Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for September 11, 2020

must’ve took some lessons from “American Ninja Warrior”.

That little box on the pole actually flashes

DRAW

DON’T DRAW

Wiley, you forgot the moat filled with alligators

That’s an illusion. Very few white guys succeed, particularly if they aren’t born with money and family power.

Disappointing, Wiley. Success is no easier for anyone, regardless of their gender or skin color. Thinking otherwise is exactly what things like Critical Race Theory would have us believe, among other things too vile to post on GoComics.

I normally like this strip, but today’s is remarkably similar to one that was intended to make the same point 5 years ago. I’ve seen it all over social media. https://questionsandtea.wordpress.com/2016/01/20/white-male-privilege-illustrated/

What some people call white privilege is nepotism privilege. If your parents are celebrities, it is much easier to get acting jobs.

There is an article in Bored Panda that talks about celebrities who are related. Really makes you wonder if the cliche “It is not what you know, but who you know to be successful” is very true.

Learning curve? No. The left side definitely shows the obstacles one faces trying to get somewhere AFTER learning though, including “white males”. It really is a dog-eat-dog world for everyone.

He also forgot the moving walkway on the white male side. What, he expects us to walk all the way across??

I suggest Mr. Miller use his vertical Sunday strip format to create a skyscraper/glass ceiling version of this subject (complete with Wiley Bears looking to feast on those stuck on the ground floor).

There are none so blind as those who will not see and the MAGA movement is the blind leading the blind. You can fool some of the people all the time. Go ahead now trolls, Flame On!

Success is overrated, minimizing stress is much more efficient to be happy.

And on the left, if it’s a woman of color, she has to do it with 3 kids strapped to her. If not hers, then those of a relative or the white woman she works for.

And damned if she doesn’t come through more often than not. Sheroes.

Well lady, you married this dolt!

And if you believe this, I have a bridge to sell you.

Swedish artist Emanu did pretty much the same thing in 2016. No judgment, I just remember it well.

“I’m very sensitive to the cause and the goal. I’m not sure that [I am] an example that purely fits that conversation." (Steve Nash)

I must have missed the signs at the start of the path. I’ve definitely lived my life on the “other” path.

See today’s headline about the change of command at CitiBank. It hits on all the comments above.

Being a WASP has been difficult since the 60s, I do not see why this issue is still an issue six decades after George Wallace and MLK.

The first thing that I learned about the job market after high school was that if I wasn’t black, gay or a woman I wasn’t even going to be interviewed, even if I was qualified for the job.

Physicians play the same racist game: if you’re a white male doctor, you’ll go far. The rest of us, not so much.

Where is the affirmative action lane?

I finally agree with Wiley. As a white male, I have a great advantage. If my employer doesn’t like my work, he can fire me without being sued. That make me low risk. The only thing I disagree about the drawing is who exactly put those obstacles in the other lane. White males didn’t.

What a bunch of BS.

Wiley’s dropping truth bombs today!

I have worked hard all my life and this just cheapens my efforts. No one gave me anything, it was earned.

Let’s get real here. That free lane is only for a very small demographic of white males. Most white males go through some version of the other lane. . .

Why does everything have to be political?

“There is no free lunch” comes to mind, for just about anybody. Problem is, too many people don’t want to work hard to get anywhere today.

That’s bs

Where are the bears? Everything is better with bears!

Except picnics, of course.

I come here to be amused not lectured to. If I want to regurgitate at popular idiocy, I’ll start watching professional athletes again.

Sorry, Wiley, it’s not 1960 anymore. Years…excuse me, decades of affirmative action programs and laws have cleared that left lane considerably. Please don’t tell us all that effort was for nothing.

Interesting responses. It is remarkable how many among us still don’t understand the underlying problems that got us to this point. Most have worked hard to get where they are – but it’s unmistakably clear that for some, it’s much harder simply because of the color of their skin, gender, or personal persuasions.

Fiddle sticks.

Anyone who relates to this comic has a personal, psychological problem. Don’t blame your problem on the rest of us. I recently retired after starting my career in 1974. All through my career (in IT) I have seen all kinds (race, gender, etc.) of people at all levels from top to bottom – job types and salaries. Don’t be a loser. Stop crying the blues and make your way. Life is never handed to you on a silver platter; if anyone tries, view that person (or govt) with the gravest suspicion. If you are young, I question how the heck you were raised; your parents may have screwed up. In any case, earn your own way. Build your own life. Plenty of folks your age are. That is not the job of anyone else; don’t expect it to be, and don’t take it if they offer to you. You do not want what goes with it. Have integrity, reason it all out, be productive, and have some pride.

I am a White male, parents could not pay for my college, got a job and paid for it. A Black female co-worker, whose parents also could not pay for her college, received a race based scholarship.

