copyright Aaron McGruder

The name of the talk was "What's The Color of Funny?" and I admit I was a little afraid that Rich and I would be the only white folks in the audience, and the only old ones, and that we would feel really out of place. I've done that a few times before, but only once felt really uncomfortable... I took my three cute blond kids to H. Salt in the more polychrome section of Memphis, back about 1973 or '4. Nothing the people in the place did made me uncomfortable, by the way, it was all in my own head. In the South, living in Arkansas, though, my head was real aware of the issues. But I love Boondocks and really wanted to hear what its creator had to say!

We parked off-campus in a two-hour slot across the bridge. And if Aaron M. hadn't had plane trouble, this would have been perfect. However, the talk started about 20 minutes late (in front of as multiracial, multigenerational an audience as you can imagine!) so we had to leave before all the questions were asked. As most of them were dumb, or were long-winded statements couched as questions, it's just as well. There were maybe 4 to 500 people there.

It's interesting to see someone whose college comic strip made it to the Big Time (though Dex doesn't have the edge!) Aaron said his strip started in the papers (including the Bee) April 19, 1999. One day before Columbine. One might think this was terrible timing --- Riley's love of guns had to be toned down --- except it crossed my mind that it could have been a lot worse. He could have started some months earlier, and then they would have blamed his strip, just as they have blamed video games and trenchcoats.

Aaron asked how many people have read his strip, and everyone's hand went up. He hadn't done his homework (going to do that after he got off the plane, you see, still a college student at heart) so he didn't know if the Bee showed daily or Sunday strips. He also didn't know we had picked up the strip the first day. He talked about the syndication, and how the newspapers have mostly hunkered down and kept the strip despite the content and the complaints. (He said that once people read the complaints, they then wrote in and complimented the strip, and the newspapers, loving a controversy (love it or hate it, they're buying papers, right?) would print them all.) Some have moved his strip to the editorial page, but so far no one has cancelled it, and the syndicate (UPI) is solidly behind him. (So he gets the barbs and shields them?) He says that a comic strip is not as confrontational as an editorial. People reading those usually have made up their mind two sentences into the editorial, while with the strip he can sneak in his message with humor.

Oddly enough, while everyone is upset with him, he says the most upset group ("apart from Ward Connerly's people") is the Multiracial Activist Coalition Group. He says the leader of this group is a white lady and she's really vocal. I got the feeling that Jazmine's mother may have some resemblance!

He then took the groups one by one. White folks don't like being pictured as buffoons and fools. He told of one strip that I don't remember, but I loved his description. A neighbor drives up his Porsche. Sees Riley, who says "nice car." Neighbor heads into the house, looking over his shoulder at the scary black kid. Riley thinks: "That should keep him up at night." Anyway, Aaron said if you're not the kind of white person he draws (actually, I see a lot of myself in Riley's teacher: she hasn't, I don't think, noticed his color, but won't put up with his mouth!) he's not offending you, and if you are, tough. He got applause for that.

Black people don't like the strip because "They're going to think we all steal cars." Well, says Aaron, guess what! They already do. The African-Americans (he mostly says they shouldn't keep changing their names, and he's comfortable being black) also don't want him "giving away what we're like." He says white people are fascinated with black ones, and "they already know." He says white people don't look at, say, Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes doing something awful and say "blacks will think we're all like that!" Finally, he says he doesn't care about stereotypes, because you can come up with a negative stereotype for a black no matter how he acts.

He says he grew up in Columbia Maryland, a "new city" built about 30 years ago. It was presumably the multiracial marriage capital of the country (though I think Denver is, myself.) Therefore, he went to school with a lot of Jazmines. I discovered that in many respects Jazmine is the soul of the strip. She is the "exploration of who we are." African? American? Most American blacks have some white blood in them, but even if it's 95%, they're still regarded as black. (And as he told us, and the leader of the Multiracial Activist Coalition, he didn't make that rule.) Huey told Jazmine she was black which was the real upset to the MAC. "Not everything Huey says I believe but I believe most of it."

In conclusion: "I wish people would not be so ashamed to be who they are."

It was a really interesting talk especially considering he hadn't prepared it. Then it was time for questions. The first, "what happened to the parents?" is answered on the webpage, and we might find out in the movie, if the movie happens. In truth, he wanted the boys to interact pretty much on their own, and knew if the parents were around, they'd be in the kids' faces all the time. Grandpa is too tired to supervise them closely.

The second question "What happened with Ward Connerly?" was answered by one of "Ward Connerly's people": Ward didn't like the strip where Riley thinks a title for a book he's writing should be "Ward Connerly should be {hung, drawn, and quartered}(I don't remember the exact words, sorry)" or maybe "Ward Connerly is a lily-livered Uncle Tom." It was the first title, which he regarded as a death threat and he wants an apology as death threats aren't covered by the first amendment. (Did Henry Hyde sue Alec Baldwin, and if not, why not?) So far, no apology, this is where it is. Then the answerer had a question of his own, preceded by a lengthy statement, how can he teach his kids to read with this terrible comic in the paper? (I've seen a letter to the editor saying that, presumably this guy wrote it.) Aaron answered with what about TV? Movies? Radio? Their friends? The strip is easy, he knows when it's coming to the house every day and he can use scissors or ink to assure his children never lay eyes on Boondocks. "That's YOUR responsibility as a parent, not mine as a cartoonist." Wild applause.

We left after the next, also statement-preceded, question, which was something about "how come we can't use the n-word?"

Very interesting day, and I'm enjoying Boondocks even more now.