I mean in this case, her instincts just so happen to be pretty spot-on in regards to what partially spurned Dorothy on at the last second during the protest. And considering her heritage, she has the right to cynical about this topic.
This so much. It’s just like when people cry that corporations are supporting things like pride just to cash in. Well, duh, of course. It is still a good thing as it helps normalise and remove stigmas. Being backed by the money-mongers means that your movement is finally picking up enough cultural cachet that people who only care about money sees it as an investment worth the potential risk. (i.e. being boycotted by bigots).
Now that in Trump’s America corporations are recoiling away from supporting progressive causes, all the people who complained about their virtue parading might learn a thing or two.
What heritage? She’s American who lives in America, and she’s a socialite who cares only about herself. We’re not talking about Asma here.
Plus it’s not really her cynicism speaking; it’s just her personal dislike of everyone in Sarah’s friend group.
Doopyboop
Raidah is still Muslim even if she doesn’t wear a hijab… so it’s exactly like we’re talking about Asma here? If Asma’s heritage as a Muslim woman is recognized so too should Raidah’s.
Ed Callahan
Well, Raidah’s family comes from the Middle East but you can’t assume she’s Muslim. There are a considerable number of Christian Arabs of various flavors (Copt, Marionite, Orthodox – they have their Patriarch in Jerusalem- Assyrian Apostolic. Or her family may no longer practice Islam. Maybe Raidah is a stone atheist.
She’s definitely a Muslim. In addition to the strip Sean Franco linked, there’s one of the strips where Sarah is zoning out while Jacob talks, fantasizing about him, and he mentions a very specific Muslim religious practice – I forget what, but it had to do with one of Raidah’s baby siblings or nephews – had to do with a lamb or something. The text is partially obscured by Sarah’s imagination, but it’s still pretty clear.
Sean and Ivkra are correct. I didn’t assume she was Muslim, I remembered when she talked about going to a mosque while discussing religion with Joyce.
KM
…dude reread what you implied about Asma again and think about why that’s incredibly racist.
Biblioholic93
“What heritage” is far worse than implying Asma does not share the culture. Because one is objectively true, however distasteful it might be to phrase it like that, in that context.
The context giving root of the comment should be the thing you point at with that word. Yes, we SHOULDNT be afraid to call a spade a spade, and therefore racist implications racist. But the discourse is a little polluted with accusations so readily slung with so little effort to explain.
I don’t think asking them to reread and then slinging an accusation (by their perspective not ours), solves anything honestly.
KM
Fair point. I just viscerally didn’t like the implication that Asma (assuming she’s also American born like Raidah) was any less “American” and knee jerked a obtuse response.
Fwiw I don’t think it’s been established Asma isn’t a foreign student on a Visa, thinking about it.
Biblioholic93
Dude, just because you might be white and hate your own culture or love it too much, which the heck ever, doesn’t mean you can write THEM BOTH OFF as any manner of not belonging.
Migrant rights are human rights are citizen’s rights.
MAYBE look up the Tuskegee experiments and consider why black folks would not trust ANY American institution, medical, police, political or otherwise. What heritage? The heritage of being a woman when nurses will take any excuse to write in your charts you are hysterically drug seeking because you accurately stated the symptoms of a now well documented medical condition like endometriosis. The heritage of being black where their pain straight up is in doubt MORE explicitly than that. The heritage of yes, her family being rich, but in rich suaree circles she no doubt got to be dragged on the racism being more insideous, more masked but more present statistically, among all old money in this country.
See example: Trump extended family not liking him releasing MLK files at ALL because it reminds us what those with the last name of Trump were doing and saying in the civil rights era. Donald Sr. was a SERIOUS critic of the good Doctor Reverant. Critic is a very generous word for it in fact.
Being selfish doesn’t mean you deserve less rights and less consideration as a human being than anyone else, period, that’s what concerns us about what you said. And I’m sure some other stuff too, but I’m not equipped to speak on that. I just know the history you’re being VERY flippant about.
None of this is remotely fully dealt with “in 2025” as they keep sighing wistfully about.
Dorothys race had next to nothing to do with it, she was there because shes spirtalling about what she can do that actually matters and helps.
