History Recap / PennyAndAggieTheRaceCard

* BlondesAreEvil: Implied in Aggie's rant.

--> Penny was a touchy subject with me. And skin, that's touchy for everybody.

* GodwinsLaw: Guess.

* HopelessSuitor: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]]... [[spoiler: for now]].

--> Is this Black enough for you, or should I learn to speak Swahili?
* MistakenForRacist

* SoapBoxSadie: Nowhere is Aggie more this trope than in this arc.

* AfterSchoolCleaningDuty - What Giuliani warns will be Penny's and Aggie's punishment if they cause another disruption.
* {{Angrish}} - Aggie's tirade accusing Penny of racism.

* BlondesAreEvil - implied in Aggie's rant.
* DumbassHasAPoint - a meta-example: On the comic's forum, a reader claimed that this arc wasn't so much an examination of racial issues as it was about Aggie making a fool of herself. T Campbell responded that while Aggie was wrong about Penny being out-and-out racist, her words had a grain of truth in that, prior to this arc, Duane simply hadn't registered as a dating option for Penny, and that her subsequent interest in him was as much about disproving Aggie's accusation as it was about broadening her horizons.
* ElephantInTheLivingRoom - [[http://www.pennyandaggie.com/index.php?p=203 conveniently labelled]].
* GodwinsLaw- guess.
* HereWeGoAgain - Aggie, having begun by jumping to conclusions about Penny's attitude toward Black people, ends up doing the same thing regarding Duane's view of gay people. However, the comic never followed up on her suspicion, nor its validity. Years later, Campbell [[WordOfGod confirmed]] that Duane's use of the word "gay" here was merely in the teenage slang sense of "stupid."
* HopelessSuitor - [[SubvertedTrope subverted]]... [[spoiler: for now]].
* ImagineSpot - several, including the Earth swallowing Aggie following her outburst, and the news media treating her tirade as a story of national importance.
* JiveTurkey / SoulBrotha - Duane deliberately, and bitterly, speaks to Aggie this way following her outburst, in order to drive home the point that she, not Penny, is the one making his ethnicity an issue.

* ObfuscatingStupidity - Penny uses this to flirt with Duane.
* RebusBubble - three of these, meaning respectively: "[[http://www.pennyandaggie.com/index.php?p=194 Penny hates Black people]]," "[[http://www.pennyandaggie.com/index.php?p=200 Aggie is crazy]]," and "[[http://www.pennyandaggie.com/index.php?p=205 Duane is homophobic]]."
* SadistTeacher - Principal Giuliani. After warning Penny and Aggie of the draconian punishment--detention spent cleaning the entire school by themselves--in store for them the next time they cause a disruption, he smiles at their horrified reaction and thinks, "I love this job."
* ShipperOnDeck - Note how dejected [[http://www.pennyandaggie.com/index.php?p=200 Sara]] seems at this new low in relations between the title characters.
* SoapBoxSadie - Nowhere is Aggie more this trope than in this arc.
* {{Tuckerization}} - Campbell [[WordOfGod named]] Principal Giuliani after the former mayor of New York.
* UnrequitedLove - [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by Duane when fantasizing about romancing Penny in a rocket ship: "If you're gonna dream a hopeless dream...go all out." [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] at arc's end when Penny, though not in love with Duane as such, invites him to ask her out and they'll see what develops.
* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre - the following exchange between Penny and Duane.

Penny soon has her own awkward hallway encounter with Duane, and on an impulse asks him to tutor her in English composition at his place. Duane is skeptical of her motivation but eventually agrees. Penny flirts with Duane throughout the tutorial, prompting him finally to ask whether she's only doing this to be "[=P.C.=]" She replies that Aggie's rage on his behalf intrigued her into getting to know him, and points out that all this time he could've just asked her out directly. She encourages him to do so the following week. The overjoyed Duane makes up with Aggie, recognizing that she'd only been trying to help. "Let's not fight again," he tells her. "That's just gay," leaving Aggie wondering whether he's homophobic.

* [=~Godwin's Law~=] - guess.

* DumbassHasAPoint - a meta-example: On the comic's forum, a reader claimed that this arc wasn't so much an examination of racial issues as it was about Aggie making a fool of herself. T Campbell responded that while Aggie was wrong about Penny being out-and-out racist, her words had a grain of truth in that, prior to this arc, Duane simply hadn't registered as a dating option for Penny, and that her subsequent interest in him was as much about disproving Aggie's accusation as it was about broadening her horizons. See [[http://www.pennyandaggie.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=80193#80193 Campbell's full comment]].

Unlike Penny's and Aggie's previous arguments, this one has serious repercussions. Both girls are sent to Principal Giuliani, who lets them off this time because they're the school's top [=PPSAT=] scorers, but warns them that another disruption will entail cleaning the school after hours. As other students, despite Sara's and Michelle's attempts at damage control, ponder whether Penny is in fact racist, a contrite Aggie tries to assure Penny that Aggie only made herself look bad (and indeed, many students now think she's gone insane). Penny calls her on her naievete, pointing out that her reputation too has suffered damage. Aggie then encounters Duane, who's angry with her for making his race more of an issue than Penny ever had, and for lying to him about being Penny's friend. "You're not mine either," he says.

Unlike Penny's and Aggie's previous arguments, this one has serious repercussions. Both girls are sent to Principal Giuliani, who lets them off this time because they're the school's top [=PPSAT=] scorers, but warns them that another disruption will entail cleaning the school after hours. As other students, despite Sara's and Michelle's attempts at damage control, ponder whether Penny is in fact racist, a contrite Aggie tries to assure Penny that Aggie only made herself look bad (and indeed, many students now think she's gone insane). Penny calls her on her naievte, pointing out that her reputation too has suffered damage. Aggie then encounters Duane, who's angry with her for making his race more of an issue than Penny ever had, and for lying to him about being Penny's friend. "You're not mine either," he says.

As Duane continues to pine for Penny from a distance, Aggie notices Penny snobbishly turning down a nerd's request for a date and tears into her in the school hallway for her treatment of boys. Aggie is, above all, furious over what she assumes was Penny's deliberate brush-off of Duane at the concert (see [[Recap/PennyAndAggieTheTicket The Ticket]]), "because he's Black!" As everyone within earshot recoils in shock at this accusation, Aggie hesitates momentarily but abruptly launches into a barely-coherent tirade accusing Penny of being "worse than Hitler!"