Mother of Mac

[pitbulllady]

Originally Posted by girl_named_goo

sort of... but you have to remember, even though they talk and are sentient, Imaginary Friends are NOT human beings.

Imagine being a restaurant owner and having an IF like Sloppy Moe or George Mucous in your restaurant.

Where I live, some of the HUMANS are nastier, stinkier and sloppier than any of the IF's, and I'm NOT exaggerating!

It's interesting, that just a few weeks ago, my pastor and I(he's a BIG fan of the show, by the way), and my father, who is a lay minister himself, got into a discussion as to a hypothetical situation where we humans suddenly found ourselves sharing the planet with a species which is equal to us in every respect-not just sentient and capable of complex language, but also MORALLY equal-able to make decisions based on an individual AND collective sense of what's right or what's wrong, and to comprehend how their actions can affect not just others around them now, but even down the road, in the future. That would certainly characterize the Imaginary Friends in the "Foster's Universe". While they are not human, especially in terms of looks, they DO share with us the very things that we tend to think of as truly separating us from other animal species. My dogs, no matter how smart or well-trained they are, for instance, show no indication that they are aware of how their actions will affect anyone other than themselves. They don't worry about starving dogs in other parts of the world, or future generations of dogs, when they do something. They just do it. In this respect, I believe that the analogy of Imaginary Friends with various races of human is more accurate, and yes, even now, here in the US, we DO still treat certain people differently, based on their looks, how they talk, how they dress, or what they believe in. The key difference is that at least, there are laws established to protect people from such discrimination, within reasonable limits. A restaurant still has the rights to keep a person out if that person is improperly dressed, or really filthy, or exhibiting inappropriate behavior, like cursing, for instance. While Sloppy Moe or George Mucous might not be able to help how they are, I don't think anyone could argue that they would not pose at least an unpleasant distraction, if not a health hazard, to other patrons of the same restaurant, but then, where would you draw the line? If a business could prohibit someone like them from entering, what about someone like Wilt, who isn't stinky or slimy and certainly knows how to behave in public. So yeah, from my perspective, as someone who is old enough to recall times here in the South when certain races would have been treated as inferior, I would say that the comparison with how the Imaginary Friends are treated with how certain humans were treated at that time is a more accurate one. I, personally, do not consider them inferior or "lower" because they don't look like me, or came into existence in a different manner from me, but at the same time, but then, another person who has not had my experiences or grown up in the culture that I did, could see things differently. I can't consider my grandfather, for instance, who was one of my closest family members when he was still alive, to be "evil" or "bad" because for most of his life, he honestly believed that Black people were less than human and that the Civil Rights movement was the ultimate downfall of this country. That's just what he was taught, and there was no alternative, no other school of thought available to him for most of his life. I suppose that Mac's mother would be similar in how SHE views Imaginary Friends.

On that, though, continuing with the analogy of Imaginary Friends and other races or sectors of the human populace, that no one can arbitrarily "give" rights to any one group. Those who stand to gain, or lose, the most-in this case, the Imaginary Friends-are the one who have to take it upon themselves to stand up and prove their worth and equality, and while some might very well choose to pursue that, others would be just as likely to remain content with the status quo. That decision would ultimately be up to them.

pitbulllady