Abstract

Aaron McGruder's Right to Be Hostile

The author explains why he appreciates the subversive wit of the "Boondocks" comic strip. I can't remember what those kids were doing in the first Boondocks comic I saw, but I do remember exactly what passed through my mind when I read it: "How the hell did this get into a daily newspaper?" I stopped reading the comics page a long time ago. It seems that whoever is in charge of what to put on that page is given an edict that states: "For God's sake, try to be as bland as possible and by no means offend anyone!" It's odd considering all the black ink that goes into making up the comics section (and color on Sundays) that you rarely see any black faces on that page. Of course, the real funnies are on the front pages of most papers these days. After all, when you live in a society that will lock up about 30 percent of all black men at some time in their lives and send more of them to prison than to college, chances are a fair number of those black faces will end up in the newspaper. You see, in America these days, we aren't supposed to talk about race. We have been told to pretend that things have gotten better, that the old days of segregation and cross-burnings are long gone, and that no one needs to talk about race again because, hey, we fixed that problem. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Except for the occasional op-ed, where is the discussion of any of this in our daily newspapers? Fortunately, and hilariously, it is on the comics page in the form of Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks. The strip has crossed over into the vast American mainstream, proving once again that the best art finds its way to all people regardless of their background.