Snowflakes: A Lesson in Responses to a Cartoon
If you write something even a little negative about future Fuehrer Donald Trump, you are generally barraged with responses calling you a "libtard." That's a hilarious combination of the words "liberal" and "retard." I've been guilty of doing that of thing, saying, "Fucktard" and "Guntard." I've stopped because it's just boring to make the same joke over and over, especially when lots of others are making that joke, too.
Also, if you say that something Trump said or did was cruel or wrong, you're gonna get a bunch of Trumptards...sorry, Trump voters saying that you're a "snowflake." That's an equally hilarious way of calling you weak and easily melted, like you can't take a jab or you're so politically-correct. Or whatever. I always thought snowflakes were all different and that was something to aspire to, but I guess not anymore. In fact, at one point, anti-abortion folks called babies born from frozen embryos that might have been destroyed "snowflake children." Times change. They do change.
But mainly, now, it's just a way to slam liberals for being too sensitive. Which leads us to a cartoon and the responses to it.
Dan Piraro has been doing the one-panel daily comic strip Bizarro for about 30 years now. It's mostly (but not always) apolitical and pretty funny stuff. And on December 26, an immensely busy travel day, Piraro published this one:
It's an airport attendant announcing, "We'd like to begin our pre-boarding process by inviting families with small children, and affluent white affluent white males to come aboard." Innocuous enough, right? Kind of an anodyne "Air travel sucks" joke, you know?
Oh, no. Not if you're constantly attuned to anything that might hint of bias against the privileged. Aggrieved Bizarro readers angrily responded to the strip and Piraro. "So, you just woke up and decided to insult folks you don’t know because of their skin color?? Pathetic!" wrote one. Another accused Piraro of voting for "Killary." He also got a goodly amount of hate mail, which is so quaint it's almost adorable. And although it's hard to be polite to people saying things like "Saw your comic strip dated 12/26/16. Your a RACIST using a Comic strip to to divide the country. You have to be a Democrat!! Sore LOSER!!!†Piraro answered some calmly and with good humor.
And you can bet that some of these mightily insulted scribblers, these whiny defenders of the most powerful group of people in the world, people who need no one to speak for them, will call women upset that a pussy-grabbing man got elected precious "snowflakes" who need to run to their "safe spaces."
This isn't just a "uh-uh, you're the snowflakes" tongue stuck out. It's about an inability to deal with oneself honestly.
That those angry at Piraro see no irony in that is what gives me no hope going forward. It's the same rank hypocrisy that can allow Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who sent a letter to Democrats in 2009 insisting that all nominees for the president's cabinet must go through ethics vetting, to insist that Trump's nominees be excluded from such inquiries. And the idiot hordes with no self-awareness will decline to see a problem here.
If you write something even a little negative about future Fuehrer Donald Trump, you are generally barraged with responses calling you a "libtard." That's a hilarious combination of the words "liberal" and "retard." I've been guilty of doing that of thing, saying, "Fucktard" and "Guntard." I've stopped because it's just boring to make the same joke over and over, especially when lots of others are making that joke, too.
Also, if you say that something Trump said or did was cruel or wrong, you're gonna get a bunch of Trumptards...sorry, Trump voters saying that you're a "snowflake." That's an equally hilarious way of calling you weak and easily melted, like you can't take a jab or you're so politically-correct. Or whatever. I always thought snowflakes were all different and that was something to aspire to, but I guess not anymore. In fact, at one point, anti-abortion folks called babies born from frozen embryos that might have been destroyed "snowflake children." Times change. They do change.
But mainly, now, it's just a way to slam liberals for being too sensitive. Which leads us to a cartoon and the responses to it.
Dan Piraro has been doing the one-panel daily comic strip Bizarro for about 30 years now. It's mostly (but not always) apolitical and pretty funny stuff. And on December 26, an immensely busy travel day, Piraro published this one:
It's an airport attendant announcing, "We'd like to begin our pre-boarding process by inviting families with small children, and affluent white affluent white males to come aboard." Innocuous enough, right? Kind of an anodyne "Air travel sucks" joke, you know?
Oh, no. Not if you're constantly attuned to anything that might hint of bias against the privileged. Aggrieved Bizarro readers angrily responded to the strip and Piraro. "So, you just woke up and decided to insult folks you don’t know because of their skin color?? Pathetic!" wrote one. Another accused Piraro of voting for "Killary." He also got a goodly amount of hate mail, which is so quaint it's almost adorable. And although it's hard to be polite to people saying things like "Saw your comic strip dated 12/26/16. Your a RACIST using a Comic strip to to divide the country. You have to be a Democrat!! Sore LOSER!!!†Piraro answered some calmly and with good humor.
And you can bet that some of these mightily insulted scribblers, these whiny defenders of the most powerful group of people in the world, people who need no one to speak for them, will call women upset that a pussy-grabbing man got elected precious "snowflakes" who need to run to their "safe spaces."
This isn't just a "uh-uh, you're the snowflakes" tongue stuck out. It's about an inability to deal with oneself honestly.
That those angry at Piraro see no irony in that is what gives me no hope going forward. It's the same rank hypocrisy that can allow Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who sent a letter to Democrats in 2009 insisting that all nominees for the president's cabinet must go through ethics vetting, to insist that Trump's nominees be excluded from such inquiries. And the idiot hordes with no self-awareness will decline to see a problem here.
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