She didnt do it because “I’m white and important”. Like, at least the “white freshman” showed up unlike her.
Thecatcameback
Dorothy did it because she was spiraling about what she can do that actually matters and helps, not because it’s horrific for educational institutions to fund/support bombing civilians, but because it furthered her own character development and reaffirmed her sense of self. She ignored the recommendations of the protest leader and made out with Joyce instead. Also, it’s a lot safer for white people to go to protests where police might be involved, so saying Raidah wasn’t there isn’t a fair critique of her character.
It’s good for white people to show up to protests, hell, having more bodies helps, even if they show up for the wrong reasons. But Raidah’s criticism is kinda spot on…
geno
Raidah doesn’t really know these people. Touch some grass
SarahTerra
That’s true. She also blindsided them with hostilty and aggression. There’s no need for her – or you – to act like that.
And she even projects it onto everyone else, regardless of context. She’s an empty cynic who’s only civil to people she can try to bank status off of, so naturally everyone else is too.
She might be right about why they did, but she’s still wrong. She could be encouraging them to do it for the right reasons, encouraging them to do more research, and/or encouraging them to keep trying to help.
Dismissing them, and saying their help is worthless is a step back, not forward.
Dot
Not her job to coddle the white ladies!
ZombieKyrik
That’s not coddling; that’s just helping others do the right thing. Our actions shape our thoughts, and vice versa. Continuing to help will help them learn, and grow.
Raidah doesn’t need to coddle she just needs to stop belittling people.
Theozilla
It’s really not belittling in this case though, because her assessment is basically spot-on.
ZombieKyrik
Assuming someone did something good only for themselves? Accurate, or not that’s still belittling someone. Raidah didn’t have to include the comment she did so to make Joyce and Dorothy feel lesser; not teach them, not argue, not debate, not even asking if they went for the right reasons. Raidah’s comment is intended to be belittling whether she is right or not.
Theozilla
Raidah doesn’t have an obligation to “teach them” though. And the main reason why Raidah is cynical about this specific topic is because reality has validated that cynicism for many PoC many times in real life. Raidah is being rude and harsh sure, but belittling does not fit because in this case Raidah being right about her assumption doesn’t mean she saying it just to make them feel smaller but rather forces self-reflection just in a mean manner.
ZombieKyrik
Being right about why they did it isn’t the point; even if they had done it for the right reasons Raidah’s comment was designed to put their efforts down.
Vanessa
She could just have kept her mouth shut.
ZombieKyrik
@Theozilla
I can’t reply to the comment since we have to many in a row.
You make a good point that it does make them reflect. I still think Raidah only said it to make them feel lesser. Yes no one is obligated to teach anyone anything. However if you believe something is doing good for the world then you should at minimum want more people to understand. Raidah’s not doing that here; ironically I feel like Raidah is saying that to make herself feel superior, even if it does no good in the world.
Theozilla
I don’t doubt that Raidah has contempt for them, but I don’t think think Raidah was concerned about whether she was making them feel lesser, I think she was just cynically bitter and wanted to express said bitterness.
Formerly Glenn
Her assessment *happens* to be spot on.
For all Raidah knows, they could have easily have done it for the right reasons.
That’s the thing about people, they’re not all the same.
thejeff
That’s a lot of it. She was right about these two, but mostly by accident.
Would she have reacted differently to Jocelyne?
Li
Would Raidah have reacted differently to an older woman she doesn’t know than she reacted to these two girls whom she both knows and dislikes? Um, yes, I think she would have.
Michelle J Caboose
Actually her assessment is WAY off. They didn’t go to the protest to get attention. They went to the protest to warn Jocelyne her dad might be on to her. Dorothy stayed because she wanted to do something meaningful for once, instead of always playing it safe, and Joyce stayed because she wanted to support Dorothy.
Sure, Dorothy wasn’t doing it for the “right reason,” but she wasn’t doing it to get attention, either.
Actively ridiculing for trying to help will ALWAYS be wrong. Period. Doubly wrong when you probably don’t give a flip about the protests personally one way or the other.
