Legacy
In Celebration of the Life and Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King JR
If we aren’t all human, none of us are.
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This is a reworked comic from one I did in 2008. I always meant to fix some things with it. Today seemed as good a day as any other to update it.
I received a lot of positive feedback on the original strip. I’d always wanted to say something before, but inspiration had eluded me. I’d thought about having Rocky or Grampy saying something, much like when Ace’s mom spoke about Memorial Day, but that just didn’t seem quite right. Much as I might respect the man and his message, being, as a friend once stated, “white enough to disappear in front of laundry,” I don’t feel qualified to speak on many racial issues. I didn’t want to make a half-hearted, ill educated attempt and end up sending the wrong message.
But in the early hours of that morning, it hit me. I could have easily settled Ace in with a bunch of straight white males and probably had a more successful strip even. I didn’t set out to make TMI so racially diverse, it just seemed natural to me.
And isn’t that the message?
… Relates to?
Ah, Andy’s added notes to this one since I posted that comment. Very helpful!
Check the comics date. Mid January would suggest Martin Luther King Day.
Some of us are not from the US and don´t have american history in school. I although had to think about it for a moment.
For those who are wondering: The strip refers to Martin Luther Kings “I have a dream!” speech.
Sadly there are more than a few places here in the USA that don’t learn about that part of our history. Some people think if they ignore it and deny it then it didn’t really happen.
Not even counting the parts that were and still are deliberately taught false.
The early “classic” film “Birth of a Nation” depicts newly freed blacks in the post-civil-war Reconstruction period “not able to handle their new freedom”, behaving like mannerless savages, putting their feet up on tables, etc.
(Nonesense! These were former slaves; if they’d ever put a foot up on Master’s table, they would have lost the foot!)
Then the huge hit book and movie “Gone with the Wind”, depicting an idylic South, where the slave-owners are charming, the slaves were happy, and Reconstruction was a disaster on par with an Earthquake.
All the early history textbooks of that era were written by white supremacists. Later textbooks were based on the earlier ones, and so on.
Although talking about the cast’s diversity… I find myself noticing how both Gina and Larry are kind of swarthy-skinned, and Ace not.
It’s called… a tan
Look at pics of Geaorge Hamilton
Which kinda makes sense for someone previously forbidden from doing something now having the freedom to do what ever they want
And people do ‘worse’ than putting feet on tables, they put their elbows on the tables when they eat!!!
Whether you find it plausible or not, the facts are, that it was a white supremacist propaganda film passed off as historical, despite being wildly inaccurate.