Discovering that you and your favorite mutants share a deep connection isn’t easy.
I make it no secret that I’m a big kid at heart. Video games and comics are my entertainment outlet like some people use sports or soap operas. Most of the t-shirts I wear in the summer feature at least one superhero, and, thanks to Netflix, I can watch the cartoons I used to run home/wake up early on weekends for with new eyes. While most of them aren’t nearly as good as I remember, one has actually become better with age: “X-Men: The Animated Series.”
Everyone knows the story of the X-Men but in case you don’t, here it is:
There are a group of people called mutants, born with traits and powers that make them different from normal people. They fight for their respect, and for the freedom of all mankind, in a world that both hates and fears them.
And as I watched it growing up in inner city Brooklyn, they subconsciously reminded me of archetypes of people I saw in my own community. While I was still at an age where I was learning that one day I, too, would have a place, this cartoon was like a window to a world similar to mine where differences were both celebrated and vilified.
The leader of the X-Men, Professor X, is a pacifist who believes that both normal humans and mutants can live together in harmony. He possesses a an attitude that “one day, we shall overcome.” His rival, and often archenemy, Magneto, chooses to fight for mutant liberation “by any means necessary.” As much as they antagonize each other in their beliefs, when they finally do work together, they don’t even need their powers to quite literally beat the crap out of dinosaurs and take over a foreign land.
The X-Men’s field leader, Cyclops, is a soldier in every sense of the word. However, though he has the courage, leadership, and faith to achieve Professor Xavier’s dream, he lacks the vision to see what really makes that dream worth fighting for.
Beast is as brilliant and poetic as he is strong and agile. Yet, most cannot not look past his animal-like appearance.
Wolverine is considered an animal but really he’s just a man whose rage comes from a long and difficult struggle to find who he is. All he ever wants is peace but is blind to the hard truth that the world will never allow him to have it.
And Storm … wow.
Imagine being a child growing up in a home where the only parent is a black woman, then seeing a black woman on TV who not only has the awesome power to control the weather but also has the strength and wisdom to serve as field commander of the X-Men. Considered to be one of the most powerful superheroes on Earth, she is also one of few people in the universe able to wield Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, a tool that only gods are supposed to be able to lift. In its own way, watching Storm command the very elements of Earth itself made me feel like I was in even better company.
♦◊♦
Every week I would pay full attention to all the characters as they struggled for the right to be treated with respect and dignity. Not only because it was cool to see how they would use their different powers each week, but because I started to see similarities in the enemies they faced as well. Like me, they had plenty of foes that represented archetypes I saw on the news and in my neighborhood.
The Sentinels were a force that attacked in large numbers with more power and authority than mutantkind. Most humans, to whom they were symbols of strength and safety, applauded their services. They struck fear and hatred into the mutants, who viewed them as symbols of oppression.
Senator Robert Kelly, a politician determined to enforce anti-mutant policies and agendas, only changed his prejudiced attitudes after those he most despised saved his life.
The Juggernaut was an unstoppable behemoth too stupid and spiteful of the success and acclamation of his half-brother and mutant, Professor X, to learn to express himself through any other means than violence. He was a moron. All he ever did was boast how great he was from behind a mask.
Their worst enemy, however, the place where they found the most brutal opposition, was from within their own kind. Hence the never-ending (well, until the series was cancelled) fight for mutant rights.
I was hooked from the first episode when Storm said the most mind-blowing sentence that I had heard at that age: “People fear what they don’t understand.”
It captivated me. I thought about how much that answered the questions I started to form in my head about the way the world viewed me because of my skin color. While on the surface it was just another Saturday morning cartoon used to pedal action figures to kids and give us another reason to beat the hell out of each other play fighting during recess, when I reflect on it now, it became a kind of fable on what it would be like growing up black in this world. Through watching my favorite superheroes fight for equality, I learned the hard fact that I, too, would be hated and feared simply because I was born different.
While the stories produced since “The Animated Series” have drifted far away from their original commentary on human relations and become more action-oriented, I’m still a fan of the original characters and won’t forget what they meant to me. I’ve held dear the stories of the world being threatened and saved time and again by these warriors of modern folklore. Through a variety of my own real-life battles, I’ve found my own superpower in writing.
