America Facts for Xiaohongshu

America Facts for Xiaohongshu - Painted Doggie Comic

Panel 1:

Foxwolf presses her hands against the screen as if to grab a scrolling reader’s attention and says:

“Hey, Xiaohongshu! Buckle up, because you have a lot of horrible things yet to learn about the U. S. My name is Foxwolf, and I would like to illustrate myself as the Chinese zodiac animals I see y'all stretching your pets into while telling you some stories about living in America.”

Panel 2:

Foxwolf is now a pig and says:

“You may have heard that it's impossibly expensive to live in the U. S., but it gets worse. Allow me to provide some examples of systemic issues Americans face everyday. Perhaps Americans will also learn some shocking truths about our country.”

Panel 3:

Foxwolf is now a rat wearing some very iconic pants featuring two big buttons and says:

“Companies frequently destroy entire towns and poison the residents:

In 2023, a freight train carrying 38 cars of hazardous material derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. The rail company set the spilled waste on fire, which released massive amounts of hydrogen chloride and phosgene gas into the air. The catastrophic fire was lit to clear the chemicals from the tracks as quickly as possible to get the trains up and running again. 

Panel 4:

Foxwolf is now a bull with a ring through her nose and says:

“The burn contaminated air in 16 states, and likely parts of Canada. Residents of the local area have experienced health problems and reported animal deaths. Frequent derailments such as this are theorized to stem from rail companies neglecting to maintain their equipment and the enforcement of brutal working hours on thinly staffed rail crews. The costs of this negligence is passed off to communities like East Palestine. There have been 12,400 derailments in the US over the past 10 years, including 6,600 cars containing hazardous material.” 

Panel 5:

Foxwolf is a sad little tiger and says:

“Businesses write our laws:

Legislation is sometimes literally written by corporate lobbyists. They often target regulations that hinder their profits but protect the American people. For example, in 2013, bank lobbyists wrote legislation that allowed banks to once again engage in risky stock trades with their customers' deposits. This type of financial malfeasance by banks likely contributed to the 2008 economic crash, and as such was banned in 2010. Since then, the majority of the bank regulations implemented in response to the crash have been reversed through lobbying efforts.”

Panel 6:

Foxwolf is a very defeated looking rabbit and says:

“It is illegal to be homeless:

There are over 770,000 people without housing in the United States. This number is growing rapidly as housing prices and rent skyrocket out of control. In June 2024, the United States Supreme Court ruled that cities have the right to criminalize people for sleeping in public. Since then, more than 100 cities have enacted bans. In Central Valley, California, as a result of the ruling, an ordinance went into effect that requires people living outside to move at least 300' every hour and bans sleeping in vehicles.”

Panel 7:

Foxwolf is a ferocious dragon and says:

“Women are drug tested after giving birth:

An investigation published by the Marshall Project in December 2024 revealed that America's "war on drugs" is resulting in new mothers being senselessly separated from their children. In the United States, women and their infants are drug tested at the hospital shortly after delivery. If they or their newborn test positive for certain drugs, they may be reported to authorities.”

Panel 8:

Foxwolf is a snake still wearing her hoodie but with the sleeves hanging empty. She says:

“However, women are being reported for testing positive for drugs administered by the hospital during labor, delivery, or cesarean section. Overworked staff are required by the hospital to report positive drug tests, but they are not required to review the records of what drugs were administered by the hospital during birth prior to making a report. This has resulted in many new mothers losing custody of their children through no fault of their own. The process for these mothers to prove their innocence is arduous, traumatic, and expensive.”

Panel 9:

Foxwolf is a horse who’s very long in the face. She says:

“Slavery is still legal:

The 13th amendment outlawed slavery in the U. S. in 1865, but it has an exception: prisoners can be forced to perform slave labor. The U. S. has a prison population of over 2 million people. It may be unsurprising, then, given our history, that 50 percent of black men in the United States will be arrested by age 23. There are black prisoners right now working in fields while armed men on horseback watch to make sure they aren't working too slowly, mirroring conditions on slave plantations of the past. Most of the prisoners in the U. S. have been charged with non-violent crimes.”

Panel 10:

Foxwolf is now a sweet little goat and says:

“The police may break into your house at any moment:

American police regularly perform "no knock raids" by forcibly breaking into homes with no warning to arrest people. Occasionally, the police have the wrong address and completely random, innocent people lose their lives. Many Americans have firearms for an apparent home invasion such as this. When the police burst through someone's door unannounced, it can erupt into a shootout and endanger even innocent bystanders in the surrounding neighborhood. These raids are mostly conducted on poor, minority populations for non-violent crimes. It is estimated American police conduct these raids nearly 80,000 times per year.”

Panel 11:

Foxwolf is a monkey whose face is circled in white fur now. She says:

“I hope this helps give more perspective on our situation in the U.S.”

Panel 12:

Foxwolf is a rooster now and says:

“It seems to always be getting worse, so stay tuned for updates!”