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

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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).

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

"Too bad my children had to be born" definitely suggests interpretation A.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I mean, he's punching a guy he thinks believes that, not espousing the belief

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

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!" )