shock post, I know but damn yo...is it me or does anyone else notice the void of black mutants, like damn yo it's a whole continent of black folks, some south american blacks, some Euro blacks, some Canadian blacks, some US blacks...damn throw in some aborginees...i'd think that they would at least represent more blacks as mutants since they are the outcast of their world. I mean Storm is ok and the one dude who was in the brotherhood (charcoal dude?) but damn...and how they have half the X3 story based in San Francisco and have like one asian dude with spikes in his skin?

I think that's my whole problem with sci-fi movies. It's like black people don't exist in the future. Like a plague came in whiped all the black people off the earth and shit.

superheroes doen't mean Stan The Man's a racist.

blacks were really a second thought back in those days so I understand...i'd just think when they adapted these comics to modern day screens we'd see more inclusion...

Although the race message of X-Men was pretty muddled from the get-go, I'm pretty sure his heart was in the right place. As corny as it seems now, a lot of his stuff was considered socially conscious for the time (keep in mind these *were* comic books, and this *was* the 60s-70s)

But this right here, I'll ride with....

>I think that's my whole problem with sci-fi movies. It's like
>black people don't exist in the future. Like a plague came in
>whiped all the black people off the earth and shit.

This gets me, too. Especially your sci-fi 'utopia' stories like Star Trek. It's like once they did away with diversity, things like hunger, war, and poverty just magically went away. It's like the only thing white people had left to worry about was aliens. And they were working on wiping those out, too. I doubt the subtext is intentional, but it's still there. Because, you know, The Matrix was pretty good with its diversity, but look at how shitty those people had it.

I'm guessing these shows are set in the same dimension as Friends and Seinfeld, where you can spend 8 years in New York City and the only black person you'll run into is Aisha Tyler.

Yeah, what was with Joey and Ross and their thing for (not) sharing hot black women?

>I'm guessing these shows are set in the same dimension as
>Friends and Seinfeld, where you can spend 8 years in New York
>City and the only black person you'll run into is Aisha
>Tyler.
>
>


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

kurly's Super-Duper Awesome? DVD Collection:
http://www.dvdaficionado.com/dvds.html?cat=1&id=kurlyswirl

awesome.

But yeah, the undoubtedly all white writing staff dropped the ball on that one. I'm guessing that's what you meant by "awesome." lol

They run into ONE black woman during the series, and she miraculously becomes this huge plot point in the episode.

As if that'll make up for the complete dearth of negrosity (well, just any diversity) in the series.

--Maurice

>This gets me, too. Especially your sci-fi 'utopia' stories
>like Star Trek.

jordi laforge, whoopi goldberg, warf

>>This gets me, too. Especially your sci-fi 'utopia' stories
>>like Star Trek.
>
>jordi laforge, whoopi goldberg, warf
>

Worf isn't a black klingon, he's a klingon played by a blakc dude. There's a difference. But if he's included into the break down, you have your non-threatening negro, mother earth, and noble warrior.

capt on deep space 9

I'm a trek fan, I know they do have black characters, I'm just not gonna pretend that most of those black characters are prominent, or that the few there are, spread over 5 whole series are proof that they don't live in a lilly white future.

First black interracial kiss.
Black captain that saved the universe.

But of course, there WAS Geordi Leforge. I'm convinced Geordi was the writers' way of convincing us that CP time is real.

Picard - "Geordi, I need the warp drive online! How long will it take?"
Geordi - "I need three days at the very least, captain!"
Picard - "we only have an hour!"
Geordi - "Ok."

But other points you made:

It was not the point of Starfleet to kill aliens. Who would Riker fuck then? He's already pulled all the human hoes.

And come on.......let's be real now. If there aren't as many black folks on the show as you'd like...you gotta step back and think. I think the writers already know that black folks aren't really trying to be cooped up with a buncha annoying-ass white people in skintight clothing for 5 years at a time.

>And come on.......let's be real now. If there aren't as many
>black folks on the show as you'd like...you gotta step back
>and think. I think the writers already know that black folks
>aren't really trying to be cooped up with a buncha
>annoying-ass white people in skintight clothing for 5 years at
>a time.

Maybe they just said 'thanks but no thanks'

'Oh, but y'all can take Whoopi'

Ms. Goldberg said her people were annialated by the BORG. That shit was foul to write in the script.

And if you are going by the movie, Ratner is the one you need to bitch at. They have characters in the book from all the places you mentioned.

