Letters to the Editor
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Berkeley Breathed always goes limp before the climax
OK, here we go.
This black/white thing over who can say nigger and who can't has been done to death. Breathed is still trying to go to the same themes he used 25 years ago. The verdict of public opinion is in: The word is an anachronistic grotesque that is used in everyday speech by fewer and fewer people each year. He apparently doesn't get out much. But then, Breathed hasn't had a new theme since he re-entered the comic entertainment business.
Breathed couldn't figure out what to do with this subject once he opened it. So as usual, he changes the subject with a non sequitur. He can't figure out how to get out of the last panel, so he dodges the whole issue with a lame-ass "singing Celine Dion at the gym." It's as lazy as you can get. "Celine Dion" as a punchline doesn't even make it in a Jay Leno monologue anymore.
Celine Dion, oh, huh huh huh, that's FUN-NEE, heh heh heh. He said Celine Dion. What a laff riot. Tee hee hee. Isn't that a funny funny thing?
You sheep that like this kind of shit are the same morons who can't get enough of the jokes in Reader's Digest.
Salon is supposed to be young adult edgy and offering editorial that can not be found elsewhere. Breathed's crap is on the same level with "The Family Circus."
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On the same level as Family Circus
Now come on, that is a low blow, I can't think of any comic strip worse than The Family Circus. I agree that Opus seems an odd fit for Salon, but it's still cute, and hey, I'll be 40 in a year, and I was never hip to begin with, so I don't mind it.
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personal insults
Garry, maybe it would be OK to lighten up a bit. And by that I don't mean "it's just a joke." I tend to agree with some of your critiques of this strip (don't see the appeal of it myself), but what is the need to call someone a moron for liking it? I have no idea what any fans of this strip do in the rest of their lives. Probably many of them are good people. Maybe this is just their mental candy break. I don't get it, and it kind of annoys me that others talk about the strip as if it's some gift from above, but I wouldn't call them morons.
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I wonder what data backs this statement
Garry Owen states:
The word is an anachronistic grotesque that is used in everyday speech by fewer and fewer people each year.
That is not my experience. I have seen more and more high school students using the term every year. Including the young man who said, "It just means 'person' to me."
I wish it were true that it was being used by fewer and fewer people each year.
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"Salon is supposed to be young adult edgy"
Who says so, Garry Owen? Is this in Salon's mission statement somewhere? Now that I am over 50, should I be banned?
I think this Opus is edgy enough, unless there really IS anyone out there who is willing to give up his white identity card?
Let's hear it from all those white people who want to be black -- for ANY reason.
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"fewer and fewer people each year"
Garry Owen, what planet do you live on?
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OK, moron was a tad too strong. I apologize.
"Simple souls, easily amused" would have sufficed.
What planet do I live on? Earth. Earth where I have personally not heard that word uttered in hatred since 1985. If you live in a place where the word is used as a racial epithet on a regular basis, you are living in Klan Kuntry and you should move. If you have friends who use that word, you need to find some new friends.
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And I REALLY resent the headline writer who came up with this: Black or white? You can't be both
I can walk 20 feet and shake hands with a child who is both. Berkeley Breathed is out of fresh ideas. He's recycling.
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Now there's a practical solution.
Everyone who lives where people use the N-word should just up and move. So Garry, independently wealthy, are ye? Must be nice.
Apparently, you have only lived in a closely-monitored, PC version of EARTH. I think I saw that movie. The Truman Show.
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I thought the punchline was lame.
I was expecting a harder-hitting punchline. The setup was perfect.
Garry Owen, I hear the "N" word almost every day, usually as a lyric in a song blasting out of some kid's car. You can also see a variation of the N word here in Salon, i.e., nigga.
I don't like hearing it and I don't like seeing it no matter how it's spelled, but thanks the mass media, it's everywhere.
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buuurrrppp
I think Berkeley Breathed and Garry Owen are neighbors and Berkeley lets his dog crap on Garry's lawn.
Thats what I think.
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DurianJoe
I hear that stuff too. But it's not exactly used as hate speech. Here's hate speech, taken straight out of a true experience I had back in the mid-1980s. I was invited over to someone's house to drink beer and watch some NBA hoops. I had just met these two crackers, a husband and wife and they seemed pretty nice. We're watching the game and he's going on and on about how much he admires his favorite players (all black). His wife comes in and we start talking about going out clubbing together some night. I suggested a couple of places and she said (and I couldn't believe I heard her right) can't go down there, there's too many niggers.
I said, "Excuse me?!" She said, (I swear this is true)"You know what I mean. There are good black people and then there are your niggers."
The guy, who's basketball heroes are all black, just shrugged at what she said, like it's no big deal. I sat there stunned for a minute or two and then said I had to go.
The guy called me a few times after than to see if I wanted to go to a game with him, or do something else, but I begged off. Finally he asked me if I was offended by what his wife said. I said to him, do you know you are a racist? He said he couldn't believe I was making a big deal out of it and hung up.
That's the last time I heard anyone use that word (in person) in a hate context. That's the truth.