White Privilege 101: Why Black People Don't Read Comic Books

 I want to make a quick series about American comic books, and why I think minorities are subtly repelled by them. This will focus on the "Big Two" comic book companies. As many if not most American comic books are inspired by their superhero narratives in some way. First we'll start with Marvel, and most specifically, their X-men series.

Yeah, I get that Xavier and Magneto were inspired by Malcolm X and Dr. King. Xavier wanting to integrate in human society peacefully, whereas Magneto wanted to fight back if not outright vanquish his "oppressors." But although the goals are somewhat similar, the context surrounding Magneto and Xavier's struggle creates an oppositional narrative to the civil rights movement. Regardless of the actual intentions of the writers, X-men's narrative focuses on White feelings of reverse racism, and the "reverse persecution" of able bodied people.

X-men is about people who (with some exceptions) have able bodied overprivileges. Most are more than capable of abusing their physical advantages against the rest of human society--- whom are more disabled by comparison. Xavier calling mutant hostility "racism" not only marks his obliviousness of what racism actually is, but mischaracterizes the able bodied privilege that incentives mutant suppression. And that's ironic, considering he's disabled himself.

Racism is a belief system that certain races are superior to another, arousing the persecution of races deemed "inferior". Similar to Whites in the 1960s, the X-men face resistance because of their perceived superiority; people fear they'll abuse their powers and super human capabilities. Racism on the other hand oppresses people because of a perceived inferiority status. That is the fundamental difference. And so, it really does grind my gears when the writers who don't know what they're talking about, use mutants as an occasional jab at the minority struggle; painting Blacks as hypocrites for "persecuting" mutants. OR when fans interpret the mutants as doing a "good job" of the latter.

OH MY GOD YOU SURE TOLD HIM, KITTY!!!1! You civil rights activist, you!

  Is it me or is "mutie" v.s. "nigger" meant to be analogous to the "Nigger" v.s. "Cracker" debate? I wanted someone to slap Kitty Pryde upon seeing that image. Yeah, so let me get this straight. Herein, the writers are taking the rape, lynching, and brutality behind the word "nigger".....

.....And trying to make it comparable to the word "cracker"; a word that was used by oppressed groups to scorn the brutality and/or privilege of their oppressors.

Cracker has significantly less loaded history, and is not comparable to "Nigger". Is Cracker truly comparable to being bound on a ship, getting peed, vomited, and crapped on by yourself and other people? And being raped on top of that? No. It isn't. And "mutie" damn sure isn't. X-men really has no business treading waters it doesn't fully understand.

Now, I don't necessarily hate X-men. I wouldn't say I'm hooked, but I don't hate it. I do cringe when writers bring up "racism", or when people actually praise X-men's interpretation of the struggle of Blacks in this country. I don't particularly mind when the writers focus on privileged people trying to figure out how to use their powers to help a comparatively disabled society. Or, when they make jerk characters like Deadpool, who may be bastards, but don't brood over "reverse racist" persecution to justify their behavior.