But aside fromt that, after all these centuries of white creators NOT including black characters in sci-fi or damn near any genre of storytelling, is anyone surprised that only a hand full of ethnic faces appear?

he was the first in line for the mutant cure, haha

SELF-HATE!

the man got us good :(

--
Kutaragi defends the PS3 price:

""If you consider the PlayStation 3 a toy, then yes, it is an expensive toy. However, it is more than a toy. It is a PlayStation 3. And it is the only PlayStation 3."

are you talking about the movie or the comic?


damn throw in some aborginees...

bishop and gateway are abo's


and most of the groups you mentioned are represented


might want to research a bit more if you are talking about the comic

but 4 cats in marvel's entire universe does not = diverse

there's more than four

your barkin' up the wrong tree

You know the majority of mutants suck no matter what country they come from.

I mean sci-fi in general, blacks don't exist. Never Ending Story, Wizard of Oz, X Men, LOTR, hell the whole Sci-Fi Chanel...we are like a moot point.

>I mean sci-fi in general, blacks don't exist.


well you should of titled the post then

i mean if you consider the wizard of OZ sci fi your just reaching anyway

X Men - the comic is known for it's diversity and the team is bascially a benetton ad

>>I mean sci-fi in general, blacks don't exist.
>
>
>well you should of titled the post then


u didn't have to come in here if you had nothing positive to ad to the post...maybe you didn't see the "shock post" disclaimer???


>
>i mean if you consider the wizard of OZ sci fi your just
>reaching anyway

Wizard of Oz isn't SCIENCE FICTION? WTF? I'm not reaching, your definition's just a little too shallow.

>
>X Men - the comic is known for it's diversity and the team is
>bascially a benetton ad

No. No it's not at all. 1 black girl and white blue guy does not equal diversity. stop it.

>I mean sci-fi in general, blacks don't exist. Never Ending
>Story, Wizard of Oz, X Men, LOTR, hell the whole Sci-Fi
>Chanel...we are like a moot point.

because when white writers come up with black characters...they seem to be very sterotypical. Also we have to realized that not many white fans want to read about black characters.


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"I noticed your CD for .99 cent, what,
blanks CDs are a dollar fifty, you'd make more if you shut the fuck up!" - Chino XL

>because when white writers come up with black
>characters...

i'm saying come up with a more believable scenario than blacks just don't exist no more...
which is what they're giving us
or when they do write blacks into sci-fi we're either
a.) thugs
b.) reformed criminals
c.) first to die

>they seem to be very sterotypical. Also we have
>to realized that not many white fans want to read about black
>characters.

okay but let's look at like this...there are over 40 million blacks in the US. That's more than most countries across the world. What's wrong with writing for blacks and the white folks who actually wouldn't "mind" reading.

as you and I both just said above when they do include us we are thugs, first to die, etc. While America is a "melting pot" most groups remain segregated and live by people who mostly look like them. So I can not fault a writer for writng from his reality. Moreover,we can not expect white people to create characters for us..hell I don't expect white people to do anything for us. They can not write realistic black character because they don't come from the black experiance and know how diverse we are. The best solution I can think of is for more black and white writers to colab on projects and offer both insight.


!sig!
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"I noticed your CD for .99 cent, what,
blanks CDs are a dollar fifty, you'd make more if you shut the fuck up!" - Chino XL

White males account for 70% of those writing for television and nearly 80% of those writing for feature film. Six multinational corporations own the television and movie business. Everyone in the industry works for Rupert Murdoch and Michael Eisner. It's long been established that minorities are at a disadvantage due to 5 main reasons:

They have no old boy network.
They need to initiate their own projects.
They need to raise their own money.
They make less for the same work.
Opportunities only increase if they are entrepreneurial.

not Halle. Nothing against her, but nothing about Halle says "Strong, African Goddess" to me.

Marvel Comics is far more realistic than DC in the aspect of diversity...
X-Men served as social commentary....
how society treats those that are different = human/mutant relations
philosophical opposing viewpoints from Professor X/Magneto....
DC was just a bunch of white men in tights...
Justice League for the longest had no Blacks, Hispanics, Asians or Jews...
now for Marvel...
African American: Blade, the Prowler, War Marchine, Black Panther, Luke Cage, Storm, Maggot, the Falcon, Bishop, Night Stalker (New Warriors), Nick Fury(Ultimates),M (Generation X)
Hispanic: Sunspot, Thunderbird III
Native American: Thunderbird I and II
Asian: Lady DeathStrike, Sunfire, Silver Samurai, The Wasp(Ultimates), Psychlocke(merged with Revanche), Northstar, Jubilee
Jewish: Magneto
Gay: Northstar

i dunno... that's a problem for me these days

and frankly, the whole "X-Men as social commentary" rap is really overrated... Stan Lee's original X-Men was really a basic good vs. evil superhero yarn that wasn't much more realistic than Doom Patrol or the SuperFriends.

