> One of the cartoonists I worked with told me about what he had to go through to be published in one university's newspaper. He said it was similar to a casting call for a play or musical -- all the cartoonists came out one at a time and fielded questions from the entire newspaper staff who have looked at submitted work. He was asked a question similar to this one: "I don't see any black characters in your strip. Are you being racist?"
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> Forgetting that strip cartoonists are probably the only ones at this paper who have to be interviewed this way, I wonder if this attitude actually harms race relations. Looking over a comic strip -- printed in black and white, no less -- and asking why there aren't any black characters just doesn't sound right.
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> When I look at the group of people I'm now working with, I see them as a group of people. I don't see them as three white guys, two white girls, two black guys, one asian girl, and one hispanic guy. I definitely don't see them as two n***ers, a chink, a wetback, and five whiteys (or whatever the rude word for caucasians is these days -- "honky" didn't really catch on and "cracker" doesn't upset any white people).
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> But I wonder. Does that person actually think of people as black, as white, as hispanic, as Korean?
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> It seems to me that people who want racial equality often try to push for racial quotas. However, rather than being able to look at people as just "people", quotas force you to look at a person as a member of a race. You're forced to think of someone as Puerto Rican. Basically, this adds yet another division between races and makes it harder to attain racial equality.
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> Your thoughts?
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> -Faux "refuses to use terms like 'European-American'. I'm not from Europe. I'm from America." Pas
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> Oh, "n***ers" is the word you're probably thinking of. The one that it's okay if black guys use it to refer to other black guys, but if a white guy ever uses it -- look out.

Well, I DO tend to notice race in my daily life, but for me, it is more of a way of remembering people than a way of drawing distinctions. (Well, I draw distincations in that I remember that the person is a given person, but that's about it.) I'm not even very good at telling apart different cultural origins, because it isn't important enough to me. For example, I have three friends who are Phillipino (sp?), Japanese, and Spanish. As far as I could tell, they might as well have all been from the same place. They all had darkish skin and black hair. I used that info to tell me that Dale (dark skin, black hair, short, slim) was a different person from Pete (pasty white, blond receding hair, tall, heavyset). The racial identifiers are about as important to me as things like "has a goatee" or "talks with a lisp" or "always wears that Board Doktor jacket". So yeah, I notice race, but not for itself.

Racial quotas: It's a tough call. The artist creating the strip may feel that more of his attention is being focused on racial issues, but the reader is not too likely to by impacted. Of course, a lack of racial variation could get some extremist groups up in arms, and that would be bad. I think it is a trade-off, but possibly worth having just to avoid causing problems where possible. I'm really hedging on that, though... Any MORE thoughts?

Don "We're all the same in God's eyes, and that's really all that matters" Monkey