I am never ever ever gonna argue someone who thinks that Raidah is a caustic, bullheaded, vicious bully, mainly because she is. However I truly think everyone who says that she is incapable of actually having sincere feelings and opinions on the student encampments/protests (especially for an overseas genocide that in-text has personally affected the Muslim and SWANA students of IU) or that she is just being offended for… clout? self-validation? needs to actually understand that there is no clout to obtain from this.

When you are in any kind of minority group you live with the knowledge that by the vary nature of who you are, your worth and value as a person who deserves dignity is always in contention. This is not exclusive to Raidah, Joyce has and continues to experience this herself as she navigates her identity as a autistic bisexual woman. But in the case of being a Muslim women, especially in USAmerica, especially in Indiana, whatever petty “win” Raidah is feeling here is pyrrhic, and she fucking knows it.

Islamophobia is so agreeable and uncontested that even within progressive spaces it is acceptable to not think about it manifests itself in western culture. Let’s be fucking straight here, even outside the fact that so much of what has happened to Joyce has been on some level out of her control, this is the second time Joyce has visibly dismissed that anything she has done in the last 24 hours has caused any emotional distress to her SWANA peers, and that’s because there is 0 social punishment for not caring. And it’s going to absolutely hurt her when the full weight of what she did hits her, because Joyce is a character that has shown to change and care and strive to do better, but it doesn’t change the fact that outside of an undefined duty to not be a bigot, she doesn’t value those perspectives, and quite frankly, she’s never going to unless she make the choice to actively do so.

It’s the same thing with Daisy and how getting a splashy, punny cover image that turns her on and gets clicks matters more than the context of the story itself. Even on a smaller, more agreeable level, Dorothy is also guilty of this, it wasn’t until she was confronted by this she felt any guilt for her ignorance, despite her background and identity as someone who is politically active and actively progressive.

Due to the nature of SWANA culture in the US being so uniquely alien to the majority of USAmericans, combined with the baseline internalized understanding that the negative politicizing of Muslim identity (and by extension, her Muslim identity) are essential to US military, industry and imperial interests, Raidah does not get that privilege. By the very fact of who she is, her culture and her heritage and her ethic background will be permanently misunderstood, discounted and misrepresented in the American eye. Her response to that reality has been misguided and cruel, but her anger is not.

You can think that Raidah is a fucking monster, once again she has done enough genuine harm in this comic that i don’t think any suspicion or distaste is unwarranted/unreasonable (like truly look at that top strip again), but I need you to ask what do YOU get from this strip if everything Raidah says is always wrong and stupid and dismissible. What do you think it means when you choose to make the harm that was done to her, whether it be getting cheated on or having her criticisms about the cover image be dismissed by Daisy, as something she deserved for being unpleasant. What do you gain from this interaction by characterizing these emotions as fake.