Am i the only person who agrees with Havok’s “M Word” sentiment?

[QUOTE=Dboi2001;5158767]You certainly are making it sound like white can’t write stories about discrimination despite the most influential writers being mostly white[/QUOTE]

Are you serious? Are you actually being serious right now?

It sounds like you're intentionally choosing to see and read what you want to see in my posts and not what is actually there.

I'm "making it sound like white can’t write stories about discrimination"? I literally said this:

[QUOTE=Blind Wedjat;5158680]However, if you're going to be writing stories about the oppression of minorities or stories that are allegorical to that, [B]you better be a non-minority that has a complete understanding of the nuances of the situation in question[/B], or be a minority that does.[/QUOTE]

Where the hell did I say white people can't write stories about discrimination? Do not attempt to have a discussion with me and then put words in my mouth.

[QUOTE=Dboi2001;5158767]Alex didn’t say he wasn’t a mutant just not to only call him that. Alex and the other mutant avengers were known as “the mutant ones” and he just doesn’t want to be viewed solely by that. Again do yo think Luke Cage would appreciate being called “the black avenger” or Kamala “the Muslim avenger”? And again in X-men race doesn’t matter we see mostly normal looking white mutants get harassed just as much as black mutants or even the strange looking mutants. Sometimes it’s not even people hating them being mutants but misunderstanding them like how people hated Nightcrawler because they thought he was a devil. Some people don’t want to be known by their label. Even then this all ignores the bigger issue with mutants and that’s the fact many people believe they’re not human hence using the term mutant. What that would be like is if racists claims black people are not human beings and a black person goes “yeah you’re right we aren’t.” That is pretty harmful especially when some villains like magento makes it an “us vs them” ideology. Alex is simply saying there is no us vs them there is just us. And yes mutant is often a divisive term and isn’t a compliment[/QUOTE]

Alex telling people he doesn't want to be called a mutant is telling people he isn't a mutant. It's that simple, and that's basic reading comprehension. For instance, there are many black people who refuse to be called black or African-American because they do not want that to be a part of their identity anymore. They are therefore saying they aren't black. That is of course a form of self hate, and that is equivalent to Alex's message. And Remender wasn't trying to point out that Alex has self hate either, because it was supposed to be a positive moment.

Again, your examples continue to be poor. Yes, Luke Cage and Kamala Khan do not need their race and religion to be relevant to their statuses as Avengers. However, neither Luke or Kamala deny that they are black or Muslim respectively. I don't care if white mutants are mistreated as much as other kinds of mutants. That has nothing to do with this. I am just so goddamn tired of this series pretending to be an allegory for minority oppression while constantly having bad and unrealistic takes on the minority experience and using characters and writers that are not minorities to spout these bad takes which makes matters worse.

Just because a racist claims a black person isn't human doesn't mean that black person has to deny their blackness to prove the racist wrong. The black person should charge the racist in seeing the humanity in black people. And again, if mutant is such an offensive word now why hasn't the mutant community sat down together and come up with a different term? You know, like what BIPOC, LBGTQ, and people living with disabilities have been doing for decades?

But of course that would mean X-Men writers actually have to know what they're talking about, and that's too much to ask of these poor and unfortunate writers apparently.

[QUOTE=Blind Wedjat;5158864]
Alex telling people he doesn't want to be called a mutant is telling people he isn't a mutant. It's that simple, and that's basic reading comprehension. [B]For instance, there are many black people who refuse to be called black or African-American because they do not want that to be a part of their identity anymore. They are therefore saying they aren't black.[/B] That is of course a form of self hate, and that is equivalent to Alex's message. And Remender wasn't trying to point out that Alex has self hate either, because it was supposed to be a positive moment.

Again, your examples continue to be poor. Yes, Luke Cage and Kamala Khan do not need their race and religion to be relevant to their statuses as Avengers. [B]However, neither Luke or Kamala deny that they are black or Muslim respectively.[/B] I don't care if white mutants are mistreated as much as other kinds of mutants. That has nothing to do with this. I am just so goddamn tired of this series pretending to be an allegory for minority oppression while constantly having bad and unrealistic takes on the minority experience and using characters and writers that are not minorities to spout these bad takes which makes matters worse.

Just because a racist claims a black person isn't human doesn't mean that black person has to deny their blackness to prove the racist wrong. The black person should charge the racist in seeing the humanity in black people. And again, if mutant is such an offensive word now why hasn't the mutant community sat down together and come up with a different term? You know, like what BIPOC, LBGTQ, and people living with disabilities have been doing for decades?

