BrianWilly said:
So, in your view ShadowBoxing, if a white man kills a black man because he doesn't like black people, he's not actually being a racist? If we want to call him a racist, there would have had to have been a law saying that he could kill black people?
What if a white man kills a handicap because he doesn't like handicaps, is that racism? What if a man kills Nerds? No not by any normally accepted definition.
Notice I choice those two groups purposefully as I will prove parallel to them are much stronger.
Racist crimes are driven by "race". Key word there.
So firstly, if X-Men is, as it claims, an allegory to the Civil Rights movements and black people it must draw parallel.
Let's look at X-Men
X-Men started in 1963, a time when no successful Civil Rights Bill had been passed. The original team was all white, and looked no different than anyone in mainstream society. They looked human and none had to go out of their way to appear human. The largest sacrifice was probably that of Cyclops who routinely faked an eye condition. (Uncanny X-Men 1-20)
Black people on the other hand could never blend into white society. In fact the mere suggestion that they ought to would be considered an insult, especially back then. Black people did not want to be "different" (I mean this in a socio-economic sense) however because they understood the distinction made was artificial. "The content of their character" was not determined "by the color of their skin". However in the current climate the opposite seemed true.
In X-Men, none of the X-Men were ever judged. They hid their "gifts" but as people they were never judged as inferior, just potentially dangerous. Xavier echoed this concern, hence his converting a mansion to a training facility. For a black person the notion of training to control their blackness is insulting. It would imply that in fact their blackness DOES imply difference, something mutation most definitely does.
Mutants were different, I guess that is kind of obvious when you consider they were another species. However, went Bobby went to Accounting School (1970s), Jean went to College (1965) and Cyclops got a job as a DJ (1966) black people were still (until 1969) routinely discriminated against in the work place due to the fact that legislation was not yet enforced by the courts. So even when black people had trouble getting into schools, getting jobs mutants were becoming productive members of society. (Uncanny X-Men 38+)
Mutants accepted they were different. The book never even bothered to suggest they WEREN'T possibly dangerous, in fact it enforced that notion by having them train. (Throughout series)
Black people never went to school to learn to cope with "blackness", that was never an issue.
The MRA and Sentinels were first reviewed when Trask was introduced in the teens. His contention was mutants would enslave humanity with their "powers". This certainly paralleled the Southern supremacist notion that blacks would "wash out" and "not fit in" if they tried to integrate normal society. I'm being facetious. Blacks were seen as inferior, the mere suggestion to a Citizen's Council or KKK that they could take over would be laughable. (Uncanny X-Men 14, 140, 57-59)
Furthermore blacks couldn't vote, no didn't vote, couldn't. The towns they lived in disenfranchised them. Mutants could vote though. In fact Cyclops mentions he always votes Democrat ever since he heard Reagan speak (which in current years would be his entire tenure on the X-Men). So really X-Men and mutants could always vote and were never disenfranchise. (Cyclops Limited Series)
Mutants are also a smaller minority than black people. This is very important because black people actually had the political size to "rise up and overcome". Mutants did not. (House of M, Lee/Kirby run)
Onto the villain/hero premise. Magneto and Xavier are suppose to represent MLK and X. However the book fails on account that 1) There were more than two groups who felt blacks could attain freedom and 2) They got along with each other. SNCC, SCLC and the Freedom Riders (and BPs) were never at odds in a contentious manner. Philosophically, yes. They were all trying to navigate the political spectrum in order to gain rights. None were trying to preserve existing rights like mutants were. (Throughout series)
The setting was not akin to Civil Rights either. One driving force was so that blacks could move out of ghettos they had been forced into. The Morlocks on the other hand put themselves into exile and showed no signs of wanting any part of the surface world. They also became villains of the surface dwellers. No blacks ever suggested the blacks go "into hiding". The other mutants either lived in Mansions (The Xavier Institute), (1980s) a ship built by Apocalypse (X-Factor), The Avengers Mansion, Asteroid M, or lived apparently as normal citizens (as Bobby, Hank, Angel, Havok, Lorna, Cyclops and others did for quiet some time).
Local and state police hardly ever harassed mutants, like they did black people. In fact one issue, where Scott is arrested for "killing his wife", the cops don't even bring up his mutation. (X-Factor 17)
Mutants also never staged peaceful demonstrations, in fact the only ones who ever did were the humans who supposedly hated them
.Picketing, protests and alike.
As for villains, they were usually fringe elements in the most strict and broad sense of the word. Creed was unable to get elected, Kelly (the only one with any power) quickly changes sides, Trask was viewed as a loon, and the rest were generally no different than your Avengers villain lot.
In the Civil Rights movements villains ranged from do nothing politicians, to stubborn white dixiecrats, to the KKK, to the hands off FBI, corrupt cops, and several several others. Furthermore the villains were almost never black. Unlike mutant villains who are almost always mutants.
