Comments on: A Concise History Of Black-White Relations In The U.S.A.

By: Juan

Juan — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:52:57 +0000

Love the cartoon back when it was in black and white in various places across the net. Never knew it was in color or your work until now. =)

I love it more than the defensive reactions a few posters made. *grin*

By: Ampersand

Ampersand — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 17:55:34 +0000

Thanks, Liffy!

By: Liffy

Liffy — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:55:02 +0000

I first saw this cartoon (the black/white version) in 2005, and I LOVED it then. STILL love it now. My favorite political cartoon EVER! Hands down!

By: fair

fair — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 10:52:51 +0000

Your cartoon is so deliberately obtuse that it defies description. You’re proud of it? There is no inherited guilt for white people. Contrary to what your cartoon applies, I don’t recall being around 400 years ago enslaving Africans. My ancestors are Irish, and emmigrated in the 20th century, before that, they were too busy trying to survive the 1000 year genocide waged against them by the English.

By: Apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples 13 February 2008 « Errantry

Apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples 13 February 2008 « Errantry — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 08:03:50 +0000

[...] if you’ve just deliberately lopped limbs off a group of people. I really like the cartoon A Concise History of Black-White Relations in the U.S.A. and have found it useful for explaining a number of things. But it’s a very different [...]

By: David

David — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 01:00:12 +0000

There are so many fallacies in that one strip it’s so hard to even begin to pull it apart - your metaphor is hopelessly inadequate, and no evidence is provided to support the alleged correspondence between the metaphor and reality. One failure is when the white guy says “I’m real sorry about being racist before”. In real life, it is completely different people, generations later, and the people who perpetrated slavery are long dead. You cannot blame one person for the vile behaviour of another, no matter how badly you want someone to blame. Something else that is amiss is the assertion that whites are on top *because of* slavery/racism. There is no proof for this, and in fact, macroeconomically, deliberately holding a group of people ‘under’ does not boost an economy, it holds it back (lower wealth production capacity over same number of mouths to feed) - Apartheid South Africa is an excellent example of this fallacious reasoning that keeping people down helps you up - maintaining and providing resources for an unskilled populace is an economic burden. Thirdly, the “victim” in the image is in real life different people in different generations/times. A black person who grows up in America today has more opportunities etc. than almost anyone in the whole world. Finally, racism *is* racism, and wrong, no matter what direction it’s applied.

By: mark

mark — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:05:10 +0000

Great cartoon! I posted on my blog this morning.

By: kiddio

kiddio — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 22:04:26 +0000

should probably also include irish and italians and nameless other euorpeans who were abused so that xenophobic americans could make it to that black rectangle on top

By: Ampersand

Ampersand — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 01:45:56 +0000

Pheeno, you have a good point. I have done a couple of cartoons about racism against American Indian issues (mainly criticizing the Federal government), but I should do more.

Mandolin, Changeseeker, thank you so much. I’m really glad you like the cartoon.

By: Changeseeker

Changeseeker — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 01:33:32 +0000

This cartoon is the hands-down BEST explanation for the fallacy of “reverse discrimination” I’ve ever seen — and I’ve been paying attention for a while. Not only did I use it to advertise the new Erase Racism Blog Carnival on my blog, but I put a permanent link to it on my blog roll. I’m going to use it as a handout in the classroom and in any other way I can think of. Thank you about a hundred thousand times!

By: Mandolin

Mandolin — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 04:59:39 +0000

This cartoon? How to measure my love for it? Vast. I shall measure it in vast.

By: pheeno

pheeno — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 16:42:26 +0000

I’d just like to see more of it in day to day examples of racism, instead of just whenever thanksgiving rolls around.

By: W.B. Reeves

W.B. Reeves — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 16:38:26 +0000

Amp, it’s a good cartoon. Actually, I think it’s a brilliant example of cartoon as social illustration. Something that is particularly difficult to achieve. Most efforts of this sort end up being simple minded propaganda rather than thought provoking. Your’s escapes that fate.

Pheeno, you’ve reminded of a particularly savage cartoon by the great Ron Cobb. He drew a cutway of a house where a stereotypical white bread family was saying grace around a Thanksgiving table, groaning with a huge turkey and other delectables. Beneath this scene of idyllic Norman Rockwell splendor, below the foundations of the house, he revealed the jumbled bones of numberless, nameless Indians. Quite a statement.

I suppose Amp could have done something similar here. It would certainly be a more complex statement. African Americans can hardly be said to stand in the same relation to Native Americans as European Americans. The history of African American and Native American relations is itself pretty complex, as the contrasting experiences with the Seminoles and the Cherokee show.

By: Joe

Joe — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 00:44:48 +0000

pheeno Writes:
June 15th, 2007 at 3:32 pm

You missed my point Joe. The only race problem that ever gets attention is black and white.

I got it. It’s a good point, although you could probably get a debate going over the difference between most of the attention and all of it. I was just using it as an example of the type of criticism I was joking about.

By: pheeno

pheeno — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 22:51:51 +0000

You missed my point Joe. The only race problem that ever gets attention is black and white.

By: Very interesting! « A Moveable Feast

Very interesting! « A Moveable Feast — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 12:20:57 +0000

[...] Very interesting! A Concise History Of Black-White Relations In The U.S.A. [...]

By: Ampersand

Ampersand — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 11:04:16 +0000

Oh, i get it now, Joe. Sorry I misunderstood you.

I tend to be much more aware of the many faults in my drawing than most readers. Fortunately. :-)

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 10:37:36 +0000

Amp, I worded my comment badly. I was trying to make a joke about how every time you post a cartoon a bunch of people comment to tell you that you’re off point. Pheeno’s comments an example of what I meant. I think it’s silly to expect a 6 panel cartoon to be a research paper. I think the art is great.

By: colleen

colleen — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 07:53:54 +0000

This is one of my favorite political cartoons ever. The first time I saw it, I saved it on my computer and have busted it out repeatedly whenever someone brings up race issues. I even got to use it as a source in college–got me some extra credit. :)

By: pheeno

pheeno — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 15:10:58 +0000

While this is a good cartoon, it just illustrates what I’ve said in the Cherokee thread. That ground they’re standing on should be red and have murdered Native Americans everywhere.