But of course that would mean X-Men writers actually have to know what they're talking about, and that's too much to ask of these poor and unfortunate writers apparently.[/QUOTE]

And why should mutants be any different? Why should a mutant who is apart of the Avengers be treated like a token? You would agree it'd be wrong for a writer to treat minority characters like tokens. Alex is NOT saying "I am not a mutant do not call me a mutant" he is saying "I am a mutant but that isn't what defines me. I am just Alex". He is NOT denouncing his identity and saying he wants to be a human. The thing is a mutant by its definition is something that has changed beyond the point of natural human processes. So in a way by saying they are mutants that does imply they are not humans. Many mutants also feel this too that they are a superior species to humans. All he is saying is he doesn't want to be defined as just a mutant. He isn't saying he doesn't want to be a mutant but he doesn't just want to be all about mutants but all people. Even Bendis had Rogue or Scarlet Witch in All New X-Men saying "there aren't mutant problems or human problems. Just our problems."


And some those communities don't all agree on what terms are okay. Some lgbt people think queer is an offensive term. Hell I have even met jewish people who think Jewboy is not a slur despite the fact it is

EDIT: I get you're saying Captain America recruited Alex and the others to show mutants and humans can work together but I don't think Cap was doing this in a "You are only here because you are a mutant" but in a way that is more like breaking down barriers (even though Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Beast and Wolverine have been Avengers before). But again constantly being mentioned as being a mutant would be a bit insensitive like that is the only thing of worth about him.

[QUOTE=Blind Wedjat;5158864] Alex telling people he doesn't want to be called a mutant is telling people he isn't a mutant. It's that simple, and that's basic reading comprehension. [/quote]

Then I fail at your 'reading comprehension' because not wanting to be called a thing, and somehow believing that I'm not a thing, are two very different things to me.

I don't particularly love the idea of someone calling me a 'white boy' or 'biped' or 'organism' or 'meatsack' (or reducing my entire existence to [i]any[/i] easy label for their filing and compartmentalizing reductive convenience, for that matter) and that has nothing to do with my understanding that I am those things (and many other things, like argumentative and persnickety).

[QUOTE=Dboi2001;5157527]
And yeah there are plenty of people of minorities who don’t want to be remembered or defined by their skin color or sexuality.[/QUOTE]
Just because someone doesn't want to be defined by their skin color or sexuality, doesn't mean they won't be. That's just the way it is.

[QUOTE=BushidoBlade2;5158983]Just because someone doesn't want to be defined by their skin color or sexuality, doesn't mean they won't be. That's just the way it is.[/QUOTE]

and is that a good thing?

Look the fact is labels are innately exclusive and by having mutants insist they are mutants it does come off as exclusion. The issue is that many people believe that killing mutants is okay because they are not humans and so in a way that affirms the sentiment

[QUOTE=BushidoBlade2;5158983]Just because someone doesn't want to be defined by their skin color or sexuality, doesn't mean they won't be. That's just the way it is.[/QUOTE]

And just because they don’t want to be defined by their skin color doesn’t mean that they don’t want people to call them Black.

every time i look at the actual page i am still shocked at how bad it is

I find myself agreeing with Blind Wedjat where mutants being used as a rather sloppy allegory for discrimination/prejudice is a major issue in general. Especially because writers tend to pick and choose when they want to go all in withusing them as metaphor or not.

So between the whole "don't call me the M word" and Marvel trying to [I]both sides[/I] the issue of the Terrigen Cloud literally gassing the mutants to death. Yeah, none of that was a good look.

Honestly I'd prefer it if people were to NOT label me by my ethnicity, race, gender, or religion... I'd prefer to be called by my first name too 99% of the time. So I can't fault Alex for feeling the same way. To me it's fine.

If he were say to argue that any sort of mutant sub-culture doesn't exist, you might be able to question the accurasy of that statement. But he didn't really do that. He simply didn't prefer being label personally ... and I'll wager that's true of a lot of people. Nothing wrong with that.

[QUOTE=Blind Wedjat;5158626]The problem is that Alex didn't offer an alternative to being called a mutant that still acknowledged that was part of his identity.

Think about how black people in America used to be called Negroes, then colored, then using identifiers like African-American or black. The terms kept getting revised and changed over time and the idea was to reject the labels forced upon them by their oppressors and create their own.

And even if the word mutant is used as a slur, mutans in the Marvel universe refer to themselves as mutants too, the same way black people call each other black, gay people call each other gay, etc.

It's so easy for Alex to say he doesn't want to be called a mutant and just by his name because he doesn't look like a mutant and looks like everything America and the world deems acceptable and normal. He's a good looking, able-bodied, straight, white man with blond hair and blue eyes. He faces no oppression as long as he controls his powers and nobody knows he possesses the X-gene. And here he is, with that privilege, asking mutants to erase a part of their identity because it makes him uncomfortable. It's not an inclusive message. It's asking for assimilation and erasure.

