system. She paid her debt, however harsh or light it might have been. Amber doesn’t have to forgive her or feel warm & fuzzy towards her, but Sal fucked up, paid for it, and has changed her ways.
merbrat
Sal does not associate Amber with the robbery. She doesn’t remember their faces, even after meeting Ethan. She didn’t *see* Amber stab her hand, as she approached from behind. She just thinks Amber is weird, and Amazi-Girl is nuts. Sal doesn’t associate the with each other, or with her past.
Norah
It’d be disgusting if Sal knew that Amber was the girl in the convenience store and refused to apologize, but she doesn’t know yet. And her comment about being a black kid with a record and not wanting to meet up with police is valid, considering things that have been happening in the last couple years.
Dr. T
Only, it actually isn’t valid now as those should be closed records now, being that it was a juvenile record and all.
MatthewTheLucky
I don’t think that she was worried about what was on it, so much as that it existed.
Needfuldoer
They would be, as long as Sal petitioned the courts to seal her juvenile record after she turned 18.
Lin
In Indiana, the records are expunged after you petition the court (which takes a while and can cost money). It isn’t automatic and can be opposed by an agency. Considering Sal’s problems with authority, I wouldn’t be surprised if she hasn’t done this yet.
And honestly, after being in contact with the juvenile justice system, kids and young adults have a valid fear of being profiled. Youth of color don’t even need to have that contact to have the fear – they are profiled, they do have non criminal behavior treated as criminal, they are policed more.
Starscreamer
The “things that have been happening the last couple years” have been blown way out of proportion. Over half (not talking about the man that was shot in the back, that was horrific and I hope the cop burns) these incidents are over-exaggerated and under-reported. Michael Brown was not an innocent victim. Nor was Trayvon Martin (even though his attacker is a dick).
saltchocolate
These “things” have been happening for the last couple of *centuries*—so you’re right about them being “under-reported,” in that sense. As for whether the victims are “innocent” or not, that’s beside the point. The issue isn’t whether black angels are being shot; it’s that black people get murdered for behaving in ways that would *not* get other people killed, because black lives are seen as less valuable (and less “innocent”), by definition.
Roch the Crusher
In both of the cases that have been brought up here, a white person absolutely would have been shot in self defense… assuming that the facts which are alleged are true, of course. Not being trained in forensics, I suppose it’s possible someone is lying to me about that.
In both the case of Trayvon Martin and of Michael Brown, it is alleged that they escalated a simple case of, “Whoa there, stop where you are, I need you to answer some questions” into a desperate fight for the lives of both parties. Both seem to have managed to close to melee range and attack before being fired upon, which displays hesitation on the part of the other to fire and to kill.
Instructing young black men that the police and the justice system are their enemy, and therefore that they should do whatever possible to stay out of police custody, is setting them up for failure and pain. No matter what color your skin is, you should be courteous and cooperative when being arrested. You do not, nor should you, have an option at that point; if you attempt to use force, you will get hurt.
Spencer
Trayvon Martin was hunted by some asshole with a gun who was repeatedly told to stop chasing after him. And you ever fucking notice that whenever a young black man is shot we always try to build a narrative on why it was okay to do so?
And more importantly, cops are there to protect us. I could literally call them every name in the book and it should still be expected they protect me because that is their goddamn job. We shouldn’t expect members of the population to be extra careful around those jackbooted thugs under fear of getting shot for not being contrite enough.
Cerberus
Roch and Starscreamer-
Ew, no.
And not to drag us too far down the rabbit hole, but you both might want to spend a goodly portion of time examining why you happen to believe that every gunned down unarmed black teenager did something to deserve it (and why you believe a white person would have been treated the same) when we’ve seen how cops will go out of their way with white criminals to talk them down even when they are pointing loaded firearms at cops.
Dr. T
I won’t argue in defense of Brown, but I will for Martin. I ask you to consider the following scenario:
You are walking to your grandmother’s house when you notice someone following you in his car. He is clearly trailing you and has a look that gives the impression that he has ill intentions for you. You have very good reason to believe that you are about to get assaulted. What do you do? Do you confront him or run?
Let’s say you run rather than confront the guy stalking you. The guy starts chasing you, which probably confirms your impression that he wishes to harm you. You run hard for several minutes and think that you got away, so you stop for a minute to catch your breath and try to reorient yourself (you are in a strange neighborhood, after all). As you are recovering you notice that your stalker has caught up to you. What do you do? Do you run again in a neighborhood that you do not know? Bear in mind that he has a car, so outrunning him is unlikely and he has just proven that. With that in mind, what do you do?
Well, in that case 99.99% of all people will go on the attack in their own defense. It’s not like you would be randomly attacking someone; you would be attacking the guy that stalked and chased you, all without ever identifying himself as someone who was part of the neighborhood watch. You would be defending yourself, as did Martin. He just defended himself against someone who chased him with a gun.
Rutee
Martin was an innocent victim – If Martin and Zimmerman both been white, Martin would *STILL* have a nigh-undefeatable self-defense charge, because Martin was being stalked by an unknown assailant who was threatening them (I specify both because ‘white person gets off for attacking brown man’ doesn’t mean much). And keep in mind, Zimmerman ONLY had a case with SYG! Martin’s case is strong under NORMAL self defense laws – he didn’t need SYG’s expansion of the definition! So no, Martin is literally an innocent victim.
