0 thoughts on “Black and White and Startlingly Offensive All Over: Part Two, Mainstream Comic Breakdown”

1. It's worth noting that Chicago is *extremely* segregated. Depending on where the scenes were in the city, it would be possible to have demographic breakdowns that were quite skewed. I think the numbers you got are probably excessive even given that, but still, I think it's worth pointing out that Chicago is not necessarily much, much less racist than the comics are….

2. Sure. But the scenes are by and large of Superman's own organization and troops, so segregation as explanation really isn't an argument I wanted to make. You can though! :P

   The other scenes are of either military types (where one would expect a mix) or the Daily Planet (which had the highest % of POC).

3. Actually, the race breakdown makes sense for Metropolis. You have to consider the massive property damage the city suffers on a weekly basis. Insurance rates must be through the roof, meaning that poorer minority families can't afford to live in the city.

4. Well, as to that…. Metropolis would normally trend to more minorities, actually, because the more dangerous a place is, the more it tends to be populated by the lower social classes (which often means minorities).

5. Christopher Priest (African American comic writer who seems to have retired from comics since 2007 or so)had some interesting things to say about race, comics, and the movie Superman returns here:

   http://neilbrown.org/legacy/id08/riv/frames/supesp.htm

   excerpt:

   "DC and Warners have historically missed the point that few little black boys want to be Superman anymore because they see absolutely nothing of themselves in Superman. Worse, for many minorities, Superman represents the elimination of ethnic traits and cultural traditions. The very image of Superman, who resolves most conflicts by brute force and violence, is fairly threatening to many blacks. He has godlike powers. He is indefatigable and undefeatable. The most powerful being on the planet. And he is white. So white, in fact, that a studio can spend $363 million and not even notice there are no blacks in the film. That's how white Superman is."

6. There's also the fascist connotations of Superman to deal with….

   Still, there are plenty of African-Americans who read mainstream superhero comics. And youth, to the degree that youths still read comics at all.

   Maybe we would hope that black youth/readers wouldn't identify with the ubermensch…but I'm not sure that's actually the case.

7. There were a fair number of under-6 black Supermen out for Halloween in our neighborhood — and very cute they were, too.

   I think lots of African-American kids like super-heroes. Which makes the apparent utter inability to cater to them all the more embarrassing (though television cartoons make somewhat more of an effort.)

8. What I resent about this position is the assumption that it's every creators social responsibility to create works that are in no way informed by their particular world-views, but that those distinctions should be rubbed-out, as they're indicators of injustice. Especially when we're talking about private, corporate media outlets, it's troubling to me; the logical conclusion is a kind of soft-tyranny, where creative works are run through a social correction filter.
   I think if one is willing to suggest that a minority creator ought to create material from a "minority" perspective, it's not a huge leap to suggest that it's okay for a majority creator to do the same.
   I think that's okay. I think if black boys don't want to be Superman, a ( probably black) creator ought to create one for them. Or, they could look to Lebron James ( a real black superhero that the "white" media presents) ..
   Ethnicity, racial identification and forms of preference that sprout from those positions are not going to go anywhere. The best we can do is have open dialogs about those preferences in order to find ways to live with them rather than pretending we can erase them.

9. Also, we live in a Western Republic, founded by Europeans and still majority European ( not for long, I know). That entertainment and art follow, I don't think we should be surprised by.
   It's not like we're willing to go to Ireland and demand that they adapt the way they tell stories to make Eastern European immigrants feel more culturally powerful than they are.

10. Pallas,

    Thanks for a great link!! That's very powerful and interesting. I appreciate it.

    Eric,
    I tried to avoid things like fascist connotations because I really just wanted to see just one small, easily mathematically measurable part.

11. Noah,
    I love to see kids in superhero costumes! Good for them.

12. Andrew Sullivan has a pretty great essay about how black America looks from his perspective as a European.

    "I think if one is willing to suggest that a minority creator ought to create material from a "minority" perspective, it's not a huge leap to suggest that it's okay for a majority creator to do the same."