(I will eat those words if Raidah actually is shown to care later. But I suspect I will go hungry)
Freemage
We’ll starve together, brother!
Veronica
I would bet a single cheese pizza that Ridah only cares about the protests when she can use it as a weapon to make others feel small.
Michelle J Caboose
Exactly. Criticizing people for doing the right thing, whatever their reasons for doing it, increases the chance they won’t want to do it again.
Biblioholic93
There’s a difference between not coddling and not endorsing that ANY ACTION THEY COULD POSSIBLE TAKE, COULDNT POSSIBLY BE for the right reasons.
Difference between ambivalence and absolute passive aggressive hostility, and pretending they are JUST their relationship with Sarah who she doesn’t like, or JUST young when she’s all of 1-2 years older than them, or JUST white, as if defining people by their label they can literally not help being, isn’t some type of bigoted. Even if reverse racist isn’t a thing considering racism is a modern and WESTERN and CHRISTIAN and WHITE concept… it’s still not nice.
And yeah, Dotty’s right, can’t succinctly and politely say a single thing to that.
Kind of, say you don’t want to talk, while saying a lot for someone who doesn’t want to talk. She could have just passed them by. But she’s gotta get the “You Reek” in and then get the last line off.
Solves nothing, crab pot mentality. Don’t discourage the behavior you want to see. Other stuff like that. Buh, Raidah… I just wanted to keep thinking about how garbage roof all of these kids are sometimes.
Tan
Not her job to gatekeep a protest she didn’t attend, either.
Biblioholic93
Being a Muslim woman of color, she also had a LOT MORE to lose than most, so not physically attending a protest that was that night made illegal isn’t exactly all that selfish, self-absorbed or unrealistic.
It’s not her job to shout that they stink and be rude because she doesn’t like the people that make Sarah happy, be fair, haha.
Also keeping in mind that this is the Joyce who “teleported back 5 feet” after being informed she was Muslim, and Dorothy who genuinely was naive to have to be told it’s basically in a US president’s job description to aid, aibet, and actively rubber stamp more war crimes every. Single. Year. Globally.
So them going to the protest is a step up, but she has no reason to think both of them are model citizens because they attended a rally without reading ahead that morning if it was still a legal assembly (which in the eyes of the CONSTITUTION it is! Despite the uni having the technical right to ban it on their grounds, they are absolutely a traditional public forum even if they are a private owned business as well. You can’t get more traditional a public forum than an academy, the ancient Greeks had academies of sorts. The concept of a university started in the pit of an amphitheatre, literally, the basis of philosophy and PUBLICIZED higher learning IS social.
So even if they are private businesses either you accept all protests or none of them, choosing between them is discrimination.
But anyways all to say, not exactly a simple conversation. I’d link the recent Dannyphantom.exe short of “everything is that deep” here…
… Oh, other ppl are doing it, ban me if ye must willis
Lol I guess not RECENT recent but I only seen it today
HueSatLight
you don’t know she wasn’t there.
TheOthin
She didn’t say it was worthless. What she did was guess (correctly) that their involvement was driven primarily by personal motivations rather than political ones.
JR
The personal motivation to warn Joyce’s sister that she may be outed to their father? Not exactly a selfish motive deserving of random ire from someone who starts a conversation with a cruel comment about how you smell. Raidah went into this conversation intending to be mean well before politics entered the discussion.
Derek
you’re not exactly refuting Raidah’s point that Joyce and Dorothy don’t know or care about Palestine Bulmeria, they were there for reasons almost completely divorced from actual political activism
Freemage
Except Raidah didn’t limit herself to accusing them of not being there for the ‘right’ reason; she specifically opted to put on them the worst possible reason she could think of–one that, as it turns out, was only about 25% correct (they were originally there to warn Jocelyn, then Dotty arguably picked up the sign to be visibly ‘doing right’–that is, for the attention–but even then, Joyce didn’t give two flying fucks about attention-grabbing; all her fucks were for being there for Dotty).
not someone else
The extent to which they were “doing it for attention” was also the complete duration of time in which either of them were actually protesting, though.
