306

Riot police
Posted on July 3, 2025 by David M Willis

306 thoughts on “Riot police”

  1. NGPZ

    yeah yeah yeah ya figured it out Dorothy

    fuck the system, trust in your VALUES

    now hahaha HURRY UP AND GET THE FUCK OUTTA DODGE!!! D:<

    *plays “Be Quick or Be Dead” by Iron Maiden on hacked muzak*

    1. True Survivor

      That is a nuts album cover.

      1. Embe13

        that is Iron Maiden!

      2. Dsr667

        It’s just iron maiden being iron maiden 🙂

  2. Animedingo

    GO HAVE THOSE AT YALE

    1. Nymph

      Try not to have any epiphanies on the way through the parking lot.

      1. Rose by Any other Name

        … didn’t the police already close off any ability to leave with that fence that closed behind them earlier? How is anyone supposed to disperse with that in the way?
        (Or was that put up by the protesters to stop the police from approaching?)

        1. Taffy

          It’s a flimsy-looking chain link fence, and it didn’t even seem to have any supports. My son could defeat it easily.

        2. Nymph

          RELEASE TAFFY’S SON! ALLOW HIM TO BULLDOZE THE SHACKLES OF OUR OPPRESSORS!

        3. Clif

          HEAR, HEAR!!

        4. Tequila Mockingbird

          Permission to request Liam Neeson (or someone who can do a really good Liam Neeson impression because I ain’t made of money) read this out loud with all the melodramatic bravado of the one scene anyone remembers from the Clash of the Titans remake.

        5. misabiko

          While I don’t disagree, based on their pfp I can’t help to think that to Taffy’s son, anything is flimsy-looking and could be defeated easily.

        6. nightlingbug

          the police did it! it’s a technique called “kettling”; they block off protestors’ ability to disperse and then arrest them for not dispersing (while teargassing/trampling them in the process)

        7. Taffy

          Yeah, the answer to “how are they supposed to disperse” is unfortunately “They’re not.”

          It’s really fucked up.

        8. Needfuldoer

          At least it’s winter, so there shouldn’t be any acorns falling on the patrol cars.

        9. Taffy

          Buncha chickenshit losers, cops.

        10. Proxiehunter

          They aren’t supposed to leave. They’re supposed to get arrested because they disobeyed the order to leave. The fact that the pigs made it physically imposible for them to leave is irrelevent, they gave an order and it wasn’t obeyed.

          See also situations where two police are present and each gives a different order where it’s impossible to obey both.

        11. Smallmoon

          The really fucked thing? That’s SOP because ‘giving conflicting orders confuses the suspect, making it harder for them to come up with a lie on the spot and/or think about attacking the officers’ This ALSO “justifies” the use of lethal force if a weapon is in the ‘suspect’s’ hand, because now they’re armed and disobedient.

        12. deliverything

          I couldn’t help noticing that, despite your judicious use of quotation marks, you omitted the ones around ‘weapon’. Curiously, the definition of this word often seems to vary based on the person holding the object in question…

        13. Proxiehunter

          Or not holding in the case of teenagers armed with the pavement.

        14. Arianod

          It’s a Catch 22 scenario: they make it impossible for people to disperse, then order them to disperse. In a police state, you can get away with doing stuff like that.

        15. thejeff

          Most likely, it’s set up to control access. It prevents more people from coming in to support the protest, but still has a gate or other controlled spot to let people leave.
          Once the time limit’s up and the cops do move in to arrest everyone who refused to leave, it also serves to keep them from scattering when the tear gas is used.

        16. Proxiehunter

          That’s not how kettling works.

        17. thejeff

          We’ll see what happens, though even that just depends on Willis’s understanding of what’s likely and of course on what works for the story.

        18. Blakey

          It is absolutely textbook standard for the dogs to prevent protestors from leaving in this scenario. The order to disperse isn’t for obeying, it’s for pressing charges later.

        19. thejeff

          Rarely at these early stages in the protest though. After a couple of attempts to clear the area, sure. Or after a couple nights of confrontations, absolutely.
          Very rarely as the first move.

          And both Jocelyne and Leslie seem to think Joyce and Dorothy can still get out, despite expecting to be arrested themselves.

      2. Michelle J Caboose

        … At one time?

      3. Orange Lantern

        it weren’t that many …

  3. jeffepp

    Cop it, it’s the cheese!

    1. Rose by Any other Name

      No no, that’s the other universe.

    2. Laura

      Who cut the cheese?

    3. Steamweed

      Why does seeing cops cause an appetite for cheese-flavored crackers?
      (thought it was supposed to be donuts, really…)

      1. cbwroses

        No no, Being a cop causes an appetite for donuts.
        Seeing a cop is the cheese flavored crackers.
        And if you’re a cop who sees another cop, you crave super donuts, which were a thing in American public school lunches where you’d place a slice of American cheese on top of the generic lunch donut and eat the combo (not a thing found in all areas).

  4. Thag Simmons

    Surprised they’ve got that much time.

    1. Lumino

      I mean, if these are real world cops they would start firing before the guy put the megaphone down.

    2. RassilonTDavros

      You think the cops are actually gonna wait that long?

      1. Thag Simmons

        Wouldn’t bet on it

      2. Reltzik

        This isn’t an active-shooter situation in a school, so no, why would they wait?

        1. Taffy

          Yeah, what is this, a real threat to people’s real lives? Cops aren’t for those, they’re there for stopping harmless things, like a peaceful protest where nobody’s armed, or a Black person trying to watch TV in their apartment after 7pm.

        2. Tequila Mockingbird

          Ah… laughing while crying bitterly. What was once such a rare emotion seems to now be a nearly daily occurrence.

    3. RonF

      Laws giving the power to police to declare an unlawful assembly contain a time period between the declaration and the point at which they can make arrests in order to give people time to disperse. That goes all the way back to the U.K. Riot Act of 1715, which once read out gave people 1 hour to disperse before arrest.

      1. Taffy

        Is that where the saying comes from?

        1. Blakey

          Yes. If it was determined that an assembly was unlawful (ie, people were trying to express any kind of solidarity or to resist an injustice), an officer would literally read out the “riot act”, which was the actual action required to make the assembly unlawful. The text to be read out runs:

          “Our sovereign lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. God save the King.”

          Apparently more than one conviction was overturned because the officer failed to read out part of the text, especially the final sentence.

    4. deliverything

      Just cynically speculating here, but… if they are indeed sealed in, as suggested by other commenters, a delay gives the protestors time to find out there’s no exit, panic, and maybe resort to desperate measures which can be conveniently interpreted as the protest turning violent.

  5. Taffy

    Cool, listen to the queer who lives in her own and is willing to get arrested, and get the fuck outta there.

    1. yak

      Better yet, hang around and go pick her up from jail later. While filming, of course.

      1. yak

        *hang around outside the protest, to be specific

  6. maxh

    30 minutes of warning seems like more than usual.

    1. Kevin K

      Did we say minutes? We meant seconds

      1. Taffy

        And those 30 seconds started about 25 seconds before the announcement.

    2. Reltzik

      Also, they’re supposed to make the warning too quiet to be audible to the bulk of the protestors. Didn’t they learn anything from Lafayette Square?

      1. Taffy

        One cop, whispering behind its hands, right next to a blaring siren. That counts as a warning, right?

  7. Charles Phipps

    Dorothy, I think you may have needed Robin and these events to be in politics.

    It seems your knowledge of it was….limited.

  8. Doopyboop

    Now that we have a better look at Jocelyne here, it reminds me that a few strips ago when all we had to go off of was the picture from Joyce’s dad, some commenters were curious whether Jocelyne was dressing masc or femme. And honestly? Her jacket is on par with Joyce and Dorothy. It doesn’t look overtly feminine, nor masculine. She’s got denim pants like Joyce and Dorothy. A purple shirt might come off as more femme but purple isn’t a “girls only” color. Gender and clothes is always silly. In the end, I think Jocelyne looks lovely in purple and brown. Very classy.

