Gasoline Alley by Jim Scancarelli for April 10, 2024

One of the comments on CC referred to a 9/19/1991: Seattle Times article titled “Gasoline Alley Amended After ‘Racist’ Complaints”:

The syndicate for the comic strip Gasoline Alley has removed several strips in response to an article in the Seattle Times that reported some readers find the current story line offensive in its racial stereotyping.

The changes mean the story line has been condensed by three weeks, said Evelyn Smith, Tribune Media Services managing editor.

Smith said the editors felt the story “ambled along” anyway and “could benefit from tightening.” But also, she said, the editors took a “closer look” at the humor and, though they still didn’t personally find it offensive, “we certainly had our consciousness raised by someone else’s opinion that maybe it was.”

The strips feature Teeka, an Asian Pacific Islander, and her citizenship classes, and the jokes primarily turn on the new immigrants’ mispronunciation of English and misunderstandings of basic aspects of American life.

In a recent informal Times poll, 60 percent of respondents found the Teeka strips not offensive, while 40 percent, including almost all the respondents who identified themselves as Asian American, found them offensive.

The strips that were eliminated had been among those scheduled to run over the next several weeks. One of the strips would have had Teeka, confused after being told to call 911 to report a mugger, saying, “I can’t! Is no eleven on dial!” Another had Mr. Vu, a Vietnamese immigrant, rescuing their citizenship teacher by karate-chopping the mugger; when the mugger protested his rights were violated, Mr. Vu said: “Yeah! I punch his rights out!”

Gasoline Alley author Jim Scancarelli agreed to the changes, Smith said, although he still believes the strips were sensitively handled and positive.