Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."

[Wraith]

I *think* that Brun's dialogue in the last panel is a quote from a movie or book. I feel that I recognise it, but I can't place the reference.

Don't know about the glowing 'anime'-style eyes though, I think that's just a meme. Either that or Jeph "I have an addictive personality" Jacques went through some really weird times before he moved onto, and then eventually away from, alcohol.

[Cikomyr]

So, I guess that today was a parody of... something?

Twilight Zone episode about a guy and dolls?

[Willie the Duck]

Regardless of Brun's unspecified neurodivergence, I am beginning to suspect that she just isn't a very smart person.

With fictional characters, it's always hard to say. I feel like she's being telegraphed as exceedingly lacking in common sense, with little trying to be said about any other aspects of 'smart'-ness.

Most of the characters (excepting Emily and Hanners, who have crazy genius as an informed attribute) seem to intellectually have a defining forte or weakness, but otherwise are pretty much blank canvasses upon which Jeph can paint the needed plot. How 'smart' is Marigold?-- smart enough to have a job, now let's talk about her social anxiety! How smart is Bubbles?--smart enough to be the level-headed one in the relationship, on to her and Faye's financial woes!

[Willie the Duck]

And now we have a named term to work with.

[Shadow of the Sun]

Yeah... called it. :P

She seems to be reasonably high functioning, at least, although I know some fellow autistic folk who don't like that terminology.

[eee]

Have we met Kevin before?

[Mith]

Have we met Kevin before?

I don't think so. He might just have a stock chassis, that looks similar to Winslow's current chassis.

[Kato]

You know, I'm going to be the insensitive **** who doesn't know what is wrong with being curious about a person's origin. Clearly not as a lame pick-up line but to the point where you'd tell your nine year old not to ask about it.

And.. I guess it was obvious but now Jeph went out and said it. Yay?

Also, I hope Brun is not too sweaty. Or Kevin doesn't care.

[John Cribati]

Basically asking a stranger's ethnicity, at least as a White American in America, carries with it the connotation of "othering" them. Brun is an American born in America, but there's a certain history that comes with making a big point- or any point, really- of her being Ethnically Lebanese, just because it's something that enough Bad White People have done.

Sort of like how we have a word for "a bundle of sticks" that's more commonly used to refer to gay folk in a derogatory way, so much that it's considered rude even if you're referring to a bundle of sticks you are carrying in your arms.

[Gez]

You know, I'm going to be the insensitive **** who doesn't know what is wrong with being curious about a person's origin. Clearly not as a lame pick-up line but to the point where you'd tell your nine year old not to ask about it.

Is it something you'd ask also people who are in the local ethnic majority?

But mostly what's wrong is insisting after getting an answer like the name of a nearby city. Why would Brunhilde be "really" Lebanese? She doesn't have a Lebanese name, she doesn't speak the Lebanese or Maronite dialect of Arabic, she doesn't have a Lebanese accent, nothing has been said about her religion or lack thereof so she's unlikely to be a member of one of the mainstream Lebanese religions (Maronite or Eastern Orthodox Christian; Shia or Sunni Muslim; Druze) since they are not mainstream in North America and it would have come up, she has never commented on things happening in the Levant so she doesn't have any interest in that area of the world. There's nothing that connects her to Lebanon. She's not Lebanese.

And the idea that she's not local and is really from another part of the world that she has no connection to just because her skin is browner than the average is blatantly racist.

[Iruka]

Being interested in other peoples history and origin (both personal and family wise) is perfectly normal in my opinion. When you do ask these questions unusually early in a conversation just because of someones looks is when it turns rude. This goes especially for countries with a lot of immigration like the US or Germany, where the answer to "Where are you from?" is usually something like "Oh, from <town near here>."

edit: ninja'd much more eloquently by Gez. Thank you, that's exactly what I wanted to say.

[Cazero]

So, Jeph made a very bold statemnt today. I quote : "Graphs, they're cool".
But how cool are we talking here? I think we need a graph to properly measure and compare the relative coolness of graphs and other cool things, like butts.

[Vinyadan]

I see some experimentation going on with Brun's nose. I think it's a good thing. Yesterday's strip had something like that with Clint's nose.

[Willie the Duck]

You know, I'm going to be the insensitive **** who doesn't know what is wrong with being curious about a person's origin. Clearly not as a lame pick-up line but to the point where you'd tell your nine year old not to ask about it.