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My first day in college, I was introduced to a socio-political magazine. Everyone said it was a racist paper because most of the writers were black or Latino and expressed newly discovered perspectives on what it meant to be brown-skinned in this world. Once I read through an issue I fell in love. It reminded me of my first comic book.
It was a platform where I could freely discuss my newly discovered views on race and culture. Fighting hard to hone my writing skills, I became editor-in-chief. However, having a very small staff, we were always in trouble of having our funding pulled by the school. But, I was determined to not let this magazine die.
I used Professor X as an example of how I wanted to bring this magazine to a respectable place. I recruited nearly every student who was passionate in voicing his or her opinions about the ills of our world while forming a complete sentence. Within two semesters, I more than quadrupled the staff, tripled the production, and introduced a new Latino-based side to the magazine. Though some of the things I did were met with skepticism, controversy, and some well-deserved disgust, I still look back at that time and have nothing but pride and appreciation for the work my team and I did.
Among the most notable moments, however, was when my mentor, himself a former editor of this college paper, asked me just days before graduation what I had learned and how I had learned it. While I had studied a good amount of history, and a good amount African-American history, at school, and found new heroes in Stokely Carmichael, Ida B. Wells, and others, I left him speechless. He asked me about my motivation, my inspiration. My reply:
“Comic books.”
♦◊♦
Since graduating from that role of editor, I made it my purpose to serve the up and coming in my community as a youth educator with a number of nonprofits for a couple years, volunteering as a mentor for four years and also hosting a weekly radio show where we discuss a number of topics affecting the youth today.
Even with these accomplishments, I still deal with the devastating reality that the melanin in my skin is what defines me most to people who see me. Often, it doesn’t define me at all, but defines a stereotype. Some women still clutch their purses near me on the subway. Some people still try to knock me over as if I’m invisible. And, every once in a blue moon, some runs to the corner of the elevator when I step on in fear that I will rob or hurt them in some way. No matter how polite I am, how I’m dressed, if I’m reading a book or listening to music quietly, some people see my skin and think, impulsively, “here comes trouble.”
Recently, I found myself in that 17% of African-American males currently unemployed due to the economic recession. Waking up everyday knowing that I was a statistic, something I strived hard not to be, even ran away from in some instances, I became a lot more sensitive to the subject of race. And given the preference that the modern-day media circus loves to give to the Antoine Dodson’s and Herman Cain’s of the black community, that sensitivity turned to shame and humiliation at the skin I wear.
With nothing but time on my hands and job rejection letters I didn’t want to reply to, I skimmed through the Netflix library and found the old X-Men cartoons that had been such a milestone in my childhood. I started watching the series from the first episode, and something happened that did not expect. I cried.
Here I was, a grown man sobbing while watching a cartoon for teen boys, as I was taken back to that moment in my childhood when the world became a less innocent place for me, when I became conscious of a set a hideous realities. And as I watched these heroes fight villains with the most fantastic powers, every ounce of hatred I ever felt because of my skin color exploded.
I thought of every time I was followed in a store. Every n-word joke said in the predominantly Caucasian middle school I attended. Every time I watched the news and knew what race committed each crime based on whether the criminal’s face was shown. The pain flooded and crashed through every levee I placed in my mind to keep safe the hopes I had of ever being considered human.
“People fear what they don’t understand.” Hearing that line took me back to that special Saturday morning when I realized that I, like the heroic mutants that fascinated me, was different. Carrying the weight of that difference for so long took its toll on me. It left me with no choice but to finally drop it for a while and heal through tears.
While I have since come back to terms with race relations, it doesn’t mean I won’t have another breakdown. Being black, like being a mutant, is both a gift and a curse. There are times that you can feel the utmost pride, and times that you can feel sorrow and guilt. There are times when I want to revel in the beautiful struggle that it is to be black in America and times where I despise it so much that I was born this way.
I can’t control the way the world views my color, but can control how I react to it. Even in “post-racial” America, racism and bigotry are still very much alive and well. It is true that people fear what they do not understand, but, like the X-Men, I can’t let that fear stop me from living. I can only keep fighting, one day at a time.