Ed Callahan
Dorothy picked up that sign to be right, right then, regardless of the cost. No more carefully modulated dissent that won’t undercut the long-term goal of being President. Dorothy’s now flying the flag of anger.
Madock345
I think even that’s an uncharitable reading of Dorothy who seemed to be going full self-destructive and had no consideration of the “optics” at all.
HueSatLight
civility police.
Kimi
Reminds me of my highschool days where all the teachers would dismiss student petitions and protests and basically saying discouraging things about how we can’t change anything. This was even about new things the school wanted to do, like keeping the same teachers for freshman and sophmore year for core classes (ie math, science, history and English), that the students DID NOT want to do. It was a very depressing thing to constantly hear. Nothing more demeaning than your school constantly saying that we don’t care about your thoughts or opinions. No one likes being patronized.
Freemage
Actually, she’s only right about Dorothy–Joyce did it because Dotty was there, and because she trusts Jocelyn to be on the right side of things. Not pure motives, of course, but then, we’ve never seen anything resembling a pure motive from Raidah, either.
HueSatLight
Not related to today’s strip, is it too soon to wonder how long until Dorothy and Joyce break up?
HueSatLight
not a reply, misplaced by forum
Nymph
Never too soon for that, gimme your guess.
Dot
Willis seems quite convinced they’ll be endgame but… I don’t think they’re interesting enough as a romantic pairing for that. It feels to me, as a writer, like it’d be very very easy for them to get into a rut. It’ll be a few years, but I think we’ll eventually start to see some struggling to figure out where else they have to go.
Li
It feels silly to even say “well that’s subjective” — obviously you know that!
I do think that Willis saying that Joyce and Dorothy bein’ gay at each other were one of their favorite parts of DoA indicate that they will be able to maintain interest, but I’ll be a contrarian for a moment and say that writing subtext IS different from writing text.
Also, of course, so far it seems like the likelihood a couple has of being happy and stable over the long term is kinda inverse-proportional to how front-and-center they are.
But there are also types of drama that don’t break couples up, too, like I don’t think Dina and Becky are in danger, despite several significant bumps.
It’s interesting that Dorothy didn’t join the protest to feel better about herself, rather it was the ineffectiveness of her prior world view and the hypocrisy of changing the rules at a point where she was particularly vulnerable. But she was vulnerable because she was feeling seriously bad about herself due to Joyce related angst. And now she doesn’t really feel so bad about herself, although she arguably has more reason to.
Nah, Raidah’s just the type to turn her nose up at people because she would rather be above someone who actually goes to a protest. Note, her ass wasn’t there, but I bet she’s totally okay with takin the credit as a black woman from other black women puttin in the effort.
Yes she is. She’s judging them by their race without ANY other evidence. That is absolutely racist. Imagine if someone said”I think you’re the thief because you’re black.” about a black character who had stolen something, but the person who said it didn’t know that and assumed only based on race. That would be called out as incredibly racist immediately.
The reason they were there was to make sure of the safety of Joyce’s trans sister. Everything else was a side effect of their drama or them being unprepared, but that original reason for going is not what Raidah expected or knows.
And that’s a key reason not to retort, because it’s a *relief* that she doesn’t know. Social climbers with little sense of ethics but aiming for a career in law regardless are traditionally not kind to trans people, we have one as Prime Minister the UK at the moment.
809 thoughts on “Reek”
ZombieKyrik
Wow Raidah is a bongo, and she refuses to let the world forget.
Theozilla
I mean in this case, her instincts just so happen to be pretty spot-on in regards to what partially spurned Dorothy on at the last second during the protest. And considering her heritage, she has the right to cynical about this topic.
Lumino
Yeah, I was gonna say. Raidah may be a bongo, but she’s only the third worst bongo in this strip at the moment.
Tan
I dunno, I’ll take “showing up for the wrong reasons” over “didn’t show up at all”
Steamweed
^^^ This right here. Participation is the critical thing.
Vulcanodon
^^zactly.
Badger
Zactly x 2.
Pylgrim
This so much. It’s just like when people cry that corporations are supporting things like pride just to cash in. Well, duh, of course. It is still a good thing as it helps normalise and remove stigmas. Being backed by the money-mongers means that your movement is finally picking up enough cultural cachet that people who only care about money sees it as an investment worth the potential risk. (i.e. being boycotted by bigots).