And that's my problem: if the X-Men were actually a smart allegory on racism and other forms of oppression it so badly wants to be, these are the kind of issues it would have brought up. Instead it's still relying on the same warped perceptions of Civil Rights era politics of assimilation versus complete separation or superiority.[/QUOTE]

If he actually was asking people to erase a part of their identity, I would agree he's more in the wrong. But I don't believe he was actually asking any mutants to do that. In fact I don't think his message was directed as mutants at all. I think his message was more directed at people who label mutants as such.

I think ideally he would like to be referred to as a super hero rather than a mutant super hero or a while super hero or a heterosexual super hero. And that inherently can be understandable. Taken to an extreme that message could an arguement endorsing that mutant culture be wiped out, but I don't believe what he said was actually all that close to that.

[QUOTE=Dboi2001;5158661]He isn’t denying the fact he is a mutant he just doesn’t want it to define him like if the media made a deal about Luke Cage being apart of the Avengers simply because he’s Black . Also I don’t think he has an issue with mutant as a classification but as an identity status[/QUOTE]

If you join the Gay/Straight Alliance and then say, "Well, I don't want you to refer to my sexuality," then you must not understand the point of the organization you just became a member of.

[QUOTE=ed2962;5159631]If you join the Gay/Straight Alliance and then say, "Well, I don't want you to refer to my sexuality," then you must not understand the point of the organization you just became a member of.[/QUOTE]

This isn’t the first time mutants were apart of the avengers.

You are far from alone. There seem to be two competing schools of thought that are relevant. Following is a rough, imperfect summary of them:

1. The content of an individual's character is what matters most.
2. Membership in an identity group is what matters most.

The speech to which you refer was based upon the first, and it was considered offensive by those who tend towards the second. Obviously, the two concepts are far more complex than can be discussed on a message board.

In my view, content of character is the only sane, logical, moral, and ethical way to form an opinion about an person. I've seen first-hand the ugliness of judging based off of identity.

[QUOTE=Chris Claremont]"Mutants in the Marvel Universe have always stood as a metaphor for the underclass, the outsiders; they represent the ultimate minority"[/QUOTE]

[URL="http://imagetext.english.ufl.edu/archives/v9_1/briest/#14"]The Allegorical X-Men[/URL]

[QUOTE]Mutants in the X-Men comics have been variously interpreted as representative of African Americans, of Jews, of feminists, of LGBT[13] or disability communities.[14] More recently the minority allegory has been fueled by the climate of deep suspicion vis-à-vis political dissidents and the peaceable majority of Muslims in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.[15] As diverse as the above identities are—and the ascription of 'mutant status' to yet other groups is certainly possible—they hold in common histories of marginalization and victimization.[B] This shared experience is taken up and explored by the comics, with their focus on minority identity—forged in the face of a majority's fear and violence, or mere disinterest—and on the associated questions of integration vs. separatism. [/B]Mutants are indeed "the ultimate minority," repeating the words of Chris Claremont, in as far as they are a generic minority. Various particular identities may be simultaneously projected onto the mutant template and, thus, the weakness of generalization is also a strength: [B]because mutants do not represent one marginalized group specifically, they can potentially speak to them all[/B].[/QUOTE]

The last line in that quote is perhaps the most important and thus far overlooked. The mutants are not a stand in for Black persecution, or LGBTQ Persecution, or Jewish they are representative of any persecuted outsider group. Some stories are more overt in their inspiration, but they have never been a stand in for them. Mutants in the MU are not telling stories about black persecution, but they do tell stories that are [I]like[/I] that persecution.

Now some people will make the argument that mutants don't have a culture, that is wrong on multiple levels. There has been explicitly within the MU a culture of persecution and shared suffering that permeates mutants in the MU. Its baked into the very identity of the books and characters and a core component in multiple runs, Claremont's, Morrison's and Hickman's most notably. Some people don't get that, some people don't like it and you know what that's fair. The X-Men have told great stories that leaned heavily into the metaphor and allegory, its also told great stories that had nothing to do with it. A person may not like it or agree with it, but to a large extent that is irrelevant. I don't like or agree with the Gungans in Star Wars but that doesnt mean I can pretend they don't have an impact on the story. Furthermore, that association with outsiders and minorities are historically one of the major attractions for the mutant books. Many of its fans, are fans [B]because [/B]of the metaphor, [B]because [/B]they can see themselves in them. Who is Remender (or you) to question that?

[QUOTE=Rick Remender]There's never been a public team in the Marvel Universe that's dealt with it. It's always been, "The mutants are on their own. Life sucks for them." You've never had this big public Avengers team address the fact that these mutants are minorities, that there's a lot of hate and prejudice directed at them. The Avengers had never done much to combat that. Captain America realizes the mistake and he brings in some X-Men, he brings in Cyclops' brother Alex to lead the team and away we go.[/QUOTE]

This is where the problem begins, the core concept of this book was explicitly built on the idea of the mutant identity and mutant specific problems. Next you have Wanda, herself a much debated topic showing up and Remender has her making tone deaf statements. "Why is it so important for mutants to be born?"