    I don't think anyone said a minority creator should create minority works; I'd argue that that isn't the case, actually (Spike Lee wasn't wrong, for example, to create a movie or two without major black characters.) And nobody is suggesting that individual white creators can't talk about white people, if that's what they want to do. When a whole industry seems unable to make even (ahem) token efforts to acknowledge the existence of a large percentage of the population, though, you start to wonder what's up with that — especially when those omissions fit so neatly into historical patterns of discrimination.

    Finally — entertainment and art *don't* follow the European mode you're suggesting, you know? Much of our entertainment has at least okay minority representation — from mainstream radio to television. So when there are lacunae (as in country music or comics) I think it's legitimate to point it out.

13. Noah- I said "if you're willing to suggest" that minorities create for minorites. I was posing it, not responding to a proposition.

    You guys talk about an "Industry" as though it's some kind of singular entity that lives on the top floor of a skyscraper that's pushing buttons, telling it's underlings what to create. It doesn't exist; it's merely a name for the activities of many individuals working together in a particular field. The "industry" is what happens when they do that, not what does things so it can happen.
    What's left is to argue some kind of discernible motive for these individuals to abandon their world views ( that you refuse to look at individually. How convenient.) for one goes out of its way to present those views as bad.
    What's the motive? Who is the complainant? Who is the judge?

14. Noah- We can argue about the essential character of our entertainment ( It isn't Eastern, naw mean? Most of it is in ENGLISH, after all. ), and also the provenance of the modes of production of media ( again, they aren't African), but it'll come to naught.

    Even if you could ascribe an Industry-wide bias for "whiteness", I would ask you to tell me how that is a) unexpected, and b) bad.

    Pointing out that country music is almost totally white means nothing to me. So what?

    The facts on the ground are as follows: Most media in this country is consumed by white people. Most of it is made by whites, along with a disproportionate number of Jews. It isn't as though minorities are starved for media to consume, or feel somehow "left out" of some kind of fantasy-place.(I went to Disney World last year: full of minority families. ) Minority producers are creating lots of media that is consumed by minorities.
    I know black comic fans. They're nerds, just like a lot of white fans. I think to suggest to them that they require a black superhero, or a black creator to feel some kind of connection to that material is pretty insulting, and it's just not evident. You can't say that if comics were more minority friendly, more minorities would be involved. By that logic, white people, as a rule would be far more interested in comics than they are. They're not. Comics are for children, slightly fucked up adults, or slightly pretentious fucked up adults.
    There is no sense of inner blackness that comics could satisfy in minorities without adopting the same practices that are being criticized here, and exist, because, like, you say they do. Just look at the numbers, right?

    It's not a mass medium anymore. Comics takes in whoever can churn out enough bullshit on a deadline, or , if they're lucky, a smart creator who's got some kind of sentimental connection to comics.

    But hey, if you think Marvel should send out a memo to the colorists ( "This is L.A. Make sure you fill in %60 of the faces in the crowd a latino brown."), start writing letters. It's not going to change anything. Promise.

    What will change something? People creating media that fulfills their own desires. Look at Tyler Perry. The academic world and the "conscious" Industry players have been championing the idea of the black film-maker for 20 years now. They did this by promoting the black film-makers that met their particular criteria. Not surprisingly, they created film that seemed to effect white people more than any other group by playing directly to their patrons notions of race. Where are they now? Spike Lee is creating some barely ok mainstream fare ( an Inside Man was okay). The Wayans clan is a joke. What about that Robert guy? Remember him?
    Tyler Perry has crushed them all. He didn't seek an industry consensus, or attend Elvis Mitchells' talk at Oberlin. He's changed the landscape, and basically only black people are interested in his films.

15. My whole point with that last paragraph was that it's easier than ever to create your own media. That's what we need to champion. Not telling Time Warner colorists what to do.

16. Hey Uland. There are some interesting points there. If it's okay, I think I may post a response tomorrow, and we can continue the discussion then.

17. Vom–

    One thing you might want to take into consideration are ethnic and class distinctions among whites. (A Supergirl comic is in question here, so it may be too much to ask that the creators had things like that in mind, but it should be thought about regardless.) I look at a movie like The Fugitive, where the Chicago locale is just as much a character as the principals, and it is impossible not to be aware of those differences. And with someone like, say, Obama, his class trumps all racial distinctions. He is a bourgeois first and foremost. His race is of secondary importance.