the whole social commentary thing never really became a big part of it until Claremont. and even then it was rather half-assed, i thought. Grant Morrison was the one who brought that particular aspect of X-Men mythos to full bloom, IMHO

also, i think it's unfair to point out that DC had no blacks, hispanics or gays and then contrast that with a list of all these diverse Marvel heroes FROM THE 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s.

Marvel didn't have any black, hispanic or gay characters during that same period (yeah, they had Black Panther, but that was about it) and DC has had plenty of diverse characters since then too.

I can't speak on DC but in Marvel, there were basically no black people until the late 60's and then it seemed to be a totally opportunist move. Look at Spider-man, you hardly see a black person during the Ditko-years and then all of a sudden Robbie Roberson comes in. That wasn't until maybe 66 (67?). When X-men went to a beatnik bar in one of the very first episodes (64 or something like that), the free-jazz band was white (in the real world, you could count the number of white, american free-jazz musicians on one hand in the 60's.

After the death of MLK and all the riots etc., Marvel was quick to point out that there were black troublemakers too and never wanted to put the blame solely on the racists in most of the race-related episodes-I'm especially thinking about the Avengers episodes where Black Panther, the Avengers and a female soul singer (?) battled a racist group called serpents or something like that but also the "Trouble on campus" episodes in Spider-man and several other ones. Also note that Black Panther distanced himself from the Black Panther movement...

>After the death of MLK and all the riots etc., Marvel was
>quick to point out that there were black troublemakers too and
>never wanted to put the blame solely on the racists in most of
>the race-related episodes-I'm especially thinking about the
>Avengers episodes where Black Panther, the Avengers and a
>female soul singer (?) battled a racist group called serpents
>or something like that but also the "Trouble on campus"
>episodes in Spider-man and several other ones. Also note that
>Black Panther distanced himself from the Black Panther
>movement...

despite his ultra-liberal, swinging hipster persona, Stan WAS in his 40s and the outlook in Marvel Comics was still relatively conservative even when Peter grew sideburns

it was pretty messed-up when T'Challa became "the Black Leopard" in order to distance him from the real-life Panthers, but at the same time i can kinda understand why they felt they had to do that

I haven't read ANY DC 60's stuff. Did they just ignore it? I have read several times that the thing that made Marvel different from DC then was that they were more in touch with the "real" world and were more realistic whereas DC ignored stuff like that...

Marvel has always been better than DC when it came to dealing with diversity in comics, however that gap is nowhere near what the revisionists would have you believe. For instance, at first the X-Men dealt with no more discrimination than any other characters that weren't named the Fantastic Four.
While Marvel did have Powerman as that first black headliner, I'd have to say that making the primary Green Lantern a black guy is a bigger move.

They're really wasn't much of a difference when it came to how either company handled race. You'd either have 1) it ignored 2) the most multi-cultural gangs ever or 3) racism as shown by a black guy hating white people (which is still being done today "hi Nighthawk").

i think it was in 1970 or 1969 that they really made the leap, though... Teen Titans became a really socially conscious comic as the characters stopped wearing their costumes (and even using their powers) and roamed the country dealing with the kind of issues that teens of the day dealt with. they also had two black characters during that period: Mal and Bumblebee.

they also introduced Black Lightning. actually, that reminds me of something: one thing about about DC's black characters i preferred to Marvel's was the fact that they were not ex-criminals and pimps and they mostly didn't speak jive (and in Black Lightning's case, he wore and afro wig and spoke jive in order to disguise his true identity as a schoolteacher)

oh crap, how could i forget... there was also the seminal Denny O'Neill/Neal Adams run on Green Lantern/Green Arrow. reading it today it's really preachy and ultra-liberal, but it was revolutionary, challenging stuff at the time.

also,like Brother Afron said, i agree that DC has made much bolder initiatives than Marvel in not just creating new minority characters to act as second-string characters, they've recast many of their established and/or headline characters as minorities (Green Lantern, Blue Beetle, Spectre, Mr. Terrific, Crimson Avenger etc)

They always seemed to be jive talking types and just played on the sterotypes of black males.