Another major disconnect from racism is the fact that mutants don’t really battle with humanity. They battle with Magneto who feels that another holocaust will come. However the irony of Magneto’s character is that he evietably justifies the system he hates by treating humans the same as the Nazi’s treated Jews and Gypsies. However no system of systematic execution existed in the west akin to the Nazi’s (that is not to say we never committed genocide). So essentially Xavier was trying to not only prevent Magneto from pre-emtively striking humanity but also stopping possible enslavers and killers as well. Blacks never faced this. Blacks were legally fighting a system that enslaved them already. Not violently trying to stop a black militant from making things worse than they were. (X-Men 161)
Your biggest racial analogies were Sentinels, who never took power and were weapons of madmen. They never presented any real threat outside of a non occuring alternate dimension where an "undone" event caused ACTUAL mutants racism. However could we not say you could come up with a hypothetical where brown eyes became persecuted against, I think you could.
Furthermore it is impossible to define mutants as a "race" unless you take an extremely broad definition. They are a "race" in the same ways other species are "races" since mutants are other races. In that vein being cruel to chimpazees would constitute racism.
Racism is attaching cultural difference to a phenotypic difference. I.e. seeing skin color as a determinent of behavior for example. However in X-Men phenotypic difference is being used to assume a phenotypic difference. Mutant are dangerous because they have unpredictable powers. Seems like a logical conclusion.
Xavier obviously echoed with training mutants would be unpredictable. In fact that is why Magneto concerned him so much, because he and his brotherhood were a danger. Therefore it was set from the dawn of the series that mutants were dangerous given certain situations. Dangerous enough that other mutants, and only other mutants could stop them.
With racism, blacks were assumed different even though no empirical data could prove this. They were not different, plain and simple. They had no "other abilities". They were not viewed as powerful. No one believed black people were akin to "bad" drivers. They were already good people and it was white people "not a Brotherhood of Evil African Americans" who were in the wrong.
In the comic Xavier has even noted he feels mutants are "above humanity". As Emma Frost noted "He'll never tell but he always feels [Telepaths] are above". However it would be impossible to argue mutants were not above, they are in fact more powerful. They are in fact different. Therefore this real distinction does imply difference. Whereas with black people the point was it did not, at all.
Now lets see if the mutants have any connection to other groups. The handicapped for one are a group who need to be taught to "live with their gifts". They face prejudice, are an extreme minority and are accepted by the general public...however usually with a hint of pity and or misunderstanding. Furthermore they are, by any standard, actually different (depending on the disability to be sure). Some even view some as dangerous to others and themselves and stress this is why training is necessary.
While handicapped generally enjoy the same status as everyone else, and many can "pass as normal". They do fear the possiblity of Government passing acts against them such as cuts in funding to programs designed to aid them, redefining them as without handicap, lack of accessible places and experiences. They also hav trouble controlling themselves, but like mutants, some wish to be normal some not.
Ebert and Roeper commented they thought the X-Men was an allegory to the handicapped, especially during X3 when a "cure" was offered. Much the same problems plague the mutant community. In X-Men for example, many stories show villains of people capable of "turning off" the x-gene. This parallels the controversies in science of whether or not we should turn off the genes of handicapped and make them "normal".
The Legacy virus is another strong parallel. The virus affected only one human (Moria) but mostly all mutants. Because black people are not anything but phenotypically different, but not genetically or specially, there would be no way to engineer a strictly black disease. However their are diseases that affect only those with handicaps.
Another strong parallel is the introduction of continuing mutations. Something that dates back to the day Bobby turned into "a regular ol' Sue Storm". Black people don't become "blacker" or their blackness is not enhanced. But disabled can slowly become more disabled.
Lastly the Morlocks, which you claim are like racism, are much more like handicapped. People so disfigured they feel the need to go underground and shield themselves from the world. Voluntarily doing so. And who ends up persecuting them, a group of mutants named the Marauders. Not humanity, which is never even seen invading the caves. Furthermore they become antagonists themselves.
Now lets take another group. Nerds. Nerds are obviously a group Stan Lee must have considered a strong demographic in writing comics. Nerds often view themselves as outsiders and generally their angst hits them at puberty. Black people don’t become black at puberty. They are always and forever black.
I don’t think it is any conincidence that the title of X-Men under Neal Adams was "The Strangest Teens Ever". That sounds much more like an allusion to geekishness or nerdiness than it does racism don’t you agree. I think blacks would be insulted to be insinuated as "strange". However nerds seem to relish in strangeness to a certain degree. Comic books and D&D aren’t exactly "mainstream" and neither were these mutants.
Like nerds the X-Men feel outcasted, and their odd behavior is shunned while other odd behavior is embraced. This can be seen to parallel the fact that Superheroes are embraced while mutants are hated despite similar natures.
Nerds to are subject to "hate crime", as they are bullied for being different. However one would hardly consider it racism as it is perpetrated by fringe elements and the nerds can enjoy the same status as anyone else. Sentinels can be seen as akin to a "bully". They are overpowering. Also no one "officially" sanctions them, but they are aloud to exist without much resistance.
Even if you say "killing a black person is racism" you still fail to show that the X-Men are alike the plight of black people in any way.
It seems to me you can shout racism all you want. But it really just comes down to you broadly defining anything discriminatory or prejudice as racism. The three are distinct entities. The fact that you argue these things as concrete themes in X-Men only proves you have fallen for very general and insubstantial definitions of these subjects. Racism is far more complex than you or X-Men wants to make it. Because of this X-Men is not a successful racial allegory.
Number two had to do with the inherent contradiction of calling mutants threats and non mutant superheroes okay.
wow that is certainly racism, yep.