Yep….I got my career handed to me. Got good grades in college because, well, I’m white. Then, ‘worked’ my way up, literally from the bottom just because all I had to do was check the ‘Caucasian’ box on the application. Yeppers.

That is because the White Males brought in some bulldozers a while back and cleared the path to success for others.

I call bullshit! Nobody gave me free tuition, food, board, ad nauseum, like so many “others” have received. It’s called the school of hard knocks!

So the explanation for all the successful women and minorities is? Obama, Pelosi, Kagan, various CEO’s and University heads. Just lucky?

what a load of crap

Wiley, good job triggering the white privileged today.

I like the ones saying, “I wasn’t hired because of affirmative action”. Most likely they went in with a chip on their shoulder, or gave off vibes of what horrible people they are.

I was raised in a trailer park. I love hearing the fairy tales of how I had it so easy!

The average college graduate pays about $7800 more a year in federal taxes than the average high school graduate. Over 30 years, that totals about $234,000. If that’s divided by the 4 years it takes to get a college education, the government would break even if it paid every student $58,500 a year to attend school. This doesn’t even consider that with the degree, the person is less likely to ever need unemployment or welfare, that more students would complete high school if they could see a clear way to a really good job, and that they would be enriching the Social Security and Medicare funds. They would also be paying a larger amount in all other types of taxes.The best investment we could make to keep America strong is to not just forgive all student loans but to make all higher education, including trade schools, etc totally free, as long as the student is making decent grades, and increase the number of schools and teachers to make room for all who can profit from the education. There is no better way to spend money than to invest it in our people, to give them every opportunity to be the best they can be. Yes, It’s good for them individually, but the country is made up of individuals, so what’s good for one is good for the country.. We don’t, even during a time of high unemployment, have so much a lack of jobs as we have a lack of people who have the skills to perform the jobs that are available- in other words, a lack of education.

For a minute, I thought it had something to do with white privilege.

That’s crap

If you didn’t have the sense to be asked to be born white & male, that’s on you.

Et tu Wiley?

will the virtue signaling never end?

How many black cartoonists are they? Hmmmm….Wiley is being super hypocritical this morn

Another load of horse manure.

I can neither deny or confirm any of this. Yes, those of other races can have it a bit harder and affirmative action kind of reversed it, but also made it unfair as it was seen as they are the token (insert minority here). Some were actually great at what they did (and were some that made it there were probably treated poorly) while others were horrible. We all need to treat everyone else as we would like to be treated. Those living in poverty need to get rid of their problems in their community and those that are succeeding need to help those that are not. Let there be no poor among us.

That’s why the non-white, non-males who make it to the end are considerably more agile. Unfortunately, the course is actually vertical and you cannot see the “glass ceiling” at the finish line.

JFC all the white guys crying here, did you know that you can have a “tough time” and still have it easier than other people?????? Stop using your own tiny set of personal experiences as justification to ignore the SYSTEMIC problems built into our country’s economy from day one. I dunno, read something.

AND BTW even though I do find it personally annoying to hear all of you whining about how hard it is to be a white person, the ONLY reason I think it’s annoying is because you’re using that to dismiss legitimate calls for equity from other groups that are LONG OVERDUE. I am aware you have legitimate grievances, they just aren’t related to your race. ALL OF US have been pooped on by the ruling class. Your enemy is NOT people of color. Your enemy is rich sociopaths that think you don’t deserve healthcare, food, shelter, and ANY BASIC NEEDS while they go out and buy their fifteenth megayacht.

No war but class war

Funny that affirmative action, quotas, lowering of standards, health, food, and housing subsidies, DBA, etc, etc, etc, weren’t shown. You can lead a horse to water . . .

yeah, right…what a crock…white males have it so automatically easy…systemic stupidity and victimhood mentality set into motion by the Democrats in 1964 by LBJ and his War on Poverty and The Great Society that effectively decimated the black family by convincing them that dads aren’t needed, just good ol’ Uncle Sam and his handouts…

I still say Wiley deserves a second helping of Reuben Award…….

I’m 43, and still waiting for my white male privilege to kick in. Maybe my card got lost in the mail?

Ha, ha, ha. Hilarious stuff. I know my path to career success has been paved with gold and covered in rose petals. Hard work, sweat, and tears had nothing to do with it.

Cool!

