Description
The strip depicts Huey Freeman and his younger brother Riley, two young children who have been moved out of South Side of Chicago by their grandfather to live with him in the predominantly white fictional suburb of Woodcrest (in Maryland, as seen from the area code stated in the March 16, 2000 strip). This relates to McGruder's childhood move from Chicago to a white, Maryland suburb. The title word "boondocks" alludes to the isolation from primarily African-American urban life that the characters feel, and permits McGruder some philosophical distance. Huey is a politically perceptive devotee of black radical ideas of the past few decades (as explained in the May 4, 1999, strip, Huey is in fact named after Black Panther Huey P. Newton) and is harshly critical of many aspects of modern black culture. For example, he is at least as hard on Vivica Fox and Cuba Gooding, Jr. at times as he is on the Bush administration. Riley, on the other hand, is enamored of gangsta rap culture and the "thug"/bling-bling lifestyle. Their grandfather is a firm disciplinarian, World War II veteran, and former Civil rights activist who is offended by both their values and ideas.
Huey's best friend is Michael Caesar, a dreadlocked aspiring MC who agrees with many of Huey's criticisms but serves as a positive counterpoint to Huey's typically pessimistic attitude by taking a humorous approach to issues. He is also a budding comedian, although most of his humor consists of trying to play the dozens on Huey, which always falls flat. The Freemans' neighbors are NAACP member and assistant DA Thomas Dubois (a reference both to Uncle Tom and W. E. B. Du Bois) and his white wife Sara, also a lawyer. Their young daughter Jazmine is very insecure about her ethnic identity and is often the subject of Huey's antipathy for being out of touch with her African ancestry.
The Boondocks was very political and occasionally subject to great controversy, usually sparked by the comments and behavior of its main character, Huey. The comic strip has been withheld by newspapers several times. In this respect, it is similar to Doonesbury. In particular, the principal characters often discussed racial and American socio-economic class issues. Because of its controversy and serious subject matter, many newspaper publishers either moved the strip to the op-ed section of the paper, pulled more potentially controversial strips from being published, didn't publish the strip at all, or canceled it altogether. Similar reactions have been faced by other strips, such as Doonesbury.
Read more about this topic: The Boondocks (comic strip)
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