[Public Post] Get Fuzzy does Palin, and Reflections on being a token Liberal
I love Get Fuzzy- I get it in my e-mail every day.
"Liberal" Rob Wilco and his dog, the gullible and well meaning Satchel Pooch, have to put up with the antics of his cat, the Conservative and abrasive Bucky Katt. Drawn and Written by Darby Conley, it has enough cultural references to spark recognition, but not so much that the reader has to google all the time or feel like it's over their head.
I believe it ran in my county for a month. Then suddenly it was replaced. I never knew the reason, but I think it was because it was too liberal and poked too many jabs at the places that my county still has weaknesses in. Considering the fact that Peter Greene, who was my 11th grade English Teacher, is the Token Liberal (and half the population here doesn't "get" anything he says) on the paper it's not suprising.
There's a low tolerance in a population for those who are different. In Venango County (which is forever "Venango-Land" thanks to Mr. Greene) the majority is dictated by conservative values, so the liberal is shunned. In the area of New England where my Aunt Jen and Uncle Ben McCanna live/are from, The majority is a liberal one. Talking to Ben one night, I was talking about how we have a token liberal.
"Oh really? You need to move to Boston area or Vermont- even the Token Conservative is rare."
This is proably an exaggeration, of course. But the fact remains that tokenism is a universal issue. Mental Health boards have their token MH consumer on them- and the "Token" consumer group often has it's own Token MH provider. Same in the cross disability community. Same in the religious communities- I remember one festival I went to where we had a Token Jew. So when I look at people like me, like The adult MH planner, my landlady, Mr. Green. . . When I look at us, I have to remind myself that though we are "token" liberals, we aren't the only ones in that position.