18. I think that's pretty much false about Obama, Robert. His class is important…but he's a bourgeois, black intellectual from Hyde Park. Believe me, all of that matters a lot (I live a block from him.) His entire political career (to say nothing of his life) as it occurred would have been impossible if he were not both upper middle class (through his own efforts) and black (through his birth and his decisions about, for example, who he married.)

19. Isn't Vom's point about institutional racism…and so isn't there some measure of agreement between her and Uland. That is, Uland says the real issue is who owns the company, etc…which is the essence of institutionalized racism. Since Time/Warner and DC Comics are basically "white" companies (maybe there are a few black execs, but my guess is not very many)–it's no big shock that the products they tend to peddle have white-colored glasses on. As Uland points out, changing a few panels and group shots won't change that. The bigger issue is why are these group shots 95-100% white–and it's because the view of the whole company…and obviously many of its employees (whom the company hires) see the world (or the country anyway) as "white". It isn't of course…so reading these panels as Vom does just "reveals" starkly what we already know–which is that the mainstream comics industry has a skewed view of reality when it comes to race. I'm sure whoever drew these pages didn't consciously think–"Hmmm….Metropolis….that's a white supremacist city"–which means that it's not race-consciousness at work here, but an unconsciously inaccurate attempt to just represent "city x's (realistic) citizens." It's weird to talk about "realism" in a superhero comic–but this is just supposed to be random street shot–random non superpowered people–the closest you'll get to an attempt at realism in a comic like this–and it fails to even remotely resemble any big city in America. It's not a couple percentage points off…it's not even in the ballpark. This is not the problem in itself–but merely a reflection of the problem–which is that the whole industry has no clue what America looks like—(because it itself looks very little like America). On the grand scale of things racist, does it matter what a couple of panels of Supergirl look like–not at all…But it does matter that major companies have no clue what world they live in. (Even if we say this is a DC Comics problem, not a Time/Warner problem, it's kind of scary that any company–even of the size of DC Comics– could be this clueless)…

20. Obama doesn't live in Hyde Park anymore–he lives in the White House…an aptly named edifice paradoxically buried in one of (if not the) blackest cities in America. He now lives in a coccoon of politicians and political pundits–something that is likely to affect dramatically his world view and his acts as a public official, for better or worse (probably the latter).

21. Noah–

    I don't think we're in disagreement about Obama. I'm certainly of the view that the way he comes across in class terms has allowed him to exploit his race to advantage in a way that a working-class African-American never could. He was tailor-made for bourgeois white liberals looking to pat themselves on the back for their highmindedness.

    Beyond that, though, bourgeois African-Americans play to the pretenses of color-blindness. If they don't make a negative impression in class terms, racial prejudices don't tend to come into play. I should note that I consider class far more about personal affect than economic status.

22. Last thought (I promise)–

    It's kind of interesting to think of how this would be so much more unlikely to happen in a film. Because film requires the hiring of "real people"–anytime you have big crowd scenes, you have to worry about your hiring practices–and you have to deal with the people who show up on your doorstep to audition. Or, conversely, you have to just round up a real crowd of real people in the streets—and if you do that, you'll never come up with 95-100% white people–not in any major city of any size in America. It's only because a small number of individuals pencil and ink a comic (usually one or two–or in Final Crisis's case 37) that such a weird and distorted view of America can come forth.

23. "I don't think we're in disagreement about Obama."

    Oh, no, we're definitely in disagreement. If you think his victory was about white liberals, you're crazy. He won North Carolina. He won Indiana. The folks who came through for him there and allowed him to win in those places were not white liberals, I assure you.

    White liberals voted for him too, of course. But white liberals always vote democrat, pretty much,and pat themselves on the back for doing so…just like corporate overlords vote Republican and pat themselves on the back for doing that. Voting is so symbolic in general it's bound to be fairly self-congratulatory.