I don't think it's related to you being insensitive, I just think your not a parent (right?). Nine years old is actually pretty old to start. Probably just when you have to have a more complex discussion and explain it well. Right about when your child starts being verbal, they will start saying things* like, 'Mommy, why's that woman's skin so dark?,' or 'Daddy, why is that man wearing a funny hat?,' or, 'why are those two men kissing?' Children are a delight in that they are not intuitively judgmental of others based on the things that make them different from the child and their family, but they are trying to make sense of the world, and that tends to make them focus on differences. Differences, which, since a child's first interaction with strangers is usually in how they look, act, or what they wear, tends to be the stuff that causes a lot of adult hand wringing.
*and given the guy who made the remarks to Brun, I am framing this from the perspective of a white American child of a heteronormative family, even though that that was not my own personal experience of child-raising question-asking.

So children don't naturally hate or fear people that are other, but they can do a great job of accidentally othering people. That Renee's hookup (who this time, I've genuinely forgotten the name of) was still doing that as a (physically) grown man is, for lack of a better term, a failure of rudimentary adulthood.

Yeah... called it. :P

She seems to be reasonably high functioning, at least, although I know some fellow autistic folk who don't like that terminology.

I just hope Jeph can do it justice. Back when it was Ambiguous Disorder, he had a little more safety net (although, as Big Bang Theory, mentioned in said link, found out, that safety net erodes as it becomes more and more obvious).

[Kish]

Yeah... called it. :P

Yes, she's autistic all right. Second time one of his characters has actually stated being neurodivergent, instead of Emily/Raven's quirkiness.

[Max_Killjoy]

The whole "where are you from?" thing cuts both ways. Look at the stupid generic testing ads, and ethnic "identity" beliefs, and so on.

Just as there are people who will use the trivia of where someone's umpteen-back ancestors were from as a way to undercut or belittle or marginalize them, there are also people who fixate on where their own umpteen-back ancestors came from as if it's core to their "identity".

If your ancestors have been in the US for generations, you are not German or Irish or Chinese or Swahili or Martian, you're American. It's interesting where your ancestors were from, family history is a fascinating subject, maybe your family has traditions that it cherishes, that's all great stuff... but that doesn't make you "from X". If your grandparents were all born in the US, and your parents, and you as well, then the answer to "where are you from?" isn't someplace halfway around the world, it's "New Jersey" or "the Midwest" or "Oregon" or "America" or whatever.


As for whether it's offensive to ask...

• It's not something you just ask a stranger or up front within 5 minutes of meeting someone.
• There's a difference between saying "where are you from?", and "do you mind if I ask where your ancestors came from?" or something like that.

[Keltest]

The whole "where are you from?" thing cuts both ways. Look at the stupid generic testing ads, and ethnic "identity" beliefs, and so on.

Just as there are people who will use the trivia of where someone's umpteen-back ancestors were from as a way to undercut or belittle or marginalize them, there are also people who fixate on where their own umpteen-back ancestors came from as if it's core to their "identity".

If your ancestors have been in the US for generations, you are not German or Irish or Chinese or Swahili or Martian, you're American. It's interesting where your ancestors were from, family history is a fascinating subject, maybe your family has traditions that it cherishes, that's all great stuff... but that doesn't make you "from X".

Maybe, but on the other hand, America doesn't have thousands of years of culture and heritage to look back on, unless you're descended from one of the tribes. In the grand scheme of things, we're a baby culture. Is it that unusual that we would look at our "parents" and inform our identities with that as well? I would never tell somebody that I actually was physically from Scotland, but my ancestors took that culture with them when they crossed the pond, and it hasn't just gone away. Heck, I could drive for an hour and run into a community of people who placed so much value on the culture they had that they've done their best to remain unchanging through the generations.

[Iruka]

Maybe, but on the other hand, America doesn't have thousands of years of culture and heritage to look back on, unless you're descended from one of the tribes. In the grand scheme of things, we're a baby culture. Is it that unusual that we would look at our "parents" and inform our identities with that as well? I would never tell somebody that I actually was physically from Scotland, but my ancestors took that culture with them when they crossed the pond, and it hasn't just gone away. Heck, I could drive for an hour and run into a community of people who placed so much value on the culture they had that they've done their best to remain unchanging through the generations.

Nothing wrong with keeping the culture of your ancestors alive and identifying accordingly. Brun for example seems to have no such ties to her ancestry and that what makes it weird to require her to identify as lebanese.

Similarly I would never ask any Irish to accept me as one of them. According to family history some ancestor emigrated from there during the Potato Famine, but there is no trace of Irish culture alive in the family. This is where claims of belonging to a culture become ridiculous, but I think that happens only in a few isolated cases.