    1. Yumi

      Yeah, I wonder what Jocelyne thinks her dad knows. It’s possible that aside from clothes, Jocelyne looks visibly more feminine in-universe– longer hair, yes, and possibly also some changes from E that would be harder to convey in this comic style. So it might be that Hank could think something was up from her appearance, but subtle changes like that are often overlooked, especially by people not familiar with trans topics.

      (Trans people who are or have been on HTR, feel free to jump in with how long it took family members to notice if you didn’t tell them.)

      Anyway, Joyce’s message last strip wasn’t that clear about was said to her either, so Jocelyne could be thinking he sad something beyond what he did.

      1. Alongcameaspider

        Thinking about it, it’s entirely possible he’s more concerned with the politics of the protest Jocelyne is at considering their parents definitely raised them to be christian conservatives and this is definitely a leftist protest

        He’s improved but I doubt he’s completely realigned his political views

      2. Amara

        While I’m technically “closeted”, it’s really more of a DADT situation for the most part. My dad lives out of state, so I only see him 4-8 times a year anyways when he flies in to visit his parents (actually now that I think of it, that’s how often I see my mom and stepdad too, despite living 15 min away, since I spend major holidays with my wife’s family instead). I had grown a fairly noticeable rack by year 3, and that’s when he asked me flat out if I was transgender. (Not that it was out of the blue, he’d been making jokes about all the gender whatever’s I’ve been sharing on Facebook for years). He needed some time to process, only cried a little bit, but ultimately he was way more devastated when I told him my wife and I don’t plan to have children. Now that he’s nearing retirement, his biggest regret is not having more children of his own – I’m his only one. He’d also never admit it out loud, which is correct, but it’s obvious he regrets the divorce from my mom as well. He only remarried a couple years ago, but he’s been with his now-wife for like 2 decades together. And he has been thrilled to help raise the baby since his stepdaughter and her husband are super busy with work. Maybe that’s a cultural thing since I too was raised primarily by my grandparents.

        Nobody else has made any comments about it, at least not in my presence. My mom knew from the get go when she opened some insurance thing that had been sent to her place and called me to ask why I was on menopause medicine, but we haven’t talked about it at all in the 6 years since I’ve begun taking HRT.

      3. Jon

        When my nephew started coming out as trans as a late teen, my four siblings are all calling me going “don’t tell Mom and Dad! It would kill them!” (n.b. said nephew lived with and was mostly raised by Mom and Dad). Took years before they were told (which was a total non-problem).

        Like a decade later, I mentioned this to them and they commented “well, of course we knew all along. But we didn’t want to worry your siblings so we didn’t say anything.”

  9. Amós Batista

    Wait: no right to assembly? Is that what I read??

    1. NGPZ

      that’s how it really do go down in the United States, the One And Only Land of God, Guns and Freedom™ (9-9)

      1. Laura

        Or, as Georgia Republican gubernatorial candidate Kandiss Taylor boasted: “I believe in Jesus, guns, and babies.”
        https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0ws5V6jpDus

        1. NGPZ

          Is that the same one who claimed that over 6 BILLION people crossed the southern border “illegally” ? (-_-)

          (for reals I’ve had to stop paying attention to the news, I can’t help nobody if I lose my mind)

    2. Dr. T

      Well, that is what the law they passed says. It doesn’t matter if it’s unconstitutional. That was something that stopped mattering years ago.

    3. Reltzik

      From a legal theory standpoint, while people do have a right to peaceably assemble, there can be some limitations on time, place, and manner. For example, pro-lifers can assemble outside of a Planned Parenthood to protest, but are not allowed to block public access and must stay off of PP’s private property. In this case of this protest, it involves an encampment in Dunn Woods, which is against IU’s rules about what can be done on its property. The fact that this rule change got implemented JUST NOW for the sole purpose of shutting down THIS PROTEST doesn’t change that it’s completely constitutional. (Disclaimer: It probably does.)

      In practice, the only rights we have are the ones that we successfully fight for, or that people let us have without forcing us to fight for them. (Disclaimer: I’m counting non-violent protest as a form of fighting for the purposes of this sentiment.) If both sides are made up of decent people that fight can happen in a courtroom or the court of public opinion, but if not? A quarter-millennium-old piece of paper with words on it has never once stopped a police baton.

      1. thejeff

        Like you say, the legal theory is complicated. Fundamentally the legal theory makes sense: The right to protest can’t be completely unlimited – simply saying “I’m protesting” can’t override all other laws and regulations.
        In theory, such limits have to be content neutral: the government can you need a permit like any other large assembly and that you can’t block traffic or whatever, but they can’t grant such permits only to right wing protests and deny left ones. In practice? Well some groups definitely get treated more lightly.

    4. Kyulen

      In theory we have those rights, but in practice it’s always been the case that the wealthy and powerful in this country can do whatever they want, including sending the cops to arrest protesters.

      1. NGPZ

        this is the point of social conservatism: to see to it that there are in-groups who are protected by the law but not bound to it, alongside out-groups who are bound to the law but not protected by it

        1. Kyulen

          I see it as more the rich vs the poor, capitalist class vs working class, etc.

        2. NGPZ

          I mean private ownership is itself a part of law / social contract, no?

          money and the rules which govern how it works (and arguably the illusions which tend to surround it) also fall under this category

        3. Freemage

          Those are one of the in-group/out-group pairings, but there’s more. Divisions by race and by sex are the two oldest, and grafted firmly to the wealth division. The ultimate form of a property have-not is to be property yourself, after all, so if you can make the out-group into property, you can retain all that they would otherwise own for yourself. Enslaving ethnic outsiders or functionally enslaving women, is simply the most efficient means of maintaining their economic dominance.

    5. ESM

      This storyline is primarily a metaphor for anti-Israel protests at Columbia last year. In that case what happened was that the university itself called the cops because the protests were on their property.

      Police can also call an unlawful assembly if the protests have “mutual intent of deliberate disturbance of the peace” which is what happened to the LA anti-ICE protests of a few months ago, because the whole point of them was disrupting ICE activity directly (specifically by blocking access to federal buildings).

      In contrast to both, the No Kings anti-Trump protests in June were on public property and mostly were people standing around with signs, which is why the police basically ignored them all even though they were much bigger.

      Per Dorothy’s line in panel 3, apparently the state of Indiana outlawed this protest specifically this morning, which doesn’t have any real-life precedent that I’m aware of, though it’s entirely possible I’m just not getting the reference.

      1. ESM

        None of the above should be read as justifying the cops, by the way. Columbia siccing the NYPD on protestors was an awful decision, and the LAPD was fairly escalatory in the ICE protests. Nor should me noting the lack of cops at No Kings be read as some kind of weird diss on them for not being Cool Enough or whatever. They’re just different situations.

        1. ESM

          I’ve been told that Dorothy’s line means a CAMPUS law has been changed, not an actual law, and that the school sicced the cops on the protestors as trespassers, which would be fairly analogous to the Columbia protests.

      2. Psychie

        Actually it’s a metaphor for the anti-israel protests that happened at IU a few months ago (Or maybe it was last year, what even is time anymore?), a lot of the stuff is taken directly from things that happened at that protest specifically, like the sniper on the roof, and the fact that it had to do with the university being involved in supporting the Israeli government.

        I’d wager the law in question is in regard to the (allegedly) unconstitutional policy the university passed restricting our right to peaceful assembly on the campus. The university is currently being sued by the ACLU for this policy and an injunction was sent by the courts to prohibit the university from enforcing that policy until a ruling is made.

    6. RonF

      You have a right to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government to redress grievances. OTOH, you do not have a right to occupy public places for an indefinite period of time and thus prevent other members of the public from utilizing it. The tension between these is generally resolved by the provision and use of a process to obtain a permit to assemble in such public places for a specific period of time. That’s not just for protests; think of getting parade permits for St. Patrick’s Day (a damn big deal in Chicago and New York, for example).