    Eric, I've thought about the film and television comparison too. It's especially the case for women I think; that is, the extent to which comics seems isolated from female creators and perspectives just isn't possible in film or television. If you've got a female actor standing there, you've got a female actor standing there. You can write a hiderously misogynous script, of course, but the fact that at some point you actually have to talk to a woman about it has to matter, even if only infinitesimally.

24. Hey Robert,
    Funny you should mention class. I actually blog about class and study class a lot. But I don't believe that class trumps race in this country, for a couple of reasons.

    They certainly do intersect, as do other forms of oppression and/or privilege, and sometimes trump each other or not.

    I've gone shopping alone, dressed lower class, and gotten superior service than I have when I have dressed upper class and shopped with my black best friend. It's not one store, but many. I'm not talking insults, but subtle social indicators such as leaving us alone and refusing to meet our eyes, or not meeting us at the register.

    So, yes, class can certainly play a role, but when you've got these kinds of 100% white numbers or in a San Francisco scene, no Asians at all, it's pretty much not class happening.

25. Hey Eric,

    Thanks for all the interesting comments. I think TV and movies are also fascinating, because as you say, you couldn't get this kind of material in a TV extras scene without some real effort, whereas with art, it's the subconscious world view sort of shown to the world, sans pants.

    It was particularly striking to me about San Francisco. There's a *ton* of people in those scenes, and not one seems to be Asian. It was just baffling to me.

26. I'm just pointing out here, not to refute your point at all- that the artist for Supergirl is black (and very nice! I met him at Heroes) So it's interesting that his crowd scenes are so…white.

27. shit, that was me above.

28. It is interesting…and somewhat embarrassing for me, at least, as I was just assuming the creators involved were white.

29. I guess this is the relevant bit here from Steven's just posted contribution:

    "Not "offending" – ie. challenging the preconceptions of – the consumer is standard operating procedure in media even today. While the logic flaw is that editors (and, by extension, the talent creating the work for the magazines they edit, whose real audience is the editor) begin from a preconception of what audience preconceptions are. That they're frequently not wrong is where the vicious circle principle cuts in: editors make editorial decisions based on preconceptions of what consumers want, the material reinforces consumer preconceptions, and the purchase of the material reinforces editorial preconceptions."

30. Comic book crowd scenes have tended to be disproportionately white for a long time–possibly more so at DC, with its mostly made-up cities, than Marvel, most of whose books are usually set in the Marvel Universe versions of actual places such as New York. Back in the '70's and '80's (I think) when Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (an artist whose style looked something like a more down to earth version of Neal Adams') used to draw a fair amount of DC comics, there were suddenly a lot of Latino and black people walking around in the backgrounds in Metropolis whenever he drew an issue of one of the Superman titles. This was especially striking because at the time–my impression is that it tends to be a bit better now on the whole–Garcia-Lopez was practically the only DC artist who consistently included a lot of nonwhite characters in crowd scenes, etc.

    Metropolis probably still tends to look more disproportionately white than more notoriously "grim and gritty" DC locations such as Gotham City, if only because stories set in Gotham (like most Marvel stories starring the Hell's Kitchen-centric Daredevil) are more apt to feature scenes that take place in slums, dark alleys, or other stereotypically–and stereotypically populated–crime-ridden locations, as well as ones set in more upscale uptown or business district settings, or in various (mostly white) longtime supporting characters' apartments and workplaces.

    Incidentally, the comic-book version of Metropolis is probably intended to be a fictionalized version of New York, rather than Chicago. True, Superman creators Siegel and Schuster were from the Midwest in real life. But the first indication I ever spotted that any of Superman's various Terran hometowns were supposed to be in that part of the country was in the first Richard Donner Superman movie starring Chris Reeve, in which the spot where baby Kal-El's rocket landed was specifically identified as being in Kansas. However, I'm pretty sure that even in that movie, Metropolis was supposed to be a thinly-disguised version of New York, since it definitely used some very New York City-looking locations. Most notably, they used the actual New York "Daily News" building (with the letters over the door changed to "Daily Planet") for the exterior shots of the "Daily Planet."