[Mith]

Nothing wrong with keeping the culture of your ancestors alive and identifying accordingly. Brun for example seems to have no such ties to her ancestry and that what makes it weird to require her to identify as lebanese.

Similarly I would never ask any Irish to accept me as one of them. According to family history some ancestor emigrated from there during the Potato Famine, but there is no trace of Irish culture alive in the family. This is where claims of belonging to a culture become ridiculous, but I think that happens only in a few isolated cases.

I will say in my case, I don't really know how many rocks would get thrown my way when it comes to the idea of claiming heritage. I do focus on Scottish heritage, and enjoy a lot of what I can find for Gaelic culture, but I wouldn't define myself as Scots-Canadian, or anything else. However, as mentioned previously, I sound foreign to most people, so I usually just say I'm British as a shorthand of avoiding the explanation.

[Yuki Akuma]

She finally actually said it.

Thank God. Now people can accept that the character portraying traditional autistic personality traits is an attempt to write an autistic character.

[dps]

Being interested in other peoples history and origin (both personal and family wise) is perfectly normal in my opinion. When you do ask these questions unusually early in a conversation just because of someones looks is when it turns rude. This goes especially for countries with a lot of immigration like the US or Germany, where the answer to "Where are you from?" is usually something like "Oh, from <town near here>."

I don't see how asking about someone's background is either rude or unusual. To me, it simply indicates interest in learning more about the person. And yes, I'll ask other white Americans where their ancestors came from. I'll grant, though, that it's not something that should come up right when you first meet someone, and that asking because you consider their looks exotic is, if not racist, at least insensitive.

[mythmonster2]

I'll grant, though, that it's not something that should come up right when you first meet someone, and that asking because you consider their looks exotic is, if not racist, at least insensitive.

As someone who gets asked the question, yeah, I'm fine if someone I've known for a little while asks me. I'm usually okay with it earlier, too, though the context can definitely influence whether or not it's okay.

[Traab]

As someone who gets asked the question, yeah, I'm fine if someone I've known for a little while asks me. I'm usually okay with it earlier, too, though the context can definitely influence whether or not it's okay.

Hey baby, you look exotic, wanna work on foreign relations?

[Iruka]

I don't see how asking about someone's background is either rude or unusual. To me, it simply indicates interest in learning more about the person. And yes, I'll ask other white Americans where their ancestors came from. I'll grant, though, that it's not something that should come up right when you first meet someone, and that asking because you consider their looks exotic is, if not racist, at least insensitive.

I am completely in agreement with you. Interest in someones background is normal, even a required politeness once you reach a certain level of acquaintance. It is only bad when you single out people based on their looks or their name, especially like Pumpkin in the comic as basically the first thing you say to them, following up with "No, I mean where are you really from." for bonus points.

[Fawkes]

Is it weird that after reading today's strip, I just feel bad for the doctors?

[Wraith]

Eeehh... I'm kind of lost on what the message of today's comic is supposed to be.

Questionable Content: Which has put countless strips into discussing the orientation of straight/gay/bi/asexual/robosexual characters, with extensive focus on "what they might be" according to internal and external perceptions.

Questionable Content: Which has explored racism, prejudice, privilege and the likes through various Very Special Episodes.

Questionable Content: Wherein the author has gone out of his way to include as many different archetypes of racial, sexual and neurodivergent characters as possible, up to and including threatening to add more just to spite people who don't like the idea.

....And is just now saying that mentioning peoples' individual diversions and labelling them can be harmful? I know that's probably not what he's trying to do, but thats pretty much how it reads to me and it doesn't sound particularly self-aware. To be honest, it rings kind of hollow.

[Fawkes]

I think the message is "don't use 'autistic' or 'autist' as an insult", which I'm on board with.

[John Cribati]

Maybe you should see it as Brun talking about her experience, and not the comic saying anything in specific.

[Max_Killjoy]

Sometimes, characters talking about stuff are just expressing their thoughts and opinions about it, not conveying a message from the author.

Unlike the raisin debacle, I think this leans far more towards letting the characters do their own talking.

[Mechalich]

On a slightly different note, the current strip has me wondering just how common AIs are in the QC universe, and what the broader effects of having all these new people around would be. I mean, here we have Kevin, an embodied AI, working as a bank teller. That's an extremely ordinary job and it doesn't appear to relate to any special circumstances like May's convenience store work (which clearly relates to her legal situation, she had a far more high-end function before). Is the AI population of Northampton 5%, 10%? It's really unclear and it keeps getting stranger as time goes on how little detail exists surrounding this cataclysmic change in everyday life the strip presents.