WHITE GUY DEFENSE FORCE GO!

[thenoblitt]

-snip-

Actually, I think the ones responsible are the guy who came up with the whole "stand your ground"-law idea, the guy who came up with the idea of neighborhood watches and taking the monopoly on violence away from the police and general gun culture.

Trayvon Martin didn't deserve to die for being afraid of a suspicious guy following him in the middle of the night and attacking him in what he well likely thought to be self defense.

George Zimmerman didn't deserve to go to jail for murder for being a vigilante asshead which resulted in him killing a boy in self defence.

In my language there are two different words for "justice" as in subjective justice (for example a bully beating up a small kid and then getting beat up by the small kid's big brother) and the actual justice given out by a court on the basis of law.

Sometimes the first kind is not to be had, it just doesn't exist and a court cannot give that kind of justice. A court can only give the kind of justice that fits between two book covers. Zimmerman being completely innocent is that kind of justice.

If that book is stupid though then that's on the conscience of everyone. Every single man and woman in Florida.

Lets have a large black man attack you and try and steal your fire arm, and lets see what happens? Also he known for violence, a drug dealer, and was suspended from school for fighting, also he initiated the fight, after running away. Lets see what you do, are you gonna just let him shoot you?

No. But then again, I wouldn't be carrying a gun while antagonizing teenagers.

He has a right to bear arms. He wasn't antagonizing, he watched from afar, called the cops, he was approached by Trayvon not the other way around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L04Vh4do6bY

 

[JimB]

Why doesn't anyone understand that Trayvon Martin tried to unholster and take George Zimmerman's gun?

You are the one who brought up Martin's juvenile history as if it's relevant, so I will thank you to stop screaming at me when I address it.

Had he been goddamned thirty, no one would have cared! A seventeen-year-old is more capable than people give credit! He wasn't some kid! He knew what he was doing!

He was still in the pubescent stage of human development; he was unable to legally vote, smoke tobacco, or view pornography. He was a child.

Stop being so ignorant.

thenoblitt, I asked you in very explicit language to provide this proof you continue to insist exists. You chose not to until you finished yelling at me and calling me names, because apparently you think that name-calling is the best possible tactic to convince people of your position. Please stop behaving as if you are the one being reasonable.

I will read the provided link later, after responding to the various people who've quoted me and anyone else I feel like responding to.

If the black guy thinks race does matter, it makes him kind of racist himself.

How so? Racism is not the admission that race matters. If it was, sickle-cell anemia would be a racist disease. Wanting to insert some melanin into the painfully white world of video games protagonists isn't racism either; it's a desire to be represented.

---

Right. So, about that story you linked, thenoblitt.

It offers no evidence to support anything you said. None. It only reports on the verdict the jury reached, which you are treating as empirical fact rather than an interpretation of the facts that were permitted for presentation at trial. It never once even mentions that Martin went for Zimmerman's gun, as you claim, nor provides testimony about Zimmerman having left Martin only to be attacked by his quarry later. I would very much like to know what you think the linked article is proof of.

 

[J_Russell]

I saddens me to see my fellow white males still have the audacity to speak out against other races and genders, until the straight white male understands his role in this era of social justice, which is at the bottom of the progressive stack, then they will be rightfully ostrich-sized both physically and verbally.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

I did however find the edit rather funny.

Spoiler

That edit really confuses me. Why do people keep acting like the black dude (whose name, sadly, I have forgotten, if ever I knew it at all) ever said race doesn't matter? Or even implied it? He pretty obviously didn't, since he thinks this or that character ought to be black. That edit is mocking him for hypocritically betraying a position that isn't even his own, but rather that of the people arguing him. I don't get it.

I don't understand your argument.

 

[thenoblitt]

Why doesn't anyone understand that Trayvon Martin tried to unholster and take George Zimmerman's gun?

You are the one who brought up Martin's juvenile history as if it's relevant, so I will thank you to stop screaming at me when I address it.

Had he been goddamned thirty, no one would have cared! A seventeen-year-old is more capable than people give credit! He wasn't some kid! He knew what he was doing!

He was still in the pubescent stage of human development; he was unable to legally vote, smoke tobacco, or view pornography. He was a child.

Stop being so ignorant.

thenoblitt, I asked you in very explicit language to provide this proof you continue to insist exists. You chose not to until you finished yelling at me and calling me names, because apparently you think that name-calling is the best possible tactic to convince people of your position. Please stop behaving as if you are the one being reasonable.

I will read the provided link later, after responding to the various people who've quoted me and anyone else I feel like responding to.

If the black guy thinks race does matter, it makes him kind of racist himself.

How so? Racism is not the admission that race matters. If it was, sickle-cell anemia would be a racist disease. Wanting to insert some melanin into the painfully white world of video games protagonists isn't racism either; it's a desire to be represented.