For all those who say BS, just look at the statistics of who has what jobs. Do white males also have obstacles? Yes—because they are competing against other white males, not just minorities! Once you (or anyone) gets hired, then you are in competition with the other people there — how many of them are white males? Who gets picked to do what? When promotions are possible, who is eligible? If you happen to be in a job with some minorities, look closely at the types of assignments they get and how well they do them, what training opportunities they have, etc. Getting your foot in the door is one thing, being promoted is a totally different game. As a white female intern, I was supposed to be given training opportunities in each of the different areas of the agency. I was not. A lot of the extensive training took place elsewhere (e.g., management classes) and they didn’t even bother with my applications ‘because they knew I wouldn’t want to be away from my children for that long.’ For the in-house training and the shorter away courses, I somehow always ended up on the back-up list. When it was time for me to graduate from the intern program, they were in a quandary because I wasn’t ‘properly trained’. Luckily (craftily), I had kept a list of every training opportunity I applied for and the reasons I was turned down. And, because it was their ‘negligence’, they ended up promoting me out of the intern program and providing ‘comparable training’ during the following year. Need I mention that out of the 21 interns, the only ‘minorities’ were three females and I was the only female married at the time.

Feeling guilty about your “white privilege” there Snowflake? :D

So many of your comics are just stupid and disappointing. Like this one.

My life experience has proven this cartoon to be a bit of an exaggeration.

WHAT??? Satire and parody and caricature engage in exaggeration? I would say “stop the presses” but nobody stops the presses these days. In fact, most cities don’t have newspapers these days……

Of course, good luck trying to achieve success if you’ve been deemed “special.” No matter what color your skin is, or what gender you are, if you’re labeled “special needs”, they’re more likely to sweep you under the rug than let you succeed. What a shame!

With thanks to those who went before to pave the way.

Right On Wiley!

Really?

Wow. What a delusional bunch of VICTIM/WHINERS, complaining about the REALITY of America’s playing field, which has ALWAYS been skewed to favor white men. ALWAYS. Get over yourselves. Get a life. Get educated. Learn the history you don’t seem to know, and learn what TRUE racism, sexism and injustice really are. Oh yes, and get a sense of humor.

Wow, not my experience. Nuclear Navy, it was all about how hard you studied. We had all races represented, the numbers basically fell right in line with the US population breakdown. And after you got out, if you wanted a job in the Utilities they were waiting in line to hire you. In fact minorities got preferential treatment in hiring, as the Utilities were striving to get their staffs ethnically balanced. You just had to be willing to go where the jobs were.

Unfortunately, most white males are not allowed in the “white male” lane, either…

Wowie Kapowie !! Today’s strip sure got a lotta people outta the woodwork. Keep this up, Wiley, and soon your strip will outpace Luann in the number of comments posted. Oh, another thing. I wonder if Brooke MacEldowney still disables comments in his 9 Chickweed Lane strip. If so, I wonder why he does that.

You lost my vote.

OK, once again someone pointing out a problem but not offering any realistic answers. Every culture has had groups of the advantaged and disadvantaged. It hasn’t always been the white male, either. So, how do you intend to “fix” this?

The minimalist crossing just has two different indicators. The one for white guys says OK to cross when the light for cars is red. For all others, it does it when the light is green.

Dear Wiley,

Thank you.

Sincerely,One of the others

What I have liked about comics like Non-Sequitur; Shoe; Frazz; Calvin & Hobbes or from decades ago Berry’s World is that Donald Dumpster doesn’t read them because he would never understand them—that is a blessing for all the great artists and sad that he cannot laugh at himself once in a while—even Richard Nixon poked fun at himself on Laugh-In.

First of all I think the way Wiley creates the interaction between the couple is funny. I see a lot of these comments insisting that the absolutes are the only way to look at the social commentary and I do not agree. White Male privilege is a real thing AND the majority of white males do not find that their own path to success is easy, or somehow given to them. Just because my path wasn’t easy, does not mean that the scales were not tipped to make it even more difficult for others just because of their color, origin, sex, or other perceived difference from being a white male. White Male privilege once dominated everything, even if that didn’t mean every white male lived on easy street. That is not the case now. Considerable progress has been made and many people that previously would have been discriminated against, can now follow a path that is no different than white males. At the same time, this does not mean the problem is solved. To pretend that it is solved just because progress has been made ignores the reality of how ingrained and absolute the problem was to begin with, every single attempt to change has been met with powerful push back. Fortunately many successes have been made despite the force being applied to maintain the status quo. But, some success in moving forward does not mean all the underlying problems are fixed. On the other extreme to this discussion, to pretend that today every single non white male goes through the Wiley drawn gauntlet in everything they do and all white males are handed a golden ticket, ignores the reality of where we are at this point in time. These extremes on both sides do not help. In fact they fuel the extreme views of the other side. Better to see all sides and find the humor, there is always plenty to laugh about.

https://politicalpunchline.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/hell-hath-no-fury.png

the leftist derangement just does’t stop..

Boy is this outdated. Just the opposite in most of America today.

What the heck is “xing”?