Now that in Trump’s America corporations are recoiling away from supporting progressive causes, all the people who complained about their virtue parading might learn a thing or two.
someone
What heritage? She’s American who lives in America, and she’s a socialite who cares only about herself. We’re not talking about Asma here.
Plus it’s not really her cynicism speaking; it’s just her personal dislike of everyone in Sarah’s friend group.
Doopyboop
Raidah is still Muslim even if she doesn’t wear a hijab… so it’s exactly like we’re talking about Asma here? If Asma’s heritage as a Muslim woman is recognized so too should Raidah’s.
Ed Callahan
Well, Raidah’s family comes from the Middle East but you can’t assume she’s Muslim. There are a considerable number of Christian Arabs of various flavors (Copt, Marionite, Orthodox – they have their Patriarch in Jerusalem- Assyrian Apostolic. Or her family may no longer practice Islam. Maybe Raidah is a stone atheist.
Sean Franco
This seems to indicate that she is a practicing Muslim: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-8/01-face-the-strange/guzzle/
Ivkra
She’s definitely a Muslim. In addition to the strip Sean Franco linked, there’s one of the strips where Sarah is zoning out while Jacob talks, fantasizing about him, and he mentions a very specific Muslim religious practice – I forget what, but it had to do with one of Raidah’s baby siblings or nephews – had to do with a lamb or something. The text is partially obscured by Sarah’s imagination, but it’s still pretty clear.
Doopyboop
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/physical-2/ Found it!
Doopyboop
Sean and Ivkra are correct. I didn’t assume she was Muslim, I remembered when she talked about going to a mosque while discussing religion with Joyce.
KM
…dude reread what you implied about Asma again and think about why that’s incredibly racist.
Biblioholic93
“What heritage” is far worse than implying Asma does not share the culture. Because one is objectively true, however distasteful it might be to phrase it like that, in that context.
The context giving root of the comment should be the thing you point at with that word. Yes, we SHOULDNT be afraid to call a spade a spade, and therefore racist implications racist. But the discourse is a little polluted with accusations so readily slung with so little effort to explain.
I don’t think asking them to reread and then slinging an accusation (by their perspective not ours), solves anything honestly.
KM
Fair point. I just viscerally didn’t like the implication that Asma (assuming she’s also American born like Raidah) was any less “American” and knee jerked a obtuse response.
Fwiw I don’t think it’s been established Asma isn’t a foreign student on a Visa, thinking about it.
Biblioholic93
Dude, just because you might be white and hate your own culture or love it too much, which the heck ever, doesn’t mean you can write THEM BOTH OFF as any manner of not belonging.
Migrant rights are human rights are citizen’s rights.
MAYBE look up the Tuskegee experiments and consider why black folks would not trust ANY American institution, medical, police, political or otherwise. What heritage? The heritage of being a woman when nurses will take any excuse to write in your charts you are hysterically drug seeking because you accurately stated the symptoms of a now well documented medical condition like endometriosis. The heritage of being black where their pain straight up is in doubt MORE explicitly than that. The heritage of yes, her family being rich, but in rich suaree circles she no doubt got to be dragged on the racism being more insideous, more masked but more present statistically, among all old money in this country.
See example: Trump extended family not liking him releasing MLK files at ALL because it reminds us what those with the last name of Trump were doing and saying in the civil rights era. Donald Sr. was a SERIOUS critic of the good Doctor Reverant. Critic is a very generous word for it in fact.
Being selfish doesn’t mean you deserve less rights and less consideration as a human being than anyone else, period, that’s what concerns us about what you said. And I’m sure some other stuff too, but I’m not equipped to speak on that. I just know the history you’re being VERY flippant about.
None of this is remotely fully dealt with “in 2025” as they keep sighing wistfully about.
Balger
Dorothys race had next to nothing to do with it, she was there because shes spirtalling about what she can do that actually matters and helps.
She didnt do it because “I’m white and important”. Like, at least the “white freshman” showed up unlike her.