—Photo JD Hancock/Flickr
Great post. Growing up as a middle-class white guy, I did not have to face that kind of prejudice. Until, that is, i befriended the only black person, not only in my school, but the county. I got into countless fights over use of the “N-word”. Meanwhile, my friend was the most peaceful, intelligent, kind person you could hope to meet.
On a side note, I hate to play the grammar card, but it should be “peddle” toys, not “pedal”.
Hi Ms. Williams,
I’d be more than happy to allow you to use my article if it will help teach your students about diversity. I’m truly honored and still speechless at the fact that you would like to use my writing. Thank you for the incredible work you’re doing teaching our future!
Stay blessed,
Nick
Mr. Florest, I wanted to ask permission to use this article in my classroom. I teach pre-AP/AP English (8th-10th and 12th grades) in a very small Oklahoma town. There is VERY little diversity. I try to open their horizons and explain one day they will encounter people dissimilar to them–they need to be open to other ideas and people. Thus far, I have had much success exposing them and opening them. My 8th graders will do an extensive unit over the Holocaust and an intro into the history of discrimination and intolerance. I will also work in an intro into… Read more »
I’m sorry. I thought I was in the reply box… My thoughts are in the comment below.
Thank you for this.
Thank you to everyone for reading! I’m happy to see my first piece here so well-received and that you all got something from it.
Peace and Love…
Nick
i do see the similarities here. but i have heard from mr. lee (the creator of x-men) that it not only was about racial intolerance but also the gay rights movement. how anything that was different to the 50’s era and beyond in terms of different race, gender or orientation and even religion have scared people. he wanted to bring these diverse things to the surface and what better way than to bring it out in the entertainment industry. i just want everyone to know that mr. lee wants everyone to be equal and he made it so with x-men.
After reading your article I had a discussion with my nephew about the movie X-MEN 1st Class. He told me how it all finally made sense to him and how much he loved it. When I told him that Professor X and Magneto were an allegorical representation Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and the civil rights movement of 1963 his jaw hit the ground.
Mr Florest Thank you for this teaching opportunity.
Bottom line, I thought this would talk about how there are no black comic super heroes. But No, far deeper. I find this article, impressive black people remain an enigma to many white people. So white people consider us a treat. If only they realize, that we are just facing the same challenges as them such as earning a pay check making a living.
Walter, as a white man, I just wanted to respond. There is a specific aspect of the black community that I cannot understand. The best example that comes to mind occurred during the Duke Lacrosse Scandal a few years ago. A black student at NCCU was interviewed (I believe it was the Chan Hall interview by Newsweek, but I could be wrong), and stated that the white Duke Lacrosse players deserved to be prosecuted for the alleged rape “whether it happened or not” because it would be “justice” for past incidents. I do not know how widespread that sort of… Read more »
Hey Mike! Thank you for your comment. I just want to provide a bit of perspective to help you understand where that belief comes from. While I don’t speak for all African-Americans, I do want to say that it is my honest belief that as a whole, we don’t hate all of White America. Whatever angst and negativity comes us in regards to race to others today really comes from a place of being consistently treated like second-class citizens. The young man was looking for ‘justice’ in the Duke Scandal because of the history of sexual exploitation of Black people.… Read more »
That FOX cartoon series in the early 90s was my introduction to the X-MEN, too. And Storm is my favorite, for the same reasons. Thank you for this beautiful piece. It summarizes my experience with race and the genius of the X-MEN as well.
As an old-school fan of Marvel Comics (how “old-school”?) When the first X-Men movie came out, I noted with amusement that Bobby Drake (a.k.a. Iceman) had been busted down to a mere student at Xavier’s upstate New York school, when I knew full well he was one of the original members when the book started in the sixties. As for the “big kid” stuff? NEVER apologize for enjoying these things…! Shame on you…(LOL) In my secret identity as “Middle-Age Man” (who’s sole “special ability” is not givin’ a rat’s-ass) the MOST important thing my years of enjoying these things have… Read more »
Nick,
LOVE this post! The mix of appreciation for comics and the archetypes they maintain (not to mention social issues addressed), along with the tie-in into your experiences in racial and “post-racial” America (*cough cough*) … all just great. Thanks for this!
Be well and take care!
Michael