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Unity | SMBC
(www.smbc-comics.com)
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this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2024
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The alt-text panel hints at this, but the problem with making up a fake group everyone can hate is that racists and bigots will stretch the definition to include whatever they want.
We've seen it with "antisemitism" being redefined to include any criticism of Israel, and before that "pedophilia" being redefined to include drag queens and parents supporting their trans children. For that reason, hatred like this should not be encouraged, even if it's imaginary.
My interpretation of it was that it was satire and not proposing the creation of a fake group. In short, I perceived it as being in agreement with everything you said.
You're right of course about this being satire. My fear though is that things like this can fall out of the author's control very quickly, much like Pepe the Frog, and I really don't want gratch to be a catchall dog whistle.
No one who reads these comics will turn the fake slur into a real thing. Smbc has made this point before in other comics.
found the gratch! go back where you came from
Racism is usually "my race is the best," not "that particular race sucks." Another race wouldn't change anything.
Do you have any examples of this? Because my experience is the opposite. It's the perception that your group is normal, the "default", and tearing down all of these other groups using phrases exactly like the ones in the comic.
You're saying the same thing I am. Racists usually consider their race superior and all the others inferior. And in that case the solution in the comic would just add another inferior race to the list of inferior races.
It's not like racists are racist against a single race and if you give them a new race to be racist against they'll stop being racist against the first one.
Different kinds of racists. They're not all hardcore white supremacist types, plenty of otherwise-normal people have prejudices against specific groups for being lazy, smelly, deviant, whatever.
What? two are equivalent. My race is awesome and also yours isn't because it's sub human in comparison
They're not equivalent.
Case 1: Blue guy hates green people. Red and yellow are fine, but green people are sub-human and don't deserve the same treatment as blue, red, and yellow. According to this comic, you just give them gray people to refocus their racism and then blue and red will both hate gray together.
Case 2: Blue guy thinks only blue people are true human. If you're not blue you don't deserve to be treated the same as blue. Giving them gray people to be racist against will not change anything, it's just one more color that's not blue.
I'm saying case 2 is what racism looks like in real life in 99% of cases. But even in case 1, I doubt the blue racist would suddenly be ok with red people just because gray are worse.
Even in Case 2, it satisfies the satirical robot's definition of unity for blue, red, yellow, and green people to all agree that Gratches are the fucking worst. The comic simply does not claim that racism against Gratches will reduce racism against anyone else, that's you adding meaning where none exists. All it claims is unity.