Thecatcameback
Dorothy did it because she was spiraling about what she can do that actually matters and helps, not because it’s horrific for educational institutions to fund/support bombing civilians, but because it furthered her own character development and reaffirmed her sense of self. She ignored the recommendations of the protest leader and made out with Joyce instead. Also, it’s a lot safer for white people to go to protests where police might be involved, so saying Raidah wasn’t there isn’t a fair critique of her character.
It’s good for white people to show up to protests, hell, having more bodies helps, even if they show up for the wrong reasons. But Raidah’s criticism is kinda spot on…
geno
Raidah doesn’t really know these people. Touch some grass
SarahTerra
That’s true. She also blindsided them with hostilty and aggression. There’s no need for her – or you – to act like that.
Taffy
And she even projects it onto everyone else, regardless of context. She’s an empty cynic who’s only civil to people she can try to bank status off of, so naturally everyone else is too.
Rabid Rabbit
Clearly, we need to set her up with Rachel.
Steamweed
Am I the only one holding a torch for Mary/Raidah?
tim gueguen
I suspect there is something genuinely broken about Mary. Hooking up with Raidah would make that worse.
Queen Anthai
She isn’t wrong, though
ZombieKyrik
She might be right about why they did, but she’s still wrong. She could be encouraging them to do it for the right reasons, encouraging them to do more research, and/or encouraging them to keep trying to help.
Dismissing them, and saying their help is worthless is a step back, not forward.
Dot
Not her job to coddle the white ladies!
ZombieKyrik
That’s not coddling; that’s just helping others do the right thing. Our actions shape our thoughts, and vice versa. Continuing to help will help them learn, and grow.
Raidah doesn’t need to coddle she just needs to stop belittling people.
Theozilla
It’s really not belittling in this case though, because her assessment is basically spot-on.
ZombieKyrik
Assuming someone did something good only for themselves? Accurate, or not that’s still belittling someone. Raidah didn’t have to include the comment she did so to make Joyce and Dorothy feel lesser; not teach them, not argue, not debate, not even asking if they went for the right reasons. Raidah’s comment is intended to be belittling whether she is right or not.
Theozilla
Raidah doesn’t have an obligation to “teach them” though. And the main reason why Raidah is cynical about this specific topic is because reality has validated that cynicism for many PoC many times in real life. Raidah is being rude and harsh sure, but belittling does not fit because in this case Raidah being right about her assumption doesn’t mean she saying it just to make them feel smaller but rather forces self-reflection just in a mean manner.
ZombieKyrik
Being right about why they did it isn’t the point; even if they had done it for the right reasons Raidah’s comment was designed to put their efforts down.
Vanessa
She could just have kept her mouth shut.
ZombieKyrik
@Theozilla
I can’t reply to the comment since we have to many in a row.
You make a good point that it does make them reflect. I still think Raidah only said it to make them feel lesser. Yes no one is obligated to teach anyone anything. However if you believe something is doing good for the world then you should at minimum want more people to understand. Raidah’s not doing that here; ironically I feel like Raidah is saying that to make herself feel superior, even if it does no good in the world.
Theozilla
I don’t doubt that Raidah has contempt for them, but I don’t think think Raidah was concerned about whether she was making them feel lesser, I think she was just cynically bitter and wanted to express said bitterness.
Formerly Glenn
Her assessment *happens* to be spot on.
For all Raidah knows, they could have easily have done it for the right reasons.
That’s the thing about people, they’re not all the same.
thejeff
That’s a lot of it. She was right about these two, but mostly by accident.
Would she have reacted differently to Jocelyne?
Li
Would Raidah have reacted differently to an older woman she doesn’t know than she reacted to these two girls whom she both knows and dislikes? Um, yes, I think she would have.
Michelle J Caboose
Actually her assessment is WAY off. They didn’t go to the protest to get attention. They went to the protest to warn Jocelyne her dad might be on to her. Dorothy stayed because she wanted to do something meaningful for once, instead of always playing it safe, and Joyce stayed because she wanted to support Dorothy.
Sure, Dorothy wasn’t doing it for the “right reason,” but she wasn’t doing it to get attention, either.
Taffy
Not a single person is asking for that.
