Anonymous Opinion's Politics

Unfortunately Boondocks was picked up for 20 more episodes by the Cartoon Network. Somebody must be watching it although is sure isn't me.

They took the comic out off of the comics page in the Baltimore Sun because people complained, but I think they might have just moved it to the opinion page or something. I saw a few minutes of the animated version a while ago, and it was horrible. I'm shocked that you sat through it.

Why does a good show like Firefly get only 13 episodes and this gets picked up for another twenty? Sheesh.

::raises hand::
I'm the one who watches it. Sorry, it rocks the entire house. The reason you didn;t get anymore Firefly is becase FOX (Sinclair) wouldn't know a good show if it jumped up and punched them in the face. But I'm getting off point.

Boondocks is an EXCELLENT social commentary. McGruder takes it to the extreme because that's the only way you can talk about some of these very real problems. As someone who grew up in inner city Baltimore, I can tell you that the divide is real and the he brings up issues that are on the minds of alot of people.

That has always been the role of cartoons in society. Take something to its extreme and illogical conclusion so that people can think about it in a larger view. The Boondocks is just one of the first cartoons to do it from a strictly inner-city black point of view.

I haven't seen the episode you've mentioned yet, but every single one of the others has been hilarious and provacative, so I'm sure this one was no different. My advice is that you watch it, then take a moment and think long and hard about how the racial divide is percieved in America.

You know, if McGruder's inner city black point of view is held by a good number of real inner-city blacks, I just really pity them.

I'm going to put down a few of the extreme assumptions that the Boondocks world takes for granted. Kevin, since you've watched more episodes than I have you just tell me if I've got any of these wrong:

• The White man is keeping the Black man down
• Participating in capitalism makes you a slave to the White Man
• Black men who go into corporate America are somehow traitors to their race
• The judicial system always wrongly convicts Black people
• White people, especially Republicans, hate Black people

If a person chooses to perceive their world like Boondocks does, it's an awful way to live life, to believe that no matter what you do, you'll inevitably be shortchanged.

I haven't watched a lot of episodes, but is there a functional traditional (Mom and Dad present) Black family anywhere in this show?

As you say, it is extreme. So let's talk.

So much to go into here...

All of the points you made actually do reflect what alot of people think. What he's trying to do as far as I can tell is let his audience know how stupid some of the situations in the world are and maybe bring some attention to them.

# The White man is keeping the Black man down

Well, yeah. He doesn't stop there though. Society as a whole is keeping the black man down, especially the black man. The MLK coming out of a coma episode is a triumph for this point. What McGruder is getting at is that if the black man is content to be nothing more than lazy, bling buying peons, then that is what they will be. Also see the garden party episode where Grandad bonds with a rich white guy over just general people hating. That makes a few statements as well.

# Participating in capitalism makes you a slave to the White Man

Nope. I think you missed the point of that one. Participating in capitalism is just a bad idea unless you knwo what you are doing. Huey sees what is going to happen when rich-guy buys Jazmine's lemonade stand. It's not the fact that he's white, but he's a rich asshole who is going to milk her for everything she has and not reward her with what he promised in the end. It just so happens that a fat, rich, republican, male is the archetype for corporate America.

# Black men who go into corporate America are somehow traitors to their race

Again I think you missed something there. See the last point.

# The judicial system always wrongly convicts Black people

Not always wrongly, it just doesn't care. Which is true. Our justice system is a mockery of true justice.

# White people, especially Republicans, hate Black people

Wrong again. Not white people. RICH white people. Non-rich white people just don't care about black issues in the Boondocks world. If it doesn't affect them, they ignore it. Again, check out the lemonade stand. It's the passiveness that grabs my attention when I see it on the show, not hate.

As for whether there is a functional, standard black family on the show. Nope. Not a white one either. It's not about that. For your curiosity, Tom Dubois (the black DA who is the father of Jazmine) is happily married to white woman named Sarah. But the show isn't about that. There is no major female character besides Jazmine IN the show yet (Sarah is featured prominently in the comic). I actually find it refreshing that the show goes through this from a strictly male point of view. There's not alot of shows that will do that in this day and age.

All that said, I love Huey. Huey is one of my heroes. But I'm a libertarian white boy from inner-city Baltimore. I think I'm part of his target demographic.

Now I gotta go be a slave to the corporate machine. I could go on forever about the importance of this cartoon.

PS. Keep in mind that EVERY character on the show is crazy as a loon.

Is it me, or are the answers more unsettling than the questions on this one?

Dude...Kev...so do you buy into the class envy, class warfare stuff or is this part of the crazy as a loon part?

Yes Andy, the answers should be unsettling. That's kinda the point. Waking people up to certain issues is what a good cartoon does. It is supposed to jar the senses and make people discuss things.

Do I buy into it? Depends on the specific bit we're talking about. I believe that most poverty is because people aren't educated enough to know better. There's almost always a legal way to make cash. One of the problems (and one that McGruder goes into fairly often) is that we are not a culture that pride ourselves on education. We (the USA) may espouse to be all about education, but that is just not true.

We have to tell our young people that they can be something, and mean it. With study and hard work you can do whatever you want. But we need to give them the tools to do what they want and when they get there, we had better be ready to follow through.

The US doesn't reward education. We reward wit, we reward physical prowess, and we reward the willingness to trample your fellow man into the ground. This message had reached the ears of our inner city youth and they are doing exactly what they need to do to be successful.

So is the rich man keeping the poor man down? Kinda. There are schools in Baltimore that go without basic necessities, and instead using emergency funds to fix this, we ignore it. We pay our teachers crap wages while we pay our sports stars and politicians large amounts of money. That just makes no sense to me.

That's just one of the issues, there's alot more to all of these issues, but it all boils back down to education for me. Once people are educated and able to make informed decisions, all of this should go away. We need to change our society to value education and wisdom instead of physically powerful people and con artists.

::blink blink::

Kev, hold yer breath, this may be the first time on this post that I agree with you.

I haven't seen enough of this show or enough of the cartoon to glean the education point from it. If you've reviewed the site, you might have caught both Andy and me textbook thumping.

Withe the bad Baltimore schools, the Gov and Superintendent tried to take over and revamp the ones where people were graduating without the ability to read or do simple math. The legislature stopped them. Can we say "politics"?

In the city, I still don't think anyone really knows what happened to the $58 million dollars that suddenly turned up as a deficit a few years back. I don't think the rich people stole it to keep the black man down.

Politician pay shouldn't exceed the median income in his or her state. This may be the only situation where I turn into a full blown Commie. But I have good reasons I'd be happy to expand upon.