I recently had surgery, and at the time I came home, I had both my cat and one of my grandma's cats staying with me.
- Within hours of surgery, I wake up from a nap to my cat gently sniffing at my incisions with great alarm.
- I was not allowed to shower the first day after surgery, and the cats, seeing that The Large Cat is not observing its cleaning ritual, decided I must be gravely disabled and compensated by licking all the exposed skin on my arms, face, and legs.
- I currently have to sleep with a pillow over my abdomen because my cat insists on climbing on top of me and covering my incisions with her body while I sleep (which is very sweet but not exactly comfortable without the pillow). She also lays across me facing my bedroom door, presumably on guard for attackers who may try to harm me while I'm sleeping and injured.
In 1968, a schoolteacher named named Harriet Glickman wrote to Charles Schulz, the Peanuts creator, and asked if he could introduce a black character to the comic strip. Schulz wrote back that he had thought about doing so but he was afraid that the character would come off as too "patronizing" or stereotypical. The two then began writing back and forth, with Glickman helping Schulz develop the character of Franklin.
As expected, there was pushback. A lot of people argued that Schulz only created Franklin for "political reasons" (kinda like how people accuse things of being 'woke'). One teacher from the South wrote to Schluz, saying they didn't mind a black character being in the comics, but they didn't like that Franklin was in a classroom with white students. The newspapers even threatened to cut the strip completely. Schulz simply said "Either you print it as I draw it, or I quit."
Now, over 56 years later and during Black History month no less, Franklin is front and center for a Peanuts special. This is absolutely amazing and we should be talking about it