---

Right. So, about that story you linked, thenoblitt.

It offers no evidence to support anything you said. None. It only reports on the verdict the jury reached, which you are treating as empirical fact rather than an interpretation of the facts that were permitted for presentation at trial. It never once even mentions that Martin went for Zimmerman's gun, as you claim, nor provides testimony about Zimmerman having left Martin only to be attacked by his quarry later. I would very much like to know what you think the linked article is proof of.

I never said that the article was the proof, I said this article is pretty non biased and lays everything out.

 

[Vegosiux]

I saddens me to see my fellow white males still have the audacity to speak out against other races and genders, until the straight white male understands his role in this era of social justice, which is at the bottom of the progressive stack, then they will be rightfully ostrich-sized both physically and verbally.

I don't think that's sound reasoning. I mean some day a guy called Archie Duke will shoot that ostrich because he got hungry and then all hell will break loose.

 

[Shadowstar38]

But yeah. We're in total agreement. And hey, it was even topical. Bonus points for us.

Are you being reasonable and tolerant in this thread? WTF! Stop ruining it for the rest of us!

 

[Shadowstar38]

But yeah. We're in total agreement. And hey, it was even topical. Bonus points for us.

Are you being reasonable and tolerant in this thread? WTF! Stop ruining it for the rest of us!

Um . . . . um . . . .

We were saying it was okay for an originally white character to have a black incarnation, so that makes us race traitors and hypocrites?


Is that better?

That is acceptable.

Also, I've been considering something. If race doesn't matter, and you then change the race, isn't it purely an asthetic change? How I'm I suppose to relate to the character any better when everything else stays the same? It's like the dudes with tits thing when we talk about adding female characters.

 

[The Wooster]

Also, I've been considering something. If race doesn't matter, and you then change the race, isn't it purely an asthetic change? How I'm I suppose to relate to the character any better when everything else stays the same? It's like the dudes with tits thing when we talk about adding female characters.

Well, yeah, it is a purely aesthetic change. Which makes it kinda weird when people get bent out of shape about it.

It's like asking why we can't drive a blue car instead of a red one. And then somebody berates you for suggesting that red is an evil color because it isn't blue.

Which is why I think it's probably the best option, in any case where it's purely a matter of aesthetics, to give the player the choice to create their own character.

Probably the best summary of the argument I've heard. Wish I'd came up with it.

 

[Jux]

People keep repeating that in one form or another, but I think it's a fallacy. The comic really does try to paint white men as literally murderous racists.

The author already came in and said it wasn't targetting all white men. He was lampooning three subsets in an over the top way.

The "it's not really targeting all white guys" defense doesn't hold water. Imagine if someone made a comic about a bunch of Muslims blowing themselves up, or a bunch of greedy Jews, or some black people stealing cars and dealing drugs.

If the author of the comic was a Muslim/Jew/black person, I wouldn't see a problem.

Then they went on to defend themselves saying "I never meant to portray all Muslims/Jews/black people that way, only the ones who actually do those things! And hey, if you're offended, maybe you're actually one of those guys the comic is talking about!" Would you think that's acceptable? So why would it be acceptable here?

See above. And to expound a bit, I think the Muslim/Jew/black examples don't hold up in this specific case, as we're talking about a majority, coming from a position of privelege, acting like they are the oppressed minority. So mirroring the senario doesn't work in the same way here.

 

[thewatergamer]

XD that is awesome, just kind of sad that its true...

Oh well CUE THE RACIST ACCUSATIONS!

 

[The Wooster]

33 pages of comments, and I still don't get or understand whatever joke this strip is trying to make.

It's a poor satyr of the anti-PC crowd. It is trying to make fun out of those who usually disagree with ideas like "Video Games must have more women!", "Video Games are sexist/racist/homophobic/etc.". Which in itself is not bad per se, but the huge amount of emphasis on the "White Guy" part kind of makes it look like it's trying to satyr white men instead and stereotyping them as being over the top anti-pc.

I can say without hesitation that I have never tried to satyr a white man. I'm not even a wizard.

 

[generals3]

33 pages of comments, and I still don't get or understand whatever joke this strip is trying to make.

It's a poor satyr of the anti-PC crowd. It is trying to make fun out of those who usually disagree with ideas like "Video Games must have more women!", "Video Games are sexist/racist/homophobic/etc.". Which in itself is not bad per se, but the huge amount of emphasis on the "White Guy" part kind of makes it look like it's trying to satyr white men instead and stereotyping them as being over the top anti-pc.

I can say without hesitation that I have never tried to satyr a white man. I'm not even a wizard.

Oh but I know. That's why I think your satire is poor. Instead of properly satirizing one group, as you wanted, it satirizes a much larger one.

 

[Shadowstar38]

33 pages of comments, and I still don't get or understand whatever joke this strip is trying to make.

