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0 pointsselfmodruntime3y ago0 comments

> Now, he appears to be punching down at people less powerful than him (individually) who have been fighting to get recognized.

I don't feel like this is true.

The comic where one character identified as "white" isn't punching down at black people. There are no people of color who identify as white. He is punching up at insane corporate rules that make the color of a person's skin important when it comes to hiring: an inherently racist thing.

The comic where a character identifies as a "birthing human" isn't punching down at trans people. It's punching up at corporation rules which need a specific reason on why an employee can go home or not. It shouldn't matter why you're feeling unwell, go home if you're sick.

Corporate policies on its employees should be as broad as possible and not target individual minorities and their intricacies.

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kayodelycaon3y ago

The issue isn't so much with Dilbert as the context Dilbert is in.

Let me try to explain this.

The sarcastic "I am X identifying as Y" joke is a good example. The structure of the joke is Y is something no one will seriously identify as. This means "X = Black, Y = White" pattern matches.

For the LGBT "context", the common usage of sarcastic "I am X identifying as Y" translates to "I don't think transgender identities are valid". The Non-LGBT context doesn't assign a specific meaning to the phrase.

This sets up a scenario where one group has a rule saying "X -> Y" and another has "X -> ?".

And here's where the problem comes in. Comic strips have limited bandwidth and they rely on context to be understood.

So when Dilbert says "I am Black identifying as White", the LGBT context immediately translates this to Y, wherewas the Non-LGBT context does a page fault and looks elsewhere for what it could mean.

In isolation, this looks like LGBT people are being overly sensitive, but every human is "overly sensitive" in some way. We all operate in our own context based on what we've experienced.

maxsilver3y ago

> The comic where a character identifies as a "birthing human" isn't punching down at trans people.

Yes it is. It's literally The One Joke™, with a thin veneer of corporate policy wrapped around it as plausible deniability.

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