From cartoonist Clay Jones about ‘Houston, We Have a Toilet,’ a history of fear mongering, and the Houston anti-discrimination bathroom campaign
It’s not every day I get to draw people sitting on toilets. Newspaper editors typically frown on bathroom humor.
I hate scapegoating. I really hate fear mongering and scaring the population as a technique to drum up votes.
I am not comparing anyone to Nazis, but we all know that’s what they did. They didn’t invent it. We scapegoated in America long before Hitler was born. We blamed African Americans or used them to scare the population.
Voters were warned about freeing blacks. Then they were warned about them voting. People were murdered to keep blacks from voting. After that, it was sharing classrooms, and soldiers had to be called so children could walk into a school. Of course, along the way there were warnings about what would happen to society if interracial marriage became legal. Some people still have issues with that. A family member told me recently that a mixed child (also in our family) won’t be accepted by society. When I pointed out the president as a fine example to prove her wrong, that just kind of went over her head. I don’t just piss off readers. I piss off people I’m related to, and they stop talking to me. But I digress.
We graduated to fear mongering about Mexicans. We’re still doing that, except there’s softer language for it, though it’s not very subtle. Instead of screaming about race or skin color, we use the code words “illegal immigrants” as if people are illegal.
There’s hardly anything subtle about Islamophobia. People will tell you that it’s an evil religion and they want to kill all of us or make us convert to Islam. They will enact Sharia law. Don’t let them build a mosque in your town. We hate Muslims so much that occasionally we’ll beat up a Sikh because you can never be too careful.
Scapegoating people who are poor is still awesome for some people. Poor people blame poor people. They want drug tests for anyone on welfare, like that’s going to change your life. Even after results prove it’s a waste of time, people still love the program. I hate you, so you should have to pee in a cup. Leave your dignity at the door, freeloader.
And did you hear about the gays? They’re going to make you gay if we accept people being gay as something normal. Gay marriage will somehow ruin your straight marriage. Let’s not forget that we can’t let them adopt, because they’ll raise gay children.
Pointless blame, hate, and fear has always been stupid, but Tuesday, it achieved new heights in absurdity.
Houston is the largest city in the country without a law making it illegal to fire someone for the simple fact they’re gay. Yeah. And on Tuesday, the voters in Houston voted against an anti-discrimination measure. What was the biggest campaign against the measure? Bathrooms. Yes. Public bathrooms. Opponents waged a campaign that men would disguise themselves as women, or as transgenders, and creep into women’s public restrooms to take a gander. They even had an all-star baseball player doing commercials where he said, “booga booga freaks in bathrooms booga booga.” He said he was afraid for his daughters safety to urinate in public. Who in the Hell is letting little children go to a public restroom alone anyway? Is this a thing in Texas?
Here’s the point. I have never seen security at a public restroom. I haven’t seen any measure to prevent a freak from going into a restroom other than that man/woman symbol on the doors. I don’t think any law is going to invite people with super odd fetishes to stage a freak parade into a public bathroom. The problem doesn’t really exist.
Yeah, there are people out there with strange fetishes, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say most people feel the way I do: there’s nothing exciting about seeing anyone sitting on a toilet.
Ooh la la, I don’t think so.