It's a poor satyr of the anti-PC crowd. It is trying to make fun out of those who usually disagree with ideas like "Video Games must have more women!", "Video Games are sexist/racist/homophobic/etc.". Which in itself is not bad per se, but the huge amount of emphasis on the "White Guy" part kind of makes it look like it's trying to satyr white men instead and stereotyping them as being over the top anti-pc.

I can say without hesitation that I have never tried to satyr a white man. I'm not even a wizard.

Oh but I know. That's why I think your satyr is poor. Instead of properly satyring one group, as you wanted, it satyrs a much larger one.

Satire dude. Satire. The thing you're saying is a mythological half man half goat.

 

[generals3]

Satire dude. Satire. The thing you're saying is a mythological half man half goat.

I knew something was wrong with the spelling but i forgot what. Thanks for the correction.

 

[Ishal]

33 pages of comments, and I still don't get or understand whatever joke this strip is trying to make.

It's a poor satyr of the anti-PC crowd. It is trying to make fun out of those who usually disagree with ideas like "Video Games must have more women!", "Video Games are sexist/racist/homophobic/etc.". Which in itself is not bad per se, but the huge amount of emphasis on the "White Guy" part kind of makes it look like it's trying to satyr white men instead and stereotyping them as being over the top anti-pc.

I can say without hesitation that I have never tried to satyr a white man. I'm not even a wizard.

Then where did I get these goat hooves from? Goddammit, Grey. Well at least I can have some fun at the local church now. But you're changing me back when I'm done.

 

[New Frontiersman]

33 pages of comments, and I still don't get or understand whatever joke this strip is trying to make.

It's a poor satyr of the anti-PC crowd. It is trying to make fun out of those who usually disagree with ideas like "Video Games must have more women!", "Video Games are sexist/racist/homophobic/etc.". Which in itself is not bad per se, but the huge amount of emphasis on the "White Guy" part kind of makes it look like it's trying to satyr white men instead and stereotyping them as being over the top anti-pc.

I can say without hesitation that I have never tried to satyr a white man. I'm not even a wizard.

Oh but I know. That's why I think your satyr is poor. Instead of properly satyring one group, as you wanted, it satyrs a much larger one.

... No, the word you're looking for is "satire" not "satyr". To satire is to use "humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues," a satyr is one of the mythological companions of the god Pan who have human upper bodies and goat-like lower bodies; think Phil from Disney's Hercules.

As in: "it's a poor satire of the anti-PC crowd" or "instead of properly satirizing one group... it satirizes a much larger one."

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

If the black guy thinks race does matter, it makes him kind of racist himself.

How so? Racism is not the admission that race matters. If it was, sickle-cell anemia would be a racist disease. Wanting to insert some melanin into the painfully white world of video games protagonists isn't racism either; it's a desire to be represented.

It's not that so much as the way anyone who thinks, for example, a comic book character that has always been white should remain that way in the movies, is tarred and feathered as a racist, at least around these parts[footnote]Edit: And the specific argument for why this should be okay, and it's racist to think otherwise, is that race really didn't matter to the character. Apparently race only affects the experience, characterization, and so on of non-whites, if you look at both the arguments for why it's okay to do this kind of race swap but not okay to do the reverse.[/footnote]. Take a look back in the threads about the rumored casting for the new Fantastic 4 movie, or going further back, the threads about the Pakistani woman who was told she couldn't play a Hobbit in the movie because hobbits don't come quite that dark. Or even further back, the ones about Idris Elba being cast as Heimdall in Thor.

Meanwhile if you so much as suggest a historically black character be a different race in a new adaptation, the outrage is even louder. Now I understand that in part it's because there's already so few minority roles to go around that turning one white reduces the number of roles available for minority actors much more than doing the reverse does for white actors, but it's still more than a little bit weird to see people totally flip around from saying "well sure, let's make this character black, his race didn't matter anyway." To "No way in hell am I going to let you get away with whitewashing this character!" Race either matters or it doesn't, you really can't have it both ways.

 

[The Wooster]

If the black guy thinks race does matter, it makes him kind of racist himself.

How so? Racism is not the admission that race matters. If it was, sickle-cell anemia would be a racist disease. Wanting to insert some melanin into the painfully white world of video games protagonists isn't racism either; it's a desire to be represented.

Race either matters or it doesn't, you really can't have it both ways.

Yes I can. It depends entirely on the character. Making Heimdall black is of no consequence because Heimdall's race is immaterial. Making Malcom X white? Yeah, kind of a problem.

Not entirely related, but there's a pretty funny skit on the subject from Donald Glover.

 

[Aesir23]

Satire dude. Satire. The thing you're saying is a mythological half man half goat.

I knew something was wrong with the spelling but i forgot what. Thanks for the correction.

It certainly made the post a lot more amusing to read. I kept inserting half men-half goats into the equation.