11mo ago

Everett takes a stand against age discrimination in housing (1907?)

Get up out of that so I can take one more punch at you!

Sadly, Everett would need to wait for the Fair Housing Act of 1968 for this landlord’s behavior to be federally illegal. It’s unclear what state Mr. True lives in (besides anger, obviously).

32 comments

Race suicide?
- Yeah, I was hoping that maybe back then the term was meant to refer more to the “human race”, so a concern about population growth.
  But some quick googling indicates the eugenics-meaning version of the term was coined around 1900. Honestly not a good look for Everett.
  
  I mean, he's punching a guy he thinks believes that, not espousing the belief
  
  Well, according to that Wikipedia page, people who used the term "race suicide" believed that "desirable" people were having too few kids and "undesirable" people were having too many kids.
  So Interpretation A of this cartoon is the following:
  the Landlord believes in the "race suicide" concept, and believes that Everett is an "undesirable" person who has too many kids. The Landlord is insincere when he says that Everett is "estimable" and a "desirable tenant".
  Everett scorns the "race suicide" concept, and argues for his kids' right to exist.
  And Interpretation B is:
  the Landlord ~~sincerely thinks Everett is "estimable" and a "desirable" tenant, but~~ just doesn't want his kids to live there for some reason
  Everett believes in the "race suicide" concept, and is telling the Landlord that without his kids, "race suicide" would occur.
  I'm leaning slightly towards Interpretation A ~~because I think the Landlord is being insincere~~, but I could be convinced otherwise.
  Edit: on second thought, I don't think Interpretation B Point 1 relies on the Landlord believing Everett is "estimable" and a "desirable" tenant, only on the undesireability of the kids living there.
  
  Everett is protesting against the concept. He's the one asking the other man, "Dude, are you for eugenics? You must hate kids. Taste my fist."
  
  He was definitely a man of his times.
  
  I feel like Everett is held back by the views and vocabulary of the times here. His point is less to-do with race relations or politics and is really about how it is ridiculous that a man with kids is being turned down from housing just for having kids. I'm assuming he just wanted to be as insulting as possible, and that was a heavily fear-mongered issue at the time.
  
  I've seen other comics where Everett rejected the concept. One was when he told a woman he believed in it (in the sense of wanting it to happen) and threatened to kill children, and another when he told a man who brought it up that he was introducing him to race homicide. (I guess the term "genocide" hadn't entered the vocabulary.)
  
  Woof 😞 , certainly a sour note here. Good reminder of how things have (or fucking haven't) changed
- Probably one of those early types of "great replacement" racism things.
- Do you think our present day fascists invented any of that stuff themselves?
did he just forget his third child
- Cholera got that kid.
  
  New lore just dropped.
I don't have kids and won't. In my experience as a tenant renting various crap shacks, both children and adults can be loud and annoying, so it's not like renting to adults only will bring the noise level down. Kids run around and scream, but adults work on endless home improvement projects, or have lots of loud argumentative sex, or play an electric drum kit until 2am. Lots of variety. Point being that anyone has the potential to be a bad neighbor.
- adults work on endless home improvement projects, or have lots of loud argumentative sex, or play an electric drum kit until 2am.
  I'd like to humbly apologize for my behavior from 2009 to 2013. I was in a house but I was definitely doing all of these. I did use headphones for my electric drum kit, though.
Is anybody surprised Everett is fashy?
- I don't think he is, but maybe he's a little quick on the draw to read the landlord out for a racist
isn't age discrimination still allowed, just not against the old people?
- In housingin the us you can't discriminate based on familial status (that law was passed way after this comic). What I think you are talking about would be in the work place title 7.
- All sorts of discrimination can occur, it should just never be articulated or put into writing. Unless it's just egregious, discrimination is pretty damn difficult to prove.
  ...but no, most discrimination is not allowed. Especially when it comes to basic things like age, race, gender, marital/family status, religion, sexual orientation.
Fuck True

32 comments