      The question then becomes, what is the nature of this particular assembly? Clearly no permit was sought. Was a specific time period given, or was it organized to occupy the area indefinitely until some group’s demands were met? Is there a history of such assemblies becoming violent? Is there a history of certain groups of people being denied access to the area (e.g., Jewish students)? If this was a situation of a group saying “Everyone out to the quad between 3 – 6 P.M. to protest” then declaring it an unlawful assembly seems harsh. If the situation is “Everyone out to the quad at 3:00 P.M. Bring tents and gear and we’re going to stay there until the Board of Trustees meets with our leadership and accedes to our demands” then I can see declaring it an unlawful assembly as reasonable.

      1. thejeff

        The Meadow here commonly used for protests. It’s not clear if permits are usually required. According to Jocelyne (and the real events this was based on) the intent was to camp out until the demands were met.

        The difficulty is that the existing rules didn’t forbid that, so they were changed on the fly to allow the protest to be cleared, which makes it less reasonable. I’m not sure whether that was an oversite in old rules, which was only noticed when this encampment was planned or if there had been similar long term protests before. The latter would suggest the change in rules wasn’t content-neutral, which would be a legal problem.

  10. M!a

    …and the sky is blue, Dots.

  11. Reltzik

    So, riot police. Is this now officially a riot?

    It’s OBVIOUSLY not REALLY a riot, but is it officially one?

    1. Alongcameaspider

      On paper they show up to stuff like this in case it turns into a riot

      In practice they show up to make sure it turns into a riot

    2. yak

      Doesn’t need to be. As long as the head of the PD “feels justified”, they can deploy pretty much whatever gear they want. And they often have more gear than they know what to do with, thanks to all the military surplus that exists.

      1. Steamweed

        When “warrior cop mentality” and “when the only tool you got is a hammer…” combine.

    3. Kyulen

      The police are often the ones who start the riots, though they blame the protesters.

    4. Proxiehunter

      It’s not a riot until the riot police start it.

  12. Van Jealous

    Voice #1 “POLICE STATE”
    Voice #2 “POLICE STATE”
    Voice #3 “HELP! IT’S THE POLICE!”
    ….Firesign Theatre 1969

    1. Laura

      “Help! Police!“

    2. Annarchy

      Surprise you’ve been living under martial law for…… like your whole lives. How did you not notice?

  13. Peregrinus

    As with most “rights,” you have the right to peaceably assemble…
    until you use it.

    1. Taffy

      Too true.

    2. ESM

      The biggest protests in American history were literally a month ago. Boston alone had one million protestors (I was one of them!)

      I feel like this storyline is….kind of….doomerism? It’s awkward to talk about because I don’t want to sound like I’m defending cops but if the school didn’t call the cops (and if they did it’d dominate the comic forever so I understand why that was changed from reality) and the protest is a couple dozen people standing around with signs, that’s not a situation that normally ends with everyone getting arrested and telling everyone that it is I think discourages protests in reality.

      1. Psychie

        This literally happened on the IU campus, there was a protest, the university rules changed at the last second to make the protest illegal, cops were called, and arrests were made.

      2. SillyGoose

        I don’t think it’s doomerism as much as Rule of Drama.
        My bet is this whole thing lets Joyce and Dorothy develop their political consciousness, while experiencing a good scare which leads them to processing other emotions. It may result in a lot of different things, from a couples’ reshuffling to Dorothy finally leaving for Yale to a polycule to everyone being single and angsty.
        Jocelyne will spend a night at the police station, her Dad will ultimately hear about it and come pick her up, which leads to more developments on that front as well.
        Asma gets I trouble, for … wearing a hijab at a protest, I guess. Hopefully nothing too excessive, but Willis’ writing tends to be tight so I feel we saw her before for a reason.
        And this in turns leads to some Raidah screentime, with positive coverage this time, where we see her as a civil rights activist and not just Sarah’s harasser. Maybe Jacob’s brother shows up as a POC lawyer-mentor?

      3. Axel

        I wouldn’t call it doomerism until we know how it comes out, though unfortunately that may take a few years (even if this day doesn’t take too long, discovering all the fallout probably will).

  14. not someone else

    Wild ass guess: they finally leave and get caught by shitty cops. Jocelyne takes the fall somehow, they threaten to send her to jail, suddenly we have an Inverse Toedad Church Drive. Probably two or three B-plots in, Dorothy and Joyce confess their live to each other without actually having informed Joe, Walky, each other, or themselves first, but it all works out in the end because it turns out God answers all sapphic prayers, not just the lesbian ones.

    1. not someone else

      *love

      obviously

    2. Jess

      “Inverse Toedad Church Drive” is a beautiful phrase. sadly, I doubt ill ever have the opportunity to read it again… 🙁

  15. JA

    You ever get the feeling laws are only put in place to keep the poors in line? Seems there’s never a law to keep the richies in line.

    1. Drew Hargrave

      Excellent pfp for the comment

    2. Kyulen

      If the penalty for a crime is a fine, then that law only exists for the lower class.

    3. AeromechanicalAce

      Been having that feeling more or less nonstop since Occupy Wall Street, if anyone in here remembers that.

    4. Proxiehunter

      Laws are threats made by the dominant socioeconomic ethnic group in a given nation. It’s just the promise of violence that’s enacted and the police are basicly an occupying army. You know what I mean?

      1. Trut

        ehehe I see that D20 reference

      2. Vulcanodon

        I’ve been in a bunch of protests lately, and the police have so far not been a problem. Though there is a militia group in our county and some pickup-truck activity during the protests does make me think they are gearing up for something. Like they’re done standing back and standing by.

    5. Rosalyn

      Anatole France: ‘The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.’

    6. Psychie

      There used to be, supposedly some of them are even still on paper just not enforced. For instance monopolies and anti-competitive business practices are illegal, but as far as I am aware haven’t been properly enforced in decades.

  16. Kiashi

    Oh, Jocelyne. Admirable attempt to protect her, but you know Joyce NEVER abandons people. Hell or high water, bullets or tear gas, she ain’t leaving you there alone XD These three are in the boiling pot together now unless they can convince Jocelyne to leave with them.

    1. Shade

      She’s still gotta try.

  17. Kyulen

    While I’m glad Dorothy is starting to realize that the law in this country (and most others like it) generally exists to benefit the rich and powerful, Jocelyne makes a good point. Dorothy and Joyce might want to get out of there before they get arrested along with everyone else in that area.

    1. Michelle J Caboose

      By the time the cops issued the order to disperse, it was already too late to leave. The cops had put up fences to keep everyone in.

      1. thejeff

        They put up fences to control access. It’s not quite the same thing.

        Not sure if Joyce and Dorothy will be willing to leave or not, but if they do, they’ll be allowed.

      2. Steamweed

        Hypothetically, there are open gates for the protesters to leave. But that’s not guaranteed.

        1. thejeff

          But it makes sense at this point. Split up the protesters. Get a bunch of them out. Make it easier to clear out and/or arrest the remaining ones.

          Kettling is a tactic cops use, but not usually this early in the sequence.

  18. Suet

    “Cheez it? Well the plot did get a little extra toasty”

    Yes, yes, mark Dorothy’s final line as the book title. Or mark Jocelyne’s final line.

    1. Arianod

      Unrelated, but is that Wako from CITY in your avatar pic?

      1. Suet

        it is!

        1. Arianod

          Neat!

  19. Yotomoe

    I know this is all escalating right this moment but man I hate how “Get out of here” everyone is. Like I’m not saying Joyce isn’t in danger of of being arrested by the whole point of assemblies like this is the strength and solidarity of people. The fact that almost everyone they’ve talked to is like “You should get outta here, Joyce!” without even asking her stance or feelings feels like not the vibe I want at any kinda protest. Even if it’s outta concern.

    1. NGPZ

      I mean arrest by itself is one thing

      there’s also the, you know, police LOOKING for a reason to beat the shit out of you for no reason, and sometimes WORSE

      1. Yotomoe

        Of course, but nobody’s telling Asma to leave. At least not that we’ve seen. I dunno. I just don’t like deterring people from participating in protests. Since their whole point is strength in numbers.

        1. Proxiehunter

          Asma knew that risk and came to the protest anyway. So did Joyce’s sister. Do you think Joyce and Dorothy did?