!sig!
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"I noticed your CD for .99 cent, what,
blanks CDs are a dollar fifty, you'd make more if you shut the fuck up!" - Chino XL

especially the way that they all seemed to be ex-convicts (even when they were in jail "for a crime they didn't commit")

i was never sure if i was supposed to identify with them because i never could. to be honest, i couldn't identify with T'Challa either. i don't think i ever really *felt* any black characters until John Stewart and Cyborg

i paint it myself<--- holla at the sig
<--- BITCH?!! AW HELL NAW!!!

WWW.TYPEILLYPRESS.COM

* all comments made about women apply to the formerly single TOREZ only

!sig!
www.myspace.com/gemini2one
http://groups.myspace.com/snakesonplane

"I noticed your CD for .99 cent, what,
blanks CDs are a dollar fifty, you'd make more if you shut the fuck up!" - Chino XL

they "paint" the way blacks see the world for years and years...he who is given much is expected much of

just asking at what point do WE paint
our own pictures, and not worry about
what the next man is painting?

(unless they are painting foulness)

on a certain level, why WOULD i expect
folks to paint anything other than their
own experience?


<--- HOT NEW TITLES ON DROP....

WWW.TYPEILLYPRESS.COM

* all comments made about women apply to the formerly single TOREZ only

>on a certain level, why WOULD i expect
>folks to paint anything other than their
>own experience?


your answer might answer this question

and what is your response to my assertion
that it is on US to paint our own pictures,
and what stan lee does with his pictures
is irrelevant to that.

regardless to whether he is right or
wrong for 'leaving us out', i'm saying
what he does is an irrelevant obsession
to OUR artistic outlook.

did japanese folks get mad at marvel
cause they only had SUNFIRE and
MANDARIN and SILVER SAMURAI or did
they make their own shit and bumrush
the market?

holla...
<--- CLEOPATRA JONES + QUEEN LATIFAH

WWW.TYPEILLYPRESS.COM

* all comments made about women apply to the formerly single TOREZ only

I sometimes wanna get in white peoples heads just to see exactly how they see black folks.

Black people in ALL white written works are really really lacking.

Its especially ironic in sci-fi, cuz these are the supposed "visionary" white folx.

I feel this post.

ain't somebody mentioned a while back that there's never been an African-American X-man?

african americans that is

(Which wasn't 100% serious to begin with)

But we need to examine another side of this.

I don't think white writers in general have any sort of racial agenda behind their fiction. What I think it comes down to is characters, and the fact of the matter is, the more you can relate to a character, the easier it is to write for them.

Stan Lee didn't write about white males because he thought white males were the ideal, but rather because as a white male, those characters were probably the easiest for him to understand and write for.

As many of us know, some of those earlier attempts to write for minority voices yielded disastrous results. And as a Prep Time Posse blog recently explored, with there being so few minority characters in comics, that puts a huge burden on writers to get it right. Because when you're writing for Luke Cage, you're writing for like, 1/6 of the black superhero population. That's a lot of pressure. So writers get a little race/gender shy, I imagine.

Of course, as a result you have less minority kids who can relate, thus less minority fans, thus less minority fans who grow up to become comic book/sci-fi/whatever writers. And so on and so forth.

It's a vicious cycle, but maybe one day we can break it and begin living together in harmony in our mothers' collective basements, geeks united.

>(Which wasn't 100% serious to begin with)
>
>But we need to examine another side of this.
>
>I don't think white writers in general have any sort of racial
>agenda behind their fiction. What I think it comes down to is
>characters, and the fact of the matter is, the more you can
>relate to a character, the easier it is to write for them.
>>>>>>>

While to an extent its true that white writers don't have any sort of overt racist agenda in their works, the absence of minority characters until creating criminals does say a lot about their thinking.


>Stan Lee didn't write about white males because he thought
>white males were the ideal, but rather because as a white
>male, those characters were probably the easiest for him to
>understand and write for.
>

I think its more likely that the idea of making a minority heroes didn't occur to him unless he was going to make the fact that he was a minority the focus of the book. Hence the Black Panther.


>As many of us know, some of those earlier attempts to write
>for minority voices yielded disastrous results. And as a Prep
>Time Posse blog recently explored, with there being so few
>minority characters in comics, that puts a huge burden on
>writers to get it right. Because when you're writing for Luke
>Cage, you're writing for like, 1/6 of the black superhero
>population. That's a lot of pressure. So writers get a little
>race/gender shy, I imagine.
>

I've seen a general dmaned if you do, dmaned if you don't sentiment when writers speak on creating black heroes.


