Comics / Cult Favorite

Ethnicity, Tolerance and Geek Culture

By Philip Schweier
January 16, 2009 - 16:16

ETHNICITY, TOLERANCE AND GEEK CULTURE – 01/16/2009

By Philip Schweier

In 1968, civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Since 1986, the United States has observed a federal holiday in honor of his birthday – Jan. 15 – usually on the third Monday in January.

Fittingly enough, this year’s observance immediately precedes the inauguration of the first African-American U.S. president, Barack Obama. King had a dream in which any person might someday be judged by the content of his or her character, and many Americans voted for Obama in the belief that he was better suited to be president.  Hopefully it is a sign of how far we have come as a society in four decades.

The morning after the election, a co-worker gave me an enthusiastic thumbs-up sign, delighted that, as she put it, “We have a black president.” Having voted for him, I myself am pleased, but the thought struck me that there was great effort to steer clear of racial issues during the campaign. It seems only fair that that policy should continue as Obama’s administration begins.

But recently, that same co-worker and I had a discussion regarding African-Americans and comics. She wanted to learn the level of racial diversity in comics, She was surprised to see Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury in the Iron Man movie, and was curious to know if that was Hollywood casting or if it reflected the comic book version.

In explaining efforts of some publishers effort to racially broaden their comic book lines, I cited the 1970s and such characters as Power Man and Black Lightning, moving on to the era in which James Rhodes took on the Iron Man armor and the Milestone characters, which have been recently assimilated into the DC Universe.

In our talk, the subject of Tuvok, a Vulcan character from Star Trek: Voyager came up. I felt rather silly referring to him as an African-American Vulcan. The planet Vulcan has no America or Africa. He was simply a “black” Vulcan, a term I’m unable to use without thinking of the character from the old Super Friends cartoon.

With my co-worker’s approval, I opted not to use the term “African-American,” and I appreciate my reader(s)’ indulgence and understanding here. It raises too many variables, such as what is the politically correct term when discussing other countries? African-Briton? Franco-African?

The term can also be adapted for other cultures, such as Mexican-American, Chinese-American and Italian-Americans. My grandfather was born in Germany, and once when my dad was referred to as German-American, he took offence. Other than during his service in World War II, he’d never been to Germany. He was born in the United States, reared in the United States and he served his country admirably for many years. To suggest that he was “half-American, half-something else” diminished his sense of citizenship.

While such terms as “African-American” are intended to be culturally sensitive, compartmentalizing people into such groups only maintains the cultural gap. Ironically, it is often the well-intentioned people who use such terms who end up pleading, “Why can’t we come together as a united people?”

Racial intolerance is one of the many evils that often come up in comic books and other forms of science fiction and fantasy – geek culture, if you will. Stories of heroes, from Hercules to Robin Hood to Robin the Boy Wonder, all feature people fighting for what they believe will be the betterment of society and against evil and injustice.

Live action black Vulcan

Cartoon Black Vulcan

Many comic books use tolerance as a theme in their stories, the most obvious being X-Men. The uncanny mutants have become poster children in a world where they are feared and hated by much of the so called “normal” people. Ironically, it is that intolerance for mutants which seems to have united a large portion of the Marvel Universe population.

The false sense of unity that comes from having a common enemy – real or perceived – has been played out in science fiction whenever an alien lands on earth. The invasion films of the 1950s are a prime example, but it dates back even further, to A Princess of Mars, written by Tarzan author Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1911.

In his novel, and the several that followed, Mars is inhabited by a number of races jockeying for domination. The red, white and black races are more human. There are also the green, which have four arms and massive tusks protruding from their mouths.

Other races include the symbiotic Kaldanes  – a head supported by spider-like tentacles– and Rykors, headless creatures that function on instinct, unless a Kaldane occupies the Rykor’s neck. The Kaldane’s tentacles bond with the spinal cord and allow for control.

So is geek culture and influence on race relations? Absolutely. By portraying a society in which difference of any kind is tolerated and where those with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men struggle for a better world, it impacts to varying degrees the average fan-boy’s own sense of tolerance for those who are of a different race. This applies whether it's a question of ethnicity, or maybe just prefer Star Wars over Star Trek or Marvel Comics over DC Comics.

Hopefully, in years to come, this trend will continue, leading to a more enlightened society as a whole. The fact that a black man has been elected president is hardly a sign that King’s Utopian world of brotherhood has been achieved.

But it's a pretty good start.

Praise and adulation? Scorn and ridicule? E_mail me at philip@comicbookbin.com

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12