        2. NGPZ

          yeah like there’s a difference between coming in and coming in UNPREPARED for those risks

          strength in numbers yeah, but if they just freshman winging it all nilly willy, dare I say it they’re more a liability than an asset :/

    2. Kyulen

      I think it’s more that Jocelyne and Asma and the others already there before Joyce and Dorothy showed up knew what they were getting into. They knew beforehand that they were likely to be arrested and likely to face police brutality and stuff. Joyce and Dorothy did not seem to realize the danger they were getting into ahead of time.

    3. Proxiehunter

      Joyce is currently at risk of being tear gassed, beaten with a riot batton, and shot dirrectly in the face with a rubber bullet that was designed to be bounced off the ground before hitting it’s target not fired directly at their target. I suspect Joyce and Dorothy are not aware that this is a risk they are facing while most who arived to protest are aware of this.

      1. Axel

        Dorothy certainly seems not to be.

    4. Charles Phipps

      It seems neither Joyce or Dorothy paid much attention to this protest or its cause so its something they’re not really prepared for arrest or physical violence for.

    5. Yotomoe

      Yeah can’t lie. I’ve been to protests and while I did worry about the danger I also didn’t like…prepare anything more than just…telling people I’d be there. If I get arrested I get arrested. Recognizing the danger’s important. I dunno. I just don’t want anyone to read this comic and let this deter them from ever participating in a protest in the future. Cuz uh…numbers is all we’ve got.

      1. Taffy

        Don’t worry, I don’t think anyone’s probably reading a drama webcomic, seeing a protest go south, and interpreting that as “I shouldn’t go to any protests ever because they’ll all be just like the one in Dumbing of Age.

        1. Yotomoe

          Maybe not consciously. But people form unconscious biases from media for sure.

        2. Taffy

          Oh, definitely. I try to have faith that any bias this comic gives us won’t prevent us from acting, though.

      2. ESM

        What’s bothering me is that we, the audience, know that this protest is going to go to shit because “Everyone protests for a few hours and either everyone leaves at the scheduled end time or else the protest just kind of dissolves” wouldn’t be a very interesting story but in reality that’s what actually happens 99% of the time. There were thousands of colleges that had anti-Israel protests and *didn’t* end in the school calling the cops to bust heads.

        I’ve been to No Kings, Hands Off, a Tesla Takedown Protest, and a few anti-nazi counterprotests over the years and I have literally never been shot at or tear gassed or anything. And if I go to enough protests maybe one day I will, it’s always a risk and I do think about it, but it’s certainly not the expectation that always happens. Protesting, even anti-Israel protests specifically, is way safer than people seem to think, and I think the doomerism is actually bad because it discourages real-world action.

        So I don’t like the way everyone in the comic just *assumes* “well, we’re protesting not-Israel so obviously we’re all going to the gulag, and that it’s treated as being Just What Happens when you protest. And I get that making the school call the cops means they’re villains forever. And I get that having the protests get rowdy means that there’ll be bad-faith people in the comments defending the cops. But…enh, I feel like “you shouldn’t protest injustice unless you’re willing to face the nigh-certain prospect of being disappeared” is not actually a great message.

        1. Yotomoe

          God you put how I felt so succinctly, thank you.

        2. ESM

          Hahaha disregard that, I suck cocks.

          I forgot that it was already explained that the college banned the protest and called the cops. Without that plot point the assumption that they’d all be arrested seems extremely strange, but with it the story’s actually fine and all my objections are wrong.

        3. Psychie

          It’s also not just the story, IU actually did that, this is largely stuff that actually happened, it is *very* thinly veiled (not a criticism, just an observation).

        4. thejeff

          One of the differences you also might have missed is that this protest explicitly isn’t the “everyone leaves at the scheduled end time” type. It’s set up as an encampment. While I’m sure there’s a lot of people just here to support and wave signs for a bit, people have set up tents and plan to stay until IU gives in to their demands (or until they’re driven out.)

          That changes things a bit. Those kinds of protests still sometimes fizzle out, but more often they’re eventually broken up. IU moved faster than a lot of places, not waiting to see if it would die down on its own, but it’s not really surprising that they would eventually do so.

          They did change the protest rules last minute, which is definitely shitty. I’m not sure whether the previous rules were written with long term camping in mind though, even if they technically allowed it.

    6. Axel

      I think it’s mostly that Joyce is her sister. Like Jocelyn knows the assembly shouldn’t break up and needs everyone to stay, but wanting Joyce to be safe overrides that.

    7. thejeff

      Partly the sister thing of course, but also Jocelyne knows Joyce (and Dorothy) weren’t actually there for the protest and protesters generally don’t want uncommitted people around when the cops come in swinging.

    8. thejeff

      Interesting to compare this point with the “There’s a fence. The police won’t allow them to leave anyway” argument going around.

      Do the cops want people to leave to break up the strength and solidarity of the people? Or keep them all here, so they can arrest more?

      1. MisterJinKC

        They want obedience. Being arrested is the punishment for disobedience.

    9. yak

      Asma just didn’t trust them, everyone else seems to have realized that they didn’t come in with any intention of staying. Nobody knows they’re there. They’re totally unprepared, unlike everyone else there.

      1. thejeff

        This is a college campus protest. Joyce and Dorothy likely aren’t the only ones who’ve wandered in without really knowing what they might be getting into.

        Which is why a lot of people are going to try to leave in the next 30 minutes and probably be allowed to.

        1. yak

          True, but I think that just reinforces the idea that it’s probably better to leave and have epiphanies while you’re not currently being arrested.

  20. IntangibleMatter

    Dorothy, I’m sure Jocelyn will have some great political theory to give you to read after this is over, getting arrested isn’t going to let her give you books any faster.

    1. Yotomoe

      I mean, neither is Jocelyne getting arrested either?

      1. Bryy

        She’s telling them to leave. So yes, he fully intends ot be arrested.

        1. Bryy

          * stupid typos making me transphobic

        2. Tequila Mockingbird

          “Stupid autocorrect” confirmed for the modern equivalent of “the devil made me do it.”

  21. Joy

    so… like… the way this comic presents itself here just feels shallow to me. Imagine if it was actually about Palestine in this comic and Joe comments on how he doesn’t want to be harassed or worry about rocks thrown at his head, which sucks because he does believe in the cause. Or like anything about Judaism having a relationship to Israel. …or any religious Jewish representation at all in this comic…

    -_- im pro palestine and everything it just feels lacking in nuance and its very clear that the jews in this comic are written from a gentile perspective and jewish identities are getting ignored in this arc when its more realistic that roz would call joe or dorothy a slur to prove that she’s a leftist. but that’s my perspective i guess. Something like, “Zio,” I think, even when they’re pro palestine, so long as they don’t totally disavow the continued existence of the country where half the world’s jews exist. I feel like dorothy would bring up ethiopian jews who fled ethnic cleansing with the help of israel, for example.

    Like I don’t know, I’m pro palestine, I protest, it’s just like hey these protests are dangerous for jews and not just because of cops. People are going to abuse and humiliate you if you try to make friends with these protesters as a jew. Willis, you have Jewish friends that disavow Israel, don’t you? Most of the community refers to them as tokenized. My friends know how to be pro Palestine while wanting israel to continue being on the map. I want the jewish characters in this comic to value Israel… because they would, and it would be weird if they didn’t.

    Also… the iron dome defense system involves expensive missiles intercepting cheap rockets. America is funding Israel’s counterterror efforts. There are nuances.

    Points for dorothy’s comment on not wanting war crimes to be done by governments or terrorists. She’s real like that.

    1. Charles Phipps

      I think you’ve kind of 100% explained why it’s Bulmeria and not Gaza.

    2. Kyulen

      I think you’re trying to make this more complicated than it is. The state of Israel is committing genocide against the indigenous Palestinian people who’ve lived there for millenia, they have been for over 7 decades actually, though this latest part of the genocide in the past couple years has been much more violent and obvious than before. There are lots of people who are against what Israel is doing, including many different groups of Jews. And for most of that time, the US government has been giving Israel the money and weapons to do it.

      1. Charles Phipps

        As a friend pointed out, a lot of the communication is disrupted.