>Of course, as a result you have less minority kids who can
>relate, thus less minority fans, thus less minority fans who
>grow up to become comic book/sci-fi/whatever writers. And so
>on and so forth.
>
>It's a vicious cycle, but maybe one day we can break it and
>begin living together in harmony in our mothers' collective
>basements, geeks united.

I gotta disagree with the idea that minority fans are less likley when there's less minority heroes. The fact of being a minority means that you're going to be immersed in representations of the majority population. That goes for comics, tv, and movies. I'd say its the majority that has the problem of relating to the minority.

>While to an extent its true that white writers don't have any
>sort of overt racist agenda in their works, the absence of
>minority characters until creating criminals does say a lot
>about their thinking.

Oh definitely. But... I don't think it necessarily means they perceive black people as criminals. I think it was something more general, like having a black character was 'edgy' and sort of outside the norm. The criminal angle can sort of be a metaphor for these characters being 'outsiders'. Which isn't much of an excuse really, since it makes it both offensive *and* corny. But I think it's important to draw a line between bad writing and racist writing.

>I think its more likely that the idea of making a minority
>heroes didn't occur to him unless he was going to make the
>fact that he was a minority the focus of the book. Hence the
>Black Panther.

Maybe so. Stan's never been one for subtlety.

Plus you gotta remember how iffy the printing was in the 60's. Sometimes the Hulk was gray, sometimes he was green. It was really a crap shoot back then. Maybe putting 'Black' right there in the title was their way of telling the printer 'don't make T'Challa look too orange'

Another thing to remember is that a LOT of these characters were one dimensional and gimmicky, regardless of race. BUT... It's one thing to be the guy who can ignite himself into flames. When your hook is also your race, well...

>I've seen a general damned if you do, damned if you don't
>sentiment when writers speak on creating black heroes.

Yep. Still not sure how I feel about that sentiment.

>I gotta disagree with the idea that minority fans are less
>likley when there's less minority heroes. The fact of being a
>minority means that you're going to be immersed in
>representations of the majority population. That goes for
>comics, tv, and movies. I'd say its the majority that has the
>problem of relating to the minority.

Yeah, definitely. A lot of people don't stop to consider that the racial communication gap isn't such a two way street. But for some reason I perceive the sci-fi/comics worlds as a little different, though, since nobody's really *immersed* in those. That's kind of a fringe/counterculture thing you gotta seek out for yourself. It's like the difference between American Idol and Battlestar Galactica or something. One of them is shoved down EVERYONE's throat, the other will leave most people scratching their heads regardless of their ethnic background.

I've never known anyone to not read Superman strictly because he's a white dude, but the comic book/sci-fi culture in general isn't the most inviting thing in the world.

for a sheltered, good hearted white dude I'm sure trying to write a black character would be terrifying back in the days. Especially when the black characters stand out so much and the entire perception of your imprints racial outlook is going to be based on them. Of course the resulting characters are going to be overly broad and stereotypical. I don't envy that task.
But it's getting better as those involved become more diverse.

i.e. we need to know everything about them and if we don't, we get shunned however, they have no moral or social obligation to get to know anything about us? I don't get it.


>for a sheltered, good hearted white dude I'm sure trying to
>write a black character would be terrifying back in the days.
>Especially when the black characters stand out so much and the
>entire perception of your imprints racial outlook is going to
>be based on them. Of course the resulting characters are going
>to be overly broad and stereotypical. I don't envy that task.
>But it's getting better as those involved become more
>diverse.

We just gotta consider the context here. For some reason we've singled out Stan and we seem to be holding him to a standard that simply wasn't there in the 1960s. Especially in comics.

Consider what was going on in comics just a generation before Black Panther-

http://www.superdickery.com/images/propaganda/249_4_023.jpg


As crazy as it might seem now, Stan was being PROGRESSIVE.

i'm more so speaking in terms of the sci-fi genre in specific and how blacks don't exist in those writers/producers reality. It'd be every other race but somehow blacks just dissappear.

>I think that's my whole problem with sci-fi movies. It's like
>black people don't exist in the future. Like a plague came in
>whiped all the black people off the earth and shit.

cuz their ain't no niggas in the future!

influence to really be considered as potental characters. I dont think that will change tho...probably our beat bet is to read upcoming comics created by our people.

Tho Todd Mcfarlane did a gusty move in making Spawn black...

It would only be gutsy if Spawn's face wasn't burned off.

As long as I read that book, they never really played up that aspect of the character