    I don't think there was any implication even in TV and movie portrayals of Superman that Metropolis was supposed to be anywhere but the East Coast until the CW "Smallville" TV show began portraying Metropolis as within semi-reasonable commuting distance for young Lex Luthor (who was forced to live way out in rural Smallville, Kansas, by his father, but stopped by Luthorcorp headquarters in not-all-that-far-away Metropolis on a fairly regular basis), not just "I can run a hundred miles in under two minutes" Clark Kent.

    For a while in, I think, the '70's, Metropolis' nickname in the comics was supposedly "the Big Apricot," a la the Big Apple for real-life New York. And at one point a little later one of the Superman titles–possibly during the John Byrne era–went into some detail about the six boroughs of Metropolis (which struck me, a native New Yorker, as an obvious allusion to NYC's five), and featured a map indicating that some of said boroughs were islands and/or separated from each other by rivers and bridges, again as in New York.

    More recently, DC sometimes seems to have gone out of their way to physically distinguish Metropolis from specific real-life cities like New York. (The most extreme example of this was a storyline around the year 2000 in which Brainiac somehow transformed most of midtown Metropolis' architecture into some sort of ultra high-tech futuristic "this is how the city will look several centuries from now" version of itself.) But if there's ever been any effort made to make Metropolis visually resemble Chicago, I must have missed it.

31. The crowd scenes in Supergirl are pretty much of Superman and his troops, for better or worse. The crowd scenes in the X-Men are everyday people (plus soldiers and mutants) fleeing/rioting, and thus bigger crowds.

    I'd be happy to count up a similar strictly street scene in Supergirl if someone knows of an issue, if that would be of interest.

    I'm firm on my belief that Metropolis is Chicago for two reasons: One, I grew up in Kansas, and we are quite proud of the boy who landed in our fields. He went to the Big City to be a reporter and that city is simply NOT New York.

    Two, and perhaps more authoritatively, I'm far from alone in believing it:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_%28comics%29
    They set Lois and Clark there, in the 90s.

    I realize that it's a fake city, but all the major US cities are becoming minority white, as it's called.

    As for the race of the illustrator, that's the thing about institutionalized racism. I didn't know any of their backgrounds, but I assumed there was a chance at least some of the creators were POC. I want to recommend the video to everyone again. It's a speech, given by an African author (Africa, not African-American), about just such an influence that white point of books can have on a black creator and what results, subconsciously.

32. Well considering that I'm the guy who drew Supergirl #44, whatever visual racial mix i draw in my books is an afterthought. It's nothing to be read into, it's not an anti POC conspiracy, it is what it is.

    Don't assume that I or any other comic artist have a personal mandate. I don't feel a required to populate every page I draw with black characters because I'm black. I'm also not the colorist of the book, so at least two of the soldiers in the opening scene were mis-colored. Not that it matters either way. the key here is to not make assumptions about an artist motivations or thinking. if you have a question, ask me. Speculation doesn't help.

33. Hey Jamal. That's interesting about the miscoloring. Thanks for stopping by to comment.

34. Not sure Jamal is still around, but I think it's worth pointing out that:

    "I don't feel a required to populate every page I draw with black characters because I'm black."

    I don't think this was ever exactly the issue. VM isn't saying that you, or anyone, should be required to draw crowd scenes in any particular way. The point is that mainstream titles systematically misrepresent the way cities actually look in real life. That's the result of lots of individual choices, none of which in themselves are problematic…but when you look at the whole, you do kind of wonder what's going on.

    "the key here is to not make assumptions about an artist motivations or thinking. if you have a question, ask me. Speculation doesn't help."

    That's certainly fair enough. I guess I have a couple of questions, if you happen to be reading.

    — Does miscoloring happen fairly often? I've heard of a couple of other cases (there was a fairly well-known incident with Vixen, right?) but I wonder if it's more widespread than that.

    — I understand that you don't feel it incumbent upon you to put black characters in your work, which is certainly reasonable enough. But…do you think about the racial composition of the cities or groups you're drawing at all? That is, do you see Metropolis (for example) as significantly more white than Chicago? Or is there just not time/incentive to think through the fictional settings in that way?

