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).
this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2024
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Everett True Comics
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A place to appreciate the twentieth century comic character Everett True of "The Outbursts of Everett True." Feel free to check out the sticky.
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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
I thought this at first too, but what he's accusing the guy of is wanting him to kill his children, so associating it with race suicide makes it more like one of his beliefs not the other guy's (ie. "you want me to kill my children, you must be someone who's in favor of race suicide - which I believe in!" )
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:
And Interpretation B is:
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.
"Too bad my children had to be born" definitely suggests interpretation A.
Thank you. Everett is the one standing up for renter's rights. It's illegal in the US to discriminate against potential renters because they have kids, or don't have kids.
This comic is from the early 1900s, when they didn’t have those protections. The Federal Fair Housing Act wasn’t passed until the 60s, and it wasn’t expanded to include families with children until the 80s.
It’s possible he is defending renter’s rights here, but it’s important to remember that prior to WWII eugenics was considered a progressive cause, and it was championed by other progressive groups at the time as well, like feminist groups. The idea was that you could reduce suffering by not causing people with undesirable traits (mostly disabilities) to be born to begin with. If True was a eugenicist, it wouldn’t be out of place in the historical context of things.
People who believed in race suicide used it as a justification to have more white kids, not get rid of white kids. Your point A1 doesn't make sense unless they are different races, but they both look white to me. So it's gotta be B.
Hmmm good point. But I think the eugenics of the time was also based on class, ethnicity, and personal characteristics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_suicide
Note the 1903 illustration on that page "Concerning Race Suicide". Everybody seems to be of European descent, but the wealthier people on one side have no children but the people on the other side -- who seem to be coded as lower-class recent immigrants -- have many chidren. I think that is being presented as a bad thing, though everybody seems to be happy and well-fed (if a bit crowded).
Touché. I don't read the "you'd make a desirable tenant, but..." as insincere, so I tend to view it as the landlord saying he likes Everett fine but doesn't want Everett's children around.
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.
He did appear to bring another day, another night, another fight.
The Elon Musk of his era
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.
Cool motive. Still eugenics
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