The problem with Havok's speech is that he wants to say "my minority identity doesn't define me". That's great, the thing is however, it's not what he actually says
[QUOTE=Havoc]I don't see myself as born into a mutant cult or religion. Having an X-gene doesn't bond me to anyone. It doesn't define me. In fact, I see the very word "mutant" as divisive. Old thinking that serves to further separate us from our fellow man. We are all humans. Of one tribe. We are defined by our choices, not the makeup of our genes. So please, don't call us mutants. The "m" word represents everything I hate."[/QUOTE]

Havoc's statement only works if you can reject the association between Mutants and minority groups and outsiders. This position is intellectually untenable, it is possible to dislike the way it's presented but to deny its presence is disingenuous.

The issue further blew up because when his position was challenged Remender doubled down on it, in the books and on twitter, telling people who disagreed with him to drown in Hobo Piss and to Kiss Havok's shiny red dick.

The central issue that came with Remender's Uncanny Avengers was that he wanted to tell a message of inclusion but bungled it. He's not saying that Havoc's not just a mutant, but that "mutant" is not among the things he wants to admit to being. This is cultural erasure, Remender is weakening the conception of mutants as a group by arguing integration to the point of invisibility.

[QUOTE=BushidoBlade2;5158983][B]Just because someone doesn't want to be defined by their skin color or sexuality, doesn't mean they won't be. That's just the way it is.[/B][/QUOTE]
lol i know right. Society tries to define groups of people, movements, culture, individuals at various time...and the ones that stick around are the ones not giving to much weight in what society says. If for whatever reason by law you were to be referred as an Orange would you cease on being a human being? what if tomorrow Trump gets on tv and announced he doesn't wanna be called white???
[QUOTE=Dboi2001;5159146]and is that a good thing?

[B]Look the fact is labels are innately exclusive and by having mutants insist they are mutants it does come off as exclusion. [/B]The issue is that many people believe that killing mutants is okay because they are not humans and [B]so in a way that affirms the sentiment[/B][/QUOTE]
Ooooh so it's the mutants fault for referring to themselves using a term they didn't choose? lol zZamn
and ZoubleZamn Killing something you perceive as different for having the audacity to be different???
[QUOTE=Kisinith;5159776][URL="http://imagetext.english.ufl.edu/archives/v9_1/briest/#14"]The Allegorical X-Men[/URL]



The last line in that quote is perhaps the most important and thus far overlooked. The mutants are not a stand in for Black persecution, or LGBTQ Persecution, or Jewish they are representative of any persecuted outsider group. Some stories are more overt in their inspiration, but they have never been a stand in for them. Mutants in the MU are not telling stories about black persecution, but they do tell stories that are [I]like[/I] that persecution.

Now some people will make the argument that mutants don't have a culture, that is wrong on multiple levels. There has been explicitly within the MU a culture of persecution and shared suffering that permeates mutants in the MU. Its baked into the very identity of the books and characters and a core component in multiple runs, Claremont's, Morrison's and Hickman's most notably. Some people don't get that, some people don't like it and you know what that's fair. The X-Men have told great stories that leaned heavily into the metaphor and allegory, its also told great stories that had nothing to do with it. A person may not like it or agree with it, but to a large extent that is irrelevant. I don't like or agree with the Gungans in Star Wars but that doesnt mean I can pretend they don't have an impact on the story. Furthermore, that association with outsiders and minorities are historically one of the major attractions for the mutant books. Many of its fans, are fans [B]because [/B]of the metaphor, [B]because [/B]they can see themselves in them. Who is Remender (or you) to question that?



This is where the problem begins, the core concept of this book was explicitly built on the idea of the mutant identity and mutant specific problems. Next you have Wanda, herself a much debated topic showing up and Remender has her making tone deaf statements. "Why is it so important for mutants to be born?"

The problem with Havok's speech is that he wants to say "my minority identity doesn't define me". That's great, the thing is however, it's not what he actually says


Havoc's statement only works if you can reject the association between Mutants and minority groups and outsiders. This position is intellectually untenable, it is possible to dislike the way it's presented but to deny its presence is disingenuous.

The issue further blew up because when his position was challenged Remender doubled down on it, in the books and on twitter, telling people who disagreed with him to drown in Hobo Piss and to Kiss Havok's shiny red dick.

The central issue that came with Remender's Uncanny Avengers was that he wanted to tell a message of inclusion but bungled it. He's not saying that Havoc's not just a mutant, but that "mutant" is not among the things he wants to admit to being. This is cultural erasure, Remender is weakening the conception of mutants as a group by arguing integration to the point of invisibility.[/QUOTE]

[B][FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=6][COLOR="#0000CD"]YOU WIN!!![/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT][/B]