    — If you felt like drawing, say, a Metropolis street scene, or even a whole issue of a comic set in a city, with mostly, or even 50% black characters at some point, would that be okay with editorial? Would it be something you (or someone else) could just do, or would it be a decision that might end up being discussed? And, I guess I'm curious too whether discussions like that have ever actually come up for you?

    I realize that you could ask any of these questions of a white writer too, obviously (and comics writer Steven Grant actually addresses some of them. I guess I'd be curious too, from your perspective, if you agree more or less with Steven's take on the industry's racial politics.

    In any case, thanks again for stopping by.

35. — Does miscoloring happen fairly often? I've heard of a couple of other cases (there was a fairly well-known incident with Vixen, right?) but I wonder if it's more widespread than that.

    It happens but it's not a malicious issue. Coloring is the last element that's usually done, occasionally in a rush. if a colorist is unfamiliar with the character and hasn't been provided with reference it happens.

    — I understand that you don't feel it incumbent upon you to put black characters in your work, which is certainly reasonable enough. But…do you think about the racial composition of the cities or groups you're drawing at all? That is, do you see Metropolis (for example) as significantly more white than Chicago? Or is there just not time/incentive to think through the fictional settings in that way?

    No.

    — If you felt like drawing, say, a Metropolis street scene, or even a whole issue of a comic set in a city, with mostly, or even 50% black characters at some point, would that be okay with editorial? Would it be something you (or someone else) could just do, or would it be a decision that might end up being discussed? And, I guess I'm curious too whether discussions like that have ever actually come up for you?

    I've never had that subject ever come up once in the 17 years I've been working in comics. I drew Firestorm for two years and half the lead cast was black, the series took place either in New York or Detroit. So it's never been an issue. What I draw and how I draw it is up to my discretion.

    -I realize that you could ask any of these questions of a white writer too, obviously (and comics writer Steven Grant actually addresses some of them. I guess I'd be curious too, from your perspective, if you agree more or less with Steven's take on the industry's racial politics.

    I don't know if I agree with everything Steven has to say on the subject. I do agree that it is a "damned if you do, damned if you don't situation". Steven's perspective is different than mine I guess. Stereotypes are what they are, however they do stem from a place of truth, It's unavoidable actually. Do i like the typical black stereotypes that are out there? No, but I also acknowledge that they exist, even in my own family. So to ignore them is as much a disservice as it is to clownishly play them up.

    -In any case, thanks again for stopping by.
    No problem.

36. Von Marlowe wrote:

    "I've gone shopping alone, dressed lower class, and gotten superior service than I have when I have dressed upper class and shopped with my black best friend. It's not one store, but many. I'm not talking insults, but subtle social indicators such as leaving us alone and refusing to meet our eyes, or not meeting us at the register.

    So, yes, class can certainly play a role,"

    You know, these anecdotes don't really indicate anything that we could take away. You can't usefully measure a perceived response by a clerk; you don't know how they would've reacted in any other circumstance.
    It's like me saying that I've received not so great service from black employees, pretty okay service from white , therefore white people provide better service than black people.

37. "I'm just pointing out here, not to refute your point at all- that the artist for Supergirl is black (and very nice! I met him at Heroes) So it's interesting that his crowd scenes are so…white"

    BAM!

38. "I don't think this was ever exactly the issue. VM isn't saying that you, or anyone, should be required to draw crowd scenes in any particular way. The point is that mainstream titles systematically misrepresent the way cities actually look in real life. That's the result of lots of individual choices, none of which in themselves are problematic…but when you look at the whole, you do kind of wonder what's going on."

    I don't know, it seems to me that the M.O so far has been to present all of it as a problem that should be resolved.

39. Saying it's a problem isn't quite the same as saying it's any particular individual's fault, though (in fact, VM has been pretty insistent about saying the opposite…that it's institutional, not individual.)

40. Well, I guess I need to know how Institutional Racism is determined then. Is it just anything that looks really white? What's wrong with being white? Is it that people are being excluded? Who? Where are there and what do they have to say?

41. —Something like that is too abstract to target if your motive is to produce actual results.