Freezer
Actively ridiculing for trying to help will ALWAYS be wrong. Period. Doubly wrong when you probably don’t give a flip about the protests personally one way or the other.
(I will eat those words if Raidah actually is shown to care later. But I suspect I will go hungry)
Freemage
We’ll starve together, brother!
Veronica
I would bet a single cheese pizza that Ridah only cares about the protests when she can use it as a weapon to make others feel small.
Michelle J Caboose
Exactly. Criticizing people for doing the right thing, whatever their reasons for doing it, increases the chance they won’t want to do it again.
Biblioholic93
There’s a difference between not coddling and not endorsing that ANY ACTION THEY COULD POSSIBLE TAKE, COULDNT POSSIBLY BE for the right reasons.
Difference between ambivalence and absolute passive aggressive hostility, and pretending they are JUST their relationship with Sarah who she doesn’t like, or JUST young when she’s all of 1-2 years older than them, or JUST white, as if defining people by their label they can literally not help being, isn’t some type of bigoted. Even if reverse racist isn’t a thing considering racism is a modern and WESTERN and CHRISTIAN and WHITE concept… it’s still not nice.
And yeah, Dotty’s right, can’t succinctly and politely say a single thing to that.
Kind of, say you don’t want to talk, while saying a lot for someone who doesn’t want to talk. She could have just passed them by. But she’s gotta get the “You Reek” in and then get the last line off.
Solves nothing, crab pot mentality. Don’t discourage the behavior you want to see. Other stuff like that. Buh, Raidah… I just wanted to keep thinking about how garbage roof all of these kids are sometimes.
Tan
Not her job to gatekeep a protest she didn’t attend, either.
Biblioholic93
Being a Muslim woman of color, she also had a LOT MORE to lose than most, so not physically attending a protest that was that night made illegal isn’t exactly all that selfish, self-absorbed or unrealistic.
It’s not her job to shout that they stink and be rude because she doesn’t like the people that make Sarah happy, be fair, haha.
Also keeping in mind that this is the Joyce who “teleported back 5 feet” after being informed she was Muslim, and Dorothy who genuinely was naive to have to be told it’s basically in a US president’s job description to aid, aibet, and actively rubber stamp more war crimes every. Single. Year. Globally.
So them going to the protest is a step up, but she has no reason to think both of them are model citizens because they attended a rally without reading ahead that morning if it was still a legal assembly (which in the eyes of the CONSTITUTION it is! Despite the uni having the technical right to ban it on their grounds, they are absolutely a traditional public forum even if they are a private owned business as well. You can’t get more traditional a public forum than an academy, the ancient Greeks had academies of sorts. The concept of a university started in the pit of an amphitheatre, literally, the basis of philosophy and PUBLICIZED higher learning IS social.
So even if they are private businesses either you accept all protests or none of them, choosing between them is discrimination.
But anyways all to say, not exactly a simple conversation. I’d link the recent Dannyphantom.exe short of “everything is that deep” here…
… Oh, other ppl are doing it, ban me if ye must willis
https://youtube.com/shorts/sHFg-1h4BgQ?si=4DLK3M1CApxFJgBX
Lol I guess not RECENT recent but I only seen it today
HueSatLight
you don’t know she wasn’t there.
TheOthin
She didn’t say it was worthless. What she did was guess (correctly) that their involvement was driven primarily by personal motivations rather than political ones.
JR
The personal motivation to warn Joyce’s sister that she may be outed to their father? Not exactly a selfish motive deserving of random ire from someone who starts a conversation with a cruel comment about how you smell. Raidah went into this conversation intending to be mean well before politics entered the discussion.
Derek
you’re not exactly refuting Raidah’s point that Joyce and Dorothy don’t know or care about
PalestineBulmeria, they were there for reasons almost completely divorced from actual political activismFreemage
Except Raidah didn’t limit herself to accusing them of not being there for the ‘right’ reason; she specifically opted to put on them the worst possible reason she could think of–one that, as it turns out, was only about 25% correct (they were originally there to warn Jocelyn, then Dotty arguably picked up the sign to be visibly ‘doing right’–that is, for the attention–but even then, Joyce didn’t give two flying fucks about attention-grabbing; all her fucks were for being there for Dotty).
not someone else
The extent to which they were “doing it for attention” was also the complete duration of time in which either of them were actually protesting, though.