        “Israel shouldn’t be trying to drive everyone out of Gaza.”
        “But Israel has a right to exist.”
        “I didn’t say it didn’t. I’m talking about Gaza’s people being driven out.”
        “But what about Iran?”
        “What does that have to do with Gaza’s people being driven out?”

        And so on.

        1. RonF

          “Israel shouldn’t be trying to drive everyone out of Gaza.”

          Well, at first Israel DIDN’T try to drive everyone out of Gaza. Plan A was to pull all the *Israelis* out of Gaza and leave it to the rest of the residents. Unfortunately the result was that the residents of Gaza put Hamas in charge and spent years digging up the infrastructure and using it to make rockets that they fired into Israel indiscriminately. Then Gaza decided to start flying people into Israel and slaughtering Israelis indiscriminately and taking them as hostages.

          I realize there’s other issues involved. But I cannot imagine why anyone would think that Israel would not react to the events of 10/7 precisely as they have.

        2. thejeff

          Oh, no one expected otherwise. Israel always responds to such provocations with violence and generally with more land grabs in the West Bank.

          The whole situation, even in the last few decades you describe, was more complex. Israel did pull out of Gaza back in 2005, but retained control of its borders and imposed strict blockades. Hamas actually won Palestine wide elections in 2007, based largely on perceptions of corruption in the PLO, not on being more militant. They offered to form a coalition government with the PLO/Fatah, but Israel and the US opposed that and threatened to withdraw aid from Palestine. The ensuing conflict between Hamas and Fatah led to Hamas controlling Gaza and Fatah controlling the West Bank.
          This is widely seen as a huge blow to any chances for peace, definitely hardening resistance in Gaza and sidelining any moderates in Hamas hoping for a political solution. Instead conflict serves the interest of hardliners on both sides: Hamas obviously thrives on the population hating Israel for bombing their families. Likud stays in power in Israel by being tough on Hamas and by catering to settler factions when the opportunity arises. Lasting peace would be a disaster for both Likud and the settlers.

        3. MisterJinKC

          Netanyahu has gone way way to far, but I can not think of a single country that would not respond with extreme violence if their neighboring country fired missles into their civilians. Palestine isn’t some innocent victim in this. The general civilians are, but their government started it by shooting missles at Israeli civilians. This whole thing should have been shut down a long time ago before Netanyahu was able to escalate it to this point.

        4. Amelie Wikström

          You may want to count the number of missiles fired by Israel at Palestine’s civilians since 1948.

        5. Amelie Wikström

          Like in the 1970s it was copper alloy bombs designed to embed brittle shards in unarmored bodies that’s impossible to remove without breaking, causing massive loss of blood and tissue, and in the 2020 it’s missiles deploying blades designed to dismember unarmored bodies, you can trace the development of inhumane demoralizing bombs technology over the last century in the bodies of Palestinians. If you just care about missiles. But sure Hamas started it.

        6. thejeff

          @MisterJinKC: This conflict has been going on since before Israel was founded. It’s been back and forth time and again. It make absolutely no sense to talk about Hamas starting it by shooting rockets as if Israel was just sitting there peacefully going about its own business.

        7. RonF

          “Oh, no one expected otherwise. Israel always responds to such provocations with violence and generally with more land grabs in the West Bank.”

          1200 dead civilians and 100+ hostages is a “provocation”? There hadn’t been as many Jews killed in one day since the Holocaust. “Provocation” isn’t nearly an adequate descriptor of that day.

        8. Amelie Wikström

          It’s true, and yet it worked extremely well as a provocation, with millions of civilians killed, displaced and taken hostage in response. What would you like to call it?

        9. Charles Phipps

          RonF, Netanyahu absolutely is trying to do it now. Also, the residents put Hamas in charge decades ago before they cancelled elections. I don’t blame Israel for Netanyahu’s actions anymore than I blame America for Trump.

          But I give the same accord to separating Palestine from Hamas.

      2. Proxiehunter

        Some of those groups against what Israel is doing are even Israeli.

    3. Taffy

      I’m fine with the layer of removal, myself. People get way too worked up at each other here as it is. I got threats that someone was gonna come to my home and murder me in front of my family over that shit, just a few days ago. It’s already too intense, without a direct reference to that specific geopolitical event.

    4. NGPZ

      I mean, there’s “Israel being on the map”, and “all the Jews keeping their homes while also letting Palestine have self-governance”

      for me, “Israel” is wherever a Jew stands and lives and breaths, and you don’t need no broke-ass man-made governments of the world or man-made borders to tell you what is and isn’t Israel — that’s kind of what G_d is there for?

      anyway, peace is certainly possible, but any realistic solution is probably *not* going to involve all the Jews living there packing up their things and going “””home”””

      and ironically a big part of why is because the ethno-state’s very existence seemed to inspire this unfortunate let-them-eat-cake obliviousness towards us in the world at large:

      “we don’t gotta worry about the Jews, no matter what Israel is always an option for them”

      which without knowing or willing it is basically declaring the rest of the world by contrast to be a “you’re free to be any degree of anti-Semite” zone, while shirking off just about any meaningful effort towards an actual pro-Jewish praxis (-_-)

      1. thejeff

        And all of that is why the situation is so politically complicated, even if it’s not morally complicated.

        It’s not at all clear to me there’s any peaceful solution that allows “all the Jews keeping their homes while also letting Palestine have self-governance.” Certainly none of people in charge on either side of the conflict would benefit from such a solution.

        I’m also not sure that’s the link between growing antisemitism and Israel. That’s more a result of Israel’s actions and the fact that both Israel and antisemites are motivated to link all Jews to Israel. Israel is happy to smear any criticism of itself as antisemitism and the bigots are happy to help anger at Israel spill over onto all Jews.

        1. NGPZ

          of course it’s a link, much western news and shit seems to oh so gleefully gloss over the fact that Israel is literally a religious military dictatorship, the IDF and US Militarists and imperialists pour fuel into the fire like that to make problems worse and perpetually justify the existence of what’s basically a police state.

          You think as a young adult you could protest at all within this country which calls itself “democratic”? Forget snipers, cops on the streets over there are armed with UZIs. By the time you are of legal age, you have to get drafted into the fucking death cult, not even do they have religious exemptions anymore.

          So yeah, the world has been constantly lied to by clout-chasing stenographers who have the nerve to call themselves journalists; the state of Israel is no democracy, it has done no favor for us Jews, there or around the world, it is no safe haven for us. All they can keep giving us are people to hate, and the ever-repeated, ever-unfulfilled promise that “our day will come” — a story we could have gotten from any three dollar psychic.

        2. Proxiehunter

          A while back I heard about a rise of people refusing to be drafted and doing jail time for it and good for them.

    5. HueSatLight

      It’s weird how people think Jewish people have to be loyal to Israel.

      1. thejeff

        They obviously don’t, but it’s a convenient narrative for both Israel and antisemites to spread, so it’s not really surprising.

    6. TTT

      Thank you so much for saying this. The constant presumption that Bulmeria is specifically Gaza and these protests are specifically Palestine, with all that this then brings into the comment threads, really does beg the point that Ethan Siegel and Joseph Lev Rosenthal would most likely have been getting constantly bullied and harassed and accused of personally committing crimes – and constantly litmus-tested by strangers to prove they were “one of the good ones”. And that’s really an aspect of the, uh, protester cultural milieu that I don’t think most gentiles grasp unless they deliberately read the focused Jewish press (just JTA or the Forward would do) or they have an atypically high number of Jewish friends. The committee reports by Jewish students at Columbia and Harvard in particular have been heartbreaking.

      Of the ~15 million Jews left alive in the world, about half live in Israel, including the majority of Jewish children. Most American Jews have family or friends there. 80+% of American Jews consistently poll that Israel is important to them and that the suggestion it should cease to exist is antisemitic (I’ve got receipts). (That is not an invitation for a bunch of non-Jews why they’re wrong about antisemitism, btw. Deal with the minorities you’ve got, not the ones you wish you had.). Every Jew this side of Michael Savage finds the situation in Gaza horrible and wants the killing to stop. It should have been possible for anti-war protests to include their perspectives more routinely.