Brown was a petty, unarmed thief. It literally does not matter whether he’s ‘innocent’. He was not a threat, and shouldn’t have been shot to death – period. But you know, white people are always looking for every excuse to strip protections from us that they expect daily.
chubisus
I don’t believe Sal has ever been unwilling to admit she’s done wrong. At most, she got angry at Walky for repeatedly bringing the robbery up against her (reasonable since she’s done her time, so to speak). I’m also not sure Sal has ever played the victim in regards to her injury from Amber. She’s even done Amber a favor here (besides saving her life), in spite of the fact that Amber tried to attack her in a parking lot the last time they met.
Amber, on the other hand stabbed Sal after she was already in custody. Aggravated assault; not cool. And then she repeated this behavior by targeting Sal for beat downs.
I’d say apologies from both are in order, but Amber would have to start if only because she’s the only one “in the know” regarding their shared past. Admittedly, it would also be fine if Amber could just play it cool and they never interact again beyond bare minimum. As we learned, however, Amber continues to escalate…
Cerberus
Has Sal even mentioned the injury on panel yet? It seems the whole point of the motorcycle gloves worn at all times is so she can not ever have to explain that whole incident to anyone.
And yeah on the aggrieved assault. It’s also worth noting how callous that “record, how annoying” comment really is. Sal committed a petty theft and was duly arrested and went through a good chunk of the system for it. Amber committed grievous assault causing enough damage to result in permanent scarring in front of police officers and based on the flashbacks seems to have been de-escalated by the police and then she was immediately turned back over to her (admittedly abusive) guardian, with little in the way of official punishment.
So, intentional or not, Amazi-girl is claiming a sense of smug superiority over a situation where Sal got a stricter punishment and Amber got off for a worse crime largely due to Amber’s race and possibly overly shy demeanor. And this is not to mention that she committed this same crime of aggravated assault earlier this month, again, with no arrest (this time due to not being at the scene of the crime when cops arrived).
And ignoring that Amazi-girl is probably stumbling into a thicket of systemic messages Sal has been probably hearing half of her life about the general value of “criminals”, and especially black kids with records, not to mention the general racist harassment she has likely sustained by cops and other authority figures over the years for being black and a bit of a counterculture rebel.
So if we’re talking about serving as each other’s triggers, these two really are. For Amazi-girl, Sal is the ultimate red flashback panel that causes her brain to shut down and go into stupid jerk mode. For Sal, Amazi-girl is the embodiment of the judgmental white authority that has flooded her with microaggressions her whole life.
It is somewhat telling about their relative progresses with their triggers that Sal still tries to reason and de-escalate and offer good advice and Amber actively refuses any outreach so as to continue justifying the personal conflict. (And it makes sense, Sal had to confront those and sort them early on to not end up in jail, while Amber is only just starting to sort through her mental baggage and is only first starting to make the mistakes of her recovery).
Lord Stoneheart
Has Sal actually talked to anybody onscreen about the robbery? And she has no idea that Amber=Amazi Girl, or Amber was the one in the convenience store that day. All she knows is that someone in a costume seems to have a grudge against her for underage drinking.
Bicycle Bill
Her brother had thrown it up in her face once while Billie (Sal’s original roommate) was present, so I suppose it’s safe to assume that Billie knows.
Needfuldoer
Billie and the twins are from the same hometown. (At least they went to school together…) She probably has a better picture of Sal’s past than any of the other main characters.
John
Billie was not aware the reasons Sal was sent away to Catholic school until Walky told her on the first day of class.
Bicycle Bill
Wrong link. Try this one instead.
Starscreamer
Kinda sounds like Sal’s the racist. Not Walky. Cause look at the way they’re drawn. Neither is whiter or blacker. Though it bothers me that such a thing should matter in today’s world.
Lord Stoneheart
So by suggesting that their parents treated them differently based on certain traits associated with race (notice the difference between Walky’s hair and Sal’s hair before she murders the curls out of it), Sal’s the real racist? Uh…
Nightsbridge
Everyone knows the racism-pointer-outer is always the worstest person everer!
This statement is facetious.
Heavensrun
There are traits that are associated with “being black” and “being white”, and they are not all physical.
Cerberus
It’s about behavior. Black people in society are treated better by general society the more “unthreatening they are” and this is usually defined by a host of characteristics that are seen as “whiter behavior”, specifically, straightened hair, non-southern or non-slang vernacular, academic success, not calling people out on racism, and so on.
It’s why studies have shown that black individuals who are seen as having “black names” or having what is seen as having “black modes of dress” are often treated as less professional, less capable, and more dangerous than those who are not. It’s why things like “hoodies” became national dog-whistles for White America.
Angry Black Woman had a good article on some of the ways that all mixes in with general internalized racism: http://theangryblackwoman.com/2009/07/28/internalized-racism-the-silent-face-of-bigotry/
Cerberus
Nightsbridge-
Yup. Also, funny enough, true of anyone who points out any axis of oppression or source of inequality. Noticing things and pointing it out makes you doubleplus hitler ungood. And this is obviously true for reasons other than the fact that honestly deconstructing complex systems of bigotry and inequality in this country makes those with privilege uncomfortable owing to the way they equate noticing things like that and not being a part of the problem as critical to being a “good person” and so are more likely to get defensive and dismiss observations out of hand rather than accept that we’re all swimming in a toxic mess of culture and systemic oppression and that recognizing and processing that is a crucial step for our entire culture to grow and move past it, solving the inequities of what has gone before and that this enriches both minority group and privileged group both.
(For this last point, note how the world hasn’t collapsed when women were no longer kept out of most jobs outside the home and how that has helped both men and women create healthier relationships and more stable households).
Pl0x
She also saved Amber’s life.