Ed Callahan
Dorothy picked up that sign to be right, right then, regardless of the cost. No more carefully modulated dissent that won’t undercut the long-term goal of being President. Dorothy’s now flying the flag of anger.
Madock345
I think even that’s an uncharitable reading of Dorothy who seemed to be going full self-destructive and had no consideration of the “optics” at all.
HueSatLight
civility police.
Kimi
Reminds me of my highschool days where all the teachers would dismiss student petitions and protests and basically saying discouraging things about how we can’t change anything. This was even about new things the school wanted to do, like keeping the same teachers for freshman and sophmore year for core classes (ie math, science, history and English), that the students DID NOT want to do. It was a very depressing thing to constantly hear. Nothing more demeaning than your school constantly saying that we don’t care about your thoughts or opinions. No one likes being patronized.
Freemage
Actually, she’s only right about Dorothy–Joyce did it because Dotty was there, and because she trusts Jocelyn to be on the right side of things. Not pure motives, of course, but then, we’ve never seen anything resembling a pure motive from Raidah, either.
HueSatLight
Not related to today’s strip, is it too soon to wonder how long until Dorothy and Joyce break up?
HueSatLight
not a reply, misplaced by forum
Nymph
Never too soon for that, gimme your guess.
Dot
Willis seems quite convinced they’ll be endgame but… I don’t think they’re interesting enough as a romantic pairing for that. It feels to me, as a writer, like it’d be very very easy for them to get into a rut. It’ll be a few years, but I think we’ll eventually start to see some struggling to figure out where else they have to go.
Li
It feels silly to even say “well that’s subjective” — obviously you know that!
I do think that Willis saying that Joyce and Dorothy bein’ gay at each other were one of their favorite parts of DoA indicate that they will be able to maintain interest, but I’ll be a contrarian for a moment and say that writing subtext IS different from writing text.
Also, of course, so far it seems like the likelihood a couple has of being happy and stable over the long term is kinda inverse-proportional to how front-and-center they are.
But there are also types of drama that don’t break couples up, too, like I don’t think Dina and Becky are in danger, despite several significant bumps.
Clif
It’s interesting that Dorothy didn’t join the protest to feel better about herself, rather it was the ineffectiveness of her prior world view and the hypocrisy of changing the rules at a point where she was particularly vulnerable. But she was vulnerable because she was feeling seriously bad about herself due to Joyce related angst. And now she doesn’t really feel so bad about herself, although she arguably has more reason to.
Pocky
Nah, Raidah’s just the type to turn her nose up at people because she would rather be above someone who actually goes to a protest. Note, her ass wasn’t there, but I bet she’s totally okay with takin the credit as a black woman from other black women puttin in the effort.
All about connections with her, remember?
MisterJinKC
Yes she is. She’s judging them by their race without ANY other evidence. That is absolutely racist. Imagine if someone said”I think you’re the thief because you’re black.” about a black character who had stolen something, but the person who said it didn’t know that and assumed only based on race. That would be called out as incredibly racist immediately.
Gwen
The reason they were there was to make sure of the safety of Joyce’s trans sister. Everything else was a side effect of their drama or them being unprepared, but that original reason for going is not what Raidah expected or knows.
And that’s a key reason not to retort, because it’s a *relief* that she doesn’t know. Social climbers with little sense of ethics but aiming for a career in law regardless are traditionally not kind to trans people, we have one as Prime Minister the UK at the moment.
Vanessa
Excellent point.
Marvelman
What do you mean by bongo?
DiDi
Substitute for bongo.
It’s a reference to how Joyce previously could not allow herself to swear. So that’s the word she’d use instead.
DiDi
And… it’s actually censored on here. I did not know that.
The “B” word. It’s a substitute for the “B” word. I hope that’s clear.
Taffy
Opposite order. People were immensely shitty about Roz, so the word got censored here, and then Joyce said it in the comic.
Isactuallyabear
Borngus.