      1. thejeff

        The situation did stir up a lot of antisemitism and the protests did seem to help with that (and pull some of it into more leftist circles), but the idea that it’s unrealistic that Joe and Ethan haven’t run into constant harassment because of it is absurd. If they’d actually gone to the protest (and somehow made a point of being Jewish), then maybe it would be a thing.
        Don’t forget, if we wanted to be truly realistic, we’d also see a lot of Asma being asked to condemn Hamas before being allowed to say anything about the genocide.

    7. Bryy

      1) It’s a fictional country. Yes, it’s a stand-in for Palestine, but it’s still a fictional country and you’re asking for representation from the other side when this arc isn’t about that.
      2) As others have stated, this is based on true events.

      1. Li

        If it’s a stand-in for either, it’s a stand-in for Israel, since Bulmeria is the one perpetrating genocides.

    8. smolgrlboi

      can you please cite a news story where a jewish student was harassed at a pro-palestine protest *simply for being jewish* and *nothing else*

      1. Li

        This seems like an absurd request on the face of it? Are you… expecting media outlets to interview people who say “yes, I definitely harassed that Jewish person just for being Jewish”…?

        (Jewish students are absolutely getting harassed and bullied at school and individuals who have visible common Jewish signifiers on their pride flags are being kicked out of pride parades. I think we can condemn genocide and Israel generally without descending into a fantasy land where antisemitism doesn’t exist anymore.) (And yes, Asma and Raidah should also be getting hassled, but as more minor characters it’s much easier for Willis to just say they have, off screen, versus Dorothy not knowing anything about the protest today and having a very mild take on the situation that still got a lot of people yelling at her.)

  22. AeromechanicalAce

    “I went down, to the Demonstration, to get my fair share of abuse. Singing “We’re gonna vent our frustration. If we don’t, we’re gonna blow a 50-amp fuze.””

  23. Amós Batista

    Poor Joyce. She won a new sister, a couple of days ag, and now she will watch her facing real danger…

  24. BorkBorkBork

    State riot police? What complete BS.

    I knew they weren’t going to be getting the best police- that being, Sting, Andy Summers, and Stuart Copeland – but riot police don’t even know how to Good Cop Bad Cop properly. You’re not going to get a pizza and coffee while someone threatens you; at best, you’re going to get threatened while somebody hits you, repeatedly.

    March right on up there and DEMAND to speak to their manager. Tell them that their service is lousy and you won’t consider leaving unless they cater in some pizza (and subs!). Hell, if they manage to get s decent Police cover band, you might even leave them a good Yelp review. 10/10 would get arrested again.

    1. Taffy

      If the cops don’t know La Hee, we can’t hang.

  25. Charles Phipps

    It was definitely a good idea to make this about Bulmeria because I think this allows the story to explain just how OFF this feels to so many people in America now. That protests are treated so violently by the police, that it feels like it’s a police state in many parts of America now (the parts resisting), and the chaotic uncertain feeling that even people who believe in the system (Dot) and aren’t politically aware in many areas (Joyce) may find it. Hell, Dorothy is politically aware and this is completely outside of her awareness until it popped up on campus.

    It’s obviously a stand in for the Palestinian protests but we’re cutting to a lot of issues that might have been distracted from arguments that wouldn’t normally be. Basically, Dorothy and Joyce are caught up in something they don’t understand but shows an ugly side to America’s law enforcement.

    1. Silphael

      Yes, it can also be about the various protest points just as equally, making it a point about repression and not just about supporting Palestine (which will be free, and from the river to the sea, no less).

      But also, the USA have always been a police state.

      1. Psychie

        A lot of this storyline is directly taken from events that actually happened at an IU protest. That protest was mostly a pro-palestine/anti-israel protest, but there were a number of other things being protested, such as the IU administration itself, and recent changes to the IU policies regarding peaceful assembly and protests (which are currently under an injunction prohibiting enforcement pending a lawsuit by the ACLU). The bit about the university being involved with companies and lobbyists that support israel, for example, is true and was a big part of the IRL protest in question as far as I am aware.

        While a lot of the storylines in this comic are fictional, largely because the cast is entirely fictional, it is worth remembering that the setting is a real place in the real world, and thus not everything is an allegory or metaphor for broader topics, sometimes it is directly about local stuff that is actually going on here.

        1. smolgrlboi

          yeah it’s starting to bother me how many people in the comments seem to prefer to deny the very real context for this storyline. super avoidant and kind of disturbing tbh.

        2. Charles Phipps

          I mean I’m discussing how I think it’s better they’re not 1:1 while others are, “They are 1:1 and I don’t know why you are ignoring this.” Which is fine as a disagreement but I am pointing out my opinion is that I am glad this is based on versus full adaptation if for no other reason then the sliding time scale.

        3. Psychie

          I mean, I agree that it’s better that the events have been largely fictionalized for a number of reasons, I’m just objecting to the claim that this could be representing one of several protests when it is very blatantly referencing a very specific one, the fact that several other protests have similar stories as the one that inspired this one doesn’t change the fact that it is almost beat for beat following the headlines of a local story that actually happened specifically at IU, which is where DoA explicitly takes place.

          There is a difference between “this is fictionalized and that’s probably for the best” and “this is fictionalized so it’s a conglomeration of dozens of stories from across the country”. The first statement is a valid opinion to have, and one that I frankly agree with, and the second is simply misinformation because it minimizes the very real bad things that IU really did, even if there are other protests with similar outcomes, and there are, taking away the specific context in order to generalize it kind of misses the point, IMO.

          The issue is saying “this could be representative of several protests” when it very clearly isn’t to anyone who isn’t ignorant about what happened at IU specifically. If you know the context it is very blatant, and if you don’t know the context it isn’t a great idea to assume you do.

        4. Yotomoe

          My issue is that I’m tetering a knifes edge and I don’t necessarily want my entertainment to remind me of how much I hate being alive right now.

        5. Charles Phipps

          Fair point.

  26. ESM

    I’m a little bit confused by the thirty minutes to leave, given that we saw the ominous fence getting put up behind Joyce and Dorothy. Is the idea that the police have caged them up and are giving them fake orders to leave, or were the police making there only be one way out?

    Also, what the hell is Dorothy talking about in panel 3? They passed a law aimed at this specific protest?

    1. Charles Phipps

      The most charitable (and why would we be charitable) reading is that they are getting a last warning before they’re caged in for mass arrests.

    2. Doopyboop

      This storyline is based on real life events at this college where, indeed, things were put into place overnight to correct the college’s laws about protests thus criminalizing people for doing something that had been up to that point legal.

      1. Doopyboop

        *to change not correct

      2. ESM

        Oh, is that what’s happening? The college IS calling the police because the protest is against school rules? The way Dorothy was talking made it sound like congress, or at least the state legislature, passed an actual law making protests illegal.

        1. Doopyboop

          Yep! I grant you, I’m not the most educated on this because I’m not from that area, but the school board changed their policies, particularly when it comes to protesting over-night. Students and faculty both wound up arrested due to it. My college had a free speech area and the rules are supposed to be that everyone, regardless of whether a person personally agrees or not, is allowed to congregate there and protest…whatever it is they’re protesting. As long as nobody throws hands, people are supposed to have free speech. I suspect the over-night protest policy changes were the closest they could get to criminalizing the protesting.

        2. ESM

          Am I just an idiot or was that not communicated in the actual comic? Because if the college banned protesting then it makes WAY more sense for everyone to be assuming they were going to be arrested. Without that context the storyline comes off as incredibly doomer, like getting shot and arrested is just to be expected of anyone holding a sign. Things aren’t THAT bad.

        3. Doopyboop

          I don’t blame you for missing it, I only knew because of the real world events that happened that people have been discussing in the comments.

        4. FlamestAndLight

          I hope eventually in this comic Dotty and Joyce are holding hands in the trenches as they fight the fascist government, still deeply in love.

        5. BorkBorkBork

          No, nothing so explicit. Just a line dropped earlier by either Asma or Leslie.

