Responses
It honestly resembles the us in 2017
Yeah, and that's the really scary part. Maybe a couple years ago I would have said "but the bullying kids face in school and racism POC have to face aren't like this, they're mostly implicit..." but I can't say that anymore. :/
This series is just brilliant. I'm shocked to know that the comic artist is a native Korean and not someone living in a "melting pot" society like the US. Although the setting is a fictional nation in modern times, IMO it resembles New York in the 1980s, at the height of racial tension in the US (and unfortunately making a resurgence now...). The writer handles complex issues like diasporic cultural identities, racism, homophobia (external and internalized), class difference, and systemic oppression/the failings of the justice system with such nuance. Not only the way these tensions affect us as individuals functioning in society, but even within the private relationships we have with each other, as friends or lovers. There's a lot about Conor that I can relate to having grown up in the US as a Chinese-American kid. And so much of this hits so close to home.