Yeah, I think I screwed up the quote. Not the big issue here. I don’t usually look at the world outside of storytelling but in this strip, I kind of had to. I’ll explain why in a moment.
For the record I am in a favor of protesting and the anger was justified. Rioting is NEVER justified against innocents.
Fizzbin’s role in Jake & Leon is to ask the questions we wouldn’t think of, the odd parts of our culture. Outside of Christmas this usually means something involving storytelling, the them of this site, and it’s meant to be amusing. However, while I agree with the protest involving George Floyd’s death, especially as I learn more about this pastor who was actually planning to leave the area to continue his ministry elsewhere and did a lot of good in Minnesota, it’s the riots I’m against. Stores that stayed open to help people during the pandemic are now destroyed and empty, a charter school that the parents of white and non-white kids both fight to get their kids into because of how little attention public schools get was trashed, and an affordable housing complex being constructed was looted. Somehow destroying your own stuff…although one news commentator suggested these were people outside the neighborhood who couldn’t give two s@#%$s about these people…is going to show people that you’re righteously angry about the treatment by the police.
And yet when other protesters went after their local governments over extreme enforcement of the quarantine, like a man arrested for taking his daughter to an EMPTY park to play or opening up because they need to survive, these same people who are cheering the wanton destruction of innocent people’s dreams, businesses, and a chance to not live out of their cars threw a fit and swore they were just spreading the virus, which we get told is still out there stalking us all? So were these protesters practicing social distancing from their cars? Did the looters wear masks and follow the arrows on the floor? The officer in this case deserves to be punished and the people have a right to protest to make sure he gets punished. It’s the riots that I’m pissed off about and I don’t even live in that area. Imagine a small grocery store who stayed open and risked infection to make sure people could eat only to have THIS as a “thank you for your service”. How are these kids going to have a better life when they’ll have to go back to the same school system that abandoned them? How is destroying a chance to reduce homelessness by building a home at a price the poor can afford (George Carlin was right, the problem is houselessness) making the world a better place? I guess as long as the rage your venting is supported by the right people you can get away with anything. I’m pro-protest, but I’m anti-riot.
Meanwhile we finally get back into space and form a new destiny but we don’t get to enjoy it or celebrate it. I wonder if Fizzbin has room on her ship for one more because I want to join her out there.
Back on track. Over at The Clutter Reports I finally did some actual cleaning and went through some old card backs for my Transformers. Here at BW this week We’re nearing the end of Spider-Man: Carnage In New York for Chapter By Chapter and the look at comics continues for Art Of Storytelling with the final intended chapter, a look at graphic novels versus trade collections. Hope that between the riots and the coronavirus you’re all safe and we can get through this week. The SpaceX astronauts got out of here at just the right time, even with the delay. I envy them right about now, and I’m afraid of heights. Guess we have a new reason to stay indoors and hope to survive, only instead of a virus it’s people.
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