          In my life and experience, I’ve been a part of protests, but they have felt mostly performative and pointless. Nothing changed from our protest, no policies were adjusted, passers by would mostly ignore us, though some might honk in solidarity, and some might yell something angrily as they pass by.

          I don’t know, because I wasn’t there last year in the IRL demonstration at Indiana State, but reading the articles about it, there seems to be a real shock that things escalated so quickly. That was a completely inappropriate way to respond to a protest, a gross flexing of power to stop free speech, and the articles capture that.

          I guess the thing that bugs me here, is similar to what bugged me in the beginning: no one is surprised, shocked, outraged.. It’s all handled so matter-of-fact. Joyce says she’s going to go find her sister and warn her, Dorothy’s all “I can’t ever let you disappear over that horizon again!” They arrive at the protest, “I sure hope we continue living!” They speak to Asma, “Oh, we’re all going to be arrested soon, hey, look at the sniper.” They speak to Jocylene, “You idiots, someone DOES know that you’re here, right???”

          It’s like: if tomorrow, the police arrived at your doorstep, and they had in hand all of the comment history that you’ve ever posted on Dumbing Of Age, and that this comment on this date, and this comment on this date, and this comment on this date, could all be construed as minor threats against political leaders, political parties, or corporations, and so they were going to arrest you: you’d be shocked, right? Stunned? Outraged? Did you ever even think for a moment that your constitutionally-protected right to speech could be stripped away from you?

          You wouldn’t be like, yeah, I expected that, let’s wave to the sniper on my neighbor’s roof before they handcuff me.

          Of all these people, I’d expect Dorothy to be the most outraged and upset. They have a constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech and right to assemble, AND this location was chosen because it was allowed by the bylaws of the university. And yeah, she’s grumbling and glowering at how nakedly obvious this is, NOW, but the entire reason she’s here is because her instinct was that a college protest is inherently dangerous because police are bad and will break the law to suppress free speech.

        6. Charles Phipps

          For some people, protests mean nothing. For other people, they mean everything. But yes, it seems like RL experiences are influencing your take this. The Indiana protests have been targeted along with many other Pro-Gaza ones by the administration as well as police.

          And I remember the ones here in Kentucky over BLM with Lousiville being where Breonna Taylor was murdered by the police. Basically, the police were anxious to beat everyone who was involved.

        7. Tequila Mockingbird

          Your entire comment was super insightful and serious… but then I lost all composure when I saw your username was “BorkBorkBork” and I giggled like an idiot. Sorry and/or well played.

        8. Michelle J Caboose

          It’s explained here: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-15/04-the-only-exception/trustees/

        9. ESM

          Oh! Thank you! I missed that.

          Still slightly weird that Joyce/Dorothy assumed an arrest coming in if they didn’t know that, but I can accept it.

          Wish I could delete comments here, all my complaints are factually wrong.

        10. Michelle J Caboose

          Nah, it was easy to miss. It’s just that I happened to read that one yesterday. Though, I had forgotten that Asma was the one who told Dorothy about the trustees changing the rules overnight.

    3. KPG

      it’s called kettling, its a cop tactic

      1. Taffy

        Yeah, as in “I’m going to cook a cop in the kettle I’m hanging over this campfire if it so much as touches me”

        1. NGPZ

          dibs on it’s liver!

    4. RonF

      The fence is put up to prevent other people from joining the protest. When such things have happened in the real world people who have attempted to leave during the announced time period have actually been allowed to do so.

      1. Thing2

        Ron F: That is not the impression I get from reading a range of media, from outside the USA. Not in all cases. It might be the intention, but, on the ground? A system is only as good as those who actually carry out the kettling.

        1. Proxiehunter

          Not what I’ve read from direct reports by people who were victims of it either.

  27. Silphael

    Dorothy’s Annarchist arc starting now !

    1. NGPZ

      she gonna go home and pirate a movie :p

      1. Taffy

        She’s gonna buy a pre-owned Nintendo game, from a console that’s not in circulation anymore.

    2. Steamweed

      Gonna start doing ever-so-slightly-more-than-mildly subversive acts!
      :O

  28. Tessea

    At least they gave a 30 minute warning… I don’t think Jocelyne is going to move though…

    1. Michelle J Caboose

      Neither is anyone else…

    2. HueSatLight

      It’s not a warning, it’s setting the stage.

  29. Acher4

    Yeeeeee, I don’t like this reality… like at all.

    Probably cause, it’s definitely our reality…

    >.>
    >.<
    -.-

  30. Rainbow

    I’m probably the absolute last person to grok this, but Dorothy needs to become a lawyer. She’s got the smarts, the drive, the ambition, and unlike politics, she can stick to her values. I wonder if this situation would inspire her to go into law, because god knows the good lawyers have been busy trying to claw some shreds of decency out of the orange menace’s hands, and protect freedom of speech. Those immigration lawyers fighting to protect immigrants, especially, are heroes. Can totally see Dorothy going that direction.

    1. Bryy

      This theory of yours only works in a reality where Raidah doesn’t exist.

      In my defense, my sleep gummies just kicked in and I could not make that joke funny.

      1. Taffy

        What if she technically exists but has been teleported to an ancient city beneath the mountain?

      2. Hazel

        I mean, Raidah isn’t evil. Lots of people that are generally butts also do really positive things in society.

        1. Charles Phipps

          Raidah is a jerk.

          She also will probably do more good than most of the cast.

        2. Mr D

          But first she will do as much harm (socially) as she can. You know, for balance and shit.

        3. Bryy

          What makes you say that?

        4. Nobby Nobbs

          And if the next person she decides to hound mercilessly every time they dare to (checks notes) eat a meal in a public space or acquire a friend actually kills themself instead of just becoming a misanthrope about it, or is a client she has actual power over instead of a peer, she’s also going to do more harm than the rest of the cast.

        5. Proxiehunter

          What are we basing this on? I just did a quick re-read of all her strips and everything about her says she’s willing to sell out any principles she has to get money and power. In law that usually means working as a lawyer for corporations to help said corporations get away with exploiting workers and destroying the environment.

        6. Tequila Mockingbird

          The thinking among some patrons of the comic, if I am understanding past comments correctly, was that Raidah’s desire to have Asher in her little popular kids breakfast club was because she wanted to network connections with powerful people, even the mob. Personally I’ve found that to be a bit of a reach.

        7. Proxiehunter

          A reach? That’s picking up a cup directly in front of you.

        8. Tequila Mockingbird

          I don’t doubt that Raidah wants to cozy up to Asher’s grandfather because he’s rich and influential, but I highly doubt she has any idea that the reason he’s so powerful is mob ties. I can’t imagine that’s something he’d advertise, and given that Asher has stated he wants to leave that behind, I doubt he talks about it. The idea that Raidah knows these are mobsters and is actively seeking them out? That stretches my credibility. Her cozying up to the powerful does not shock me. Her somehow knowing the truth behind a powerful crime family as a college student very much would.

        9. Charles Phipps

          As far as I know, Raidah has only been a victim of Sarah sabotaging her relationship with Jacob and trying to reach out to Joyce by saying Muslims are people too. She was rude to Dina but that’s about it.

          People act like she’s Mary versus a civil rights attorney aspirant.

    2. HueSatLight

      Yes. She still hasn’t figured out there’s options other than the cart-before-the-horse plan she came up with at 13, though.

  31. Zamperla

    Remember: Getting arrested isn’t the point of being at a protest, and does no particular good in this day and age if you arent already Very Famous. it’s too easy to go in a hole and never come out again.

    1. Crow

      Remember also: the point of a protest is to cause inconvenience

  32. Marianne

    “Do the police exist not to protect and serve we, the people, and do they only actually exist to preserve the interests of capita—“
    “GET. OUT!”

  33. sirenensang

    Fucking based.

    1. NGPZ

      Sí

  34. Adept

    Joyce and Dorothy are so small physically. Suddenly it feels like it matters.

  35. Crow

    Probably for the best that Jocelyn has someone on the outside who knows she got arrested

    1. thumb

      I hope this will be the cue for Hank to show up and get his kid out of jail. Give him a chance to actually walk the walk.

  36. Steamweed

    Jocelyne is right, Dotty. Get your poli-sci on _while_ you’re moving your butts back to the dorm.

  37. ValdVib

    Given how red the Indiana state govt is I’m wondering if the law change is founded in reality.

    1. thejeff

      It is, though it was a IU policy change, not a state law.

  38. AnonGrouch

    Is this it? Is this the return of rizz? The rizzening?

    1. AnonGrouch

      Part of me really wants Dorothy to lead Joyce out and then dive back in.

      1. Nymph

        I will die of excitement if Dorothy pushes Joyce out right as a fence comes up and traps her in. Dorothy and Jocelyne spend the night together in jail talking about Joyce and it’s all very romantic.

        Approved.

        1. AnonGrouch

          Yaaaas

  39. ValdVin

    I don’t think this is an epiphany. Dorothy already knows this; it’s not a “scales falling from her eyes” incident.

    1. Nymph

      I respectfully disagree. I think that’s the face of realizing something.

    2. Bryy

      In the last strip, Dorothy admits that she does know things, she just ignores it.

  40. Boomer Gonzales

    Jocelyne’s just going to get arrested right?
    Jocelyne’s just going to get arrested right?!!!

    Please don’t let my worst fear be true. Joyce has been through so much already.

    1. NGPZ

      she seems okay in a preview strip

      but I cannot lie, something tells me that somebody is going to die, or at the very least get seriously hurt in the remainder of this storyline >~<

      1. Proxiehunter

        Define seriously. I’m not expecting anyone of the characters we know to end up with more than a mild concussion or a broken arm. If the rubber bullets come out we could see something more serious but I think it’s more likely it’s witnessed by main cast happening to someone who doesn’t even get a tag.

        1. thejeff

          If this does follow the pattern of the IU protest it seems to be based on, no one’s going to die and there won’t even be any serious injuries – based on whatever definition of “serious” the media stories about it used.
          A bunch of arrests, probably tear gas, likely unjustified police violence, but not to that extent.

  41. thumb

    “Uhm, I think you’ll find that talking is a free action,” I say with my skull about an inch away from an incoming baton.

  42. darkoneko

    “get to safety, kiddos”

  43. Just Karen

    I would just like to note that this is a perfect “current events” comic created around a year in advance.

    1. thejeff

      Sort of. It really is focused on the current events of the time. If anything, I’d guess it would be even darker if it was being written now. Maybe focusing on ICE protests and bringing Marcie in?

    2. Nymph

      I tried to include links and got automodded: the comic yesterday marked the 9 month buffer (so says the hovertext) and the actual events at IU happened in Jun last year (so over a year ago). Just depressing that it’s STILL relevant.

      1. Li

        2 links is the limit I think before modding.

        1. Nymph

          Serves me right for being too thorough. ?

        2. Li

          Alas. This is one reason why I sometimes break comments up into multiple comments, but mostly that’s just, like, disorganized thinking and impulsiveness!

  44. superglucose

    Dear Joyce:

    *She’s not alone.* She’s among her friends and her comrades. Now go.

  45. Ldritch

    When I first discovered this comic, I was a closeted libertarian asshole and was like “Huh, funny comic, shame the author is an SJW”. Now here I am, a queer, leftist asshole, rooting for my favourite character to become a full-on anarcho-communist. And I would just like to thank this comic for being part of that process.

    1. Kyulen

      I had a similar political shift. When I first started reading this comic in my early 20s I was a liberal, and thought everything would be fine if we just voted the right party into power. I’m in my mid-30s now, and a communist. I wonder how many other readers of this comic went through similar shifts in their political views over the years.

      1. thejeff

        I don’t know if I ever “thought everything would be fine if we just voted the right party into power”, but I was basically a naive liberal in my early 20s and shifted a lot closer to communism over the next decade or so, but since then every new GOP administration has been catastrophically worse and while voting Dems into office certainly hasn’t made everything fine, they do some good and far less damage while the socialists and communists haven’t actually accomplished anything.

        1. Proxiehunter

          You mean the ones the Democratic party does their best to keep out of office so barely any have a chance to accomplish anything? Those socialists and communists?

          Hell, a Democratic Socialist won the Democratic primary for the mayors race and two of the people who lost to him have declared their intention to run as independents. Which increases the possibility of a Republican victory which I guess they see as better than letting a socialist Muslim be mayor.

          Not to mention the prominent Democratic politicians who’ve decided to engage in political mudslinging against their own party’s candidate instead of endorsing him.

          And before anyone brings up voters who complain about the candidates they have to chose from, a lot of us don’t consider ourselves to be Democrats. The Democratic party is just the group of fuckers that hold our vote hostage by being slightly better than the other group of fuckers in this broken ass two party system.

        2. Charles Phipps

          I feel like as a progressive that we could do much better as a country but my sympathy goes down when progressives (like me) sling all manner of mud at the Democrats and then get butthurt when they don’t want to work with us.

      2. Proxiehunter

        My trajectory was “Vague ancom sympathies and distrust of the police” as a teen to thirty years later “full blown ancom and fuck the police”.

    2. Tequila Mockingbird

      I genuinely appreciate the self-awareness to admit you’re still an asshole, just a different flavor. Signed, a fellow asshole.

  46. darkoneko

    For something written a year ago this feel very US-current, too. Well, no surprise.

    1. Nymph

      It was written 9mos ago about something that happened about a year ago. Sadly it’s just always evergreen relevant to the US.

  47. nightshade

    i wonder if this is going to get Dorothy back into wanting to go into politics

  48. Yeet

    what do you bet only one of them gets out

    1. Taffy

      I’ll wager 8 bars in E Minor.

  49. Juanoku

    The government is corrupt? What a turn. Truly this has never happened before

  50. StarfighterVicki

    I’m very nervous about what I’ve heard about trans women in jail.

  51. staszu13

    I’m feeling this right now:
    Jocelyn deserves a lot of respect for her protectiveness of Joyce, but the previous poster’s remark about trans women in jail worries me.

    Keep in mind Willis wrote and drew this a year ago before that horrible election. If anything the threat towards all concerned went up to 11 now.

  52. Li

    Big Sis gotta big sis.

  53. anon

    Does this imply that the dad either won’t accept Joce or that he’s pro ruttech?

    Is it unlawful? other than them being in the middle of campus and obstructing other ppl from getting to class normally, wouldn’t it be a right to free speech/protest? hope they have good lawyers

    1. Daibhid C

      It’s unlawful according to the law that, as Dorothy says, was introduced this morning specifically to make this protest unlawful. From what others have said, this is based on actual events last year.

  54. Dinedin

    Compare this with anti-vaccine (covid) mandate protests in NZ. The mandate was not that you had to be vaccinated, merely that there were jobs that you could not do if you weren’t, like health and prison warders. In Dunedin, the centre of the city was occupied continuously by protesters camping for 2 months, despite there already being a bylaw against overnight occupation. Some of the protesters harassed passers by for wearing masks, and things got a bit unsanitary. They were ‘policed’ as in watching for serious antisocial behaviour, but never moved on. The only structures put in place were some 1 tonne concrete blocks to prevent vehicles. These led to protesters complaining that there were “devices” buried in the blocks that were making the protesters sick, because, after long periods of close contact, in slightly less than hygienic conditions, the unvaccinated were…. coming down with covid and other illnesses!
    They were finally given a deadline to move or be removed, once the ‘mandates’ were lifted.
    “We’ve got no right or no interest in stopping people lawfully assembling and protesting in the way that people are potentially more accustomed – the issue is the setting up of tents and structures and braziers and things.” Said the Mayor (structures included toilets feeding into the stormwater system)
    The protesters moved themselves peacefully by the deadline.

    1. Rowan

      Fellow Dunedinite! Though I was in Wellington during the mandate period – there was a similar encampment and it got a bit more hectic with protestors lighting fires at the deadline date.

    2. and painted shark women

      Oh wow I never heard about the “devices” part. I do not have palms enough for my face ;n;

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

*

*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.