Are the X-Books still reflective of the real world?

[Zero Hunter]

The United States of America is occupied territory.

The Native American Reservations were the model for the concentration camps.
It is interesting how quickly people conveniently forget they are living on stolen
land, and Indigenous Americans have been quietly eradicated for the last 500 years and counting...

That aplies to almost everywhere. At one point or another people came in and took the land from someone else in almost every nation in the modern world.

[Cloudman]

The threat posed by mutants isn't that different than real world mass shootings, bombings or other attacks, only amplified for dramatic effect. A guy kills 50 people in the real world, so they make it 5,000 in comics, because they think bigger numbers make it feel more important. People use the same safety argument against minorities, based on race, ethnicity, religion and orientation. They've all been deemed threats. Most of the mutant metaphor is drawn directly from the real world.

Bombings in which thousands of people die only happen very rarely in real life. Think of the numerous incidents the X-Men have caused, and the willingness with which the supposed 'good guys' have accepted awful people (Namor, Magneto etc) back into their ranks. At a certain point, it becomes about taking pragmatic steps to prevent the kind of huge disasters caused by mutants. No amount of trust is going to change the fact that they can cause huge damage.

The fact is that this situation is not analogous to real life minorities, because real life minorities don't stand the chance of causing mass disasters and losses of life purely by accident.

[Bl00dwerK]

Not really. They're written like everybody who isn't a mutant hates them. If mutants existed in our world you'd see bigoted anti-mutant groups blasted everywhere, especially on social media.

[WheelchairX]

I think that the X-Men allegory is just as prevalent today, maybe even more so. One striking resemblance more recently is with the hate against Muslims: A few people try to carry out terrible acts of terrorism in the name of Islam and then the general public begin to fear all Muslims because 'they too could be a terrorist' - which isn't true. With mutants, Magneto and others have completed terrorist acts and therefore people have assumed that all mutants will do bad things.

Although it is a good allegory, I think that the real diversity within characters is often forgotten or overlooked in favour of the mutant comparison - so I wouldn't mind it if characters acknowledge other diversity too.

[ClanAskani]

Exactly, that's why the analogy was never a perfect one.

At the same time, you could say it's a Chicken or Egg situation: human reaction and hysteria to the emergence of mutants in general might have provoked them into becoming violent as a defense mechanism

But there are mutants that could lose control of their powers and kill many people. There's an actual threat that's rational. That's where I see the difference. Discrimination might cause some mutants to go "evil" but that's not the way most people will see it. There's plenty of people who face racism or bigotry and they don't destroy cities.

The comparison to the LGBT works in God Loves, Man Kills. Conservative religious groups attacking mutants simply because they see them as an abomination against God. But most other examples are just xenophobia.

You have a different religion or culture and people fear that culture changing their society. Mutants really don't have a different culture. Morrison tried to change that and use the comparison as mutants as the young generation who are taking over and the reaction from the older generation in protest. But if mutants are just normal people who happen to have a different gene that can result in massive casualties, it's not exactly the same situation.

Morlocks who have minimal powers and are grossly deformed would work on judging people on their appearance. But the majority of the X-Men are gorgeous looking individuals who can pass as "human". No one knows the majority of the X-Men are mutants and as other posters have pointed out, there's characters like Ben Grimm would should face more stares and judgement than most of the X-Men.

[Huntsman Spider]

For those that brought him up, Spider-Man has been accused of being a mutant in the past, mostly due to how creepy he appears to observers with his spiderlike movements and abilities and his completely concealing costume, plus the years-long media smear campaign by J. Jonah Jameson when he was running The Daily Bugle. In regards to why other superhumans or superheroes don't get nearly as much hate, if any, from the general public despite being equally potentially dangerous to normal humans, my thoughts are that those other superheroes, particularly the likes of the Avengers and the Fantastic Four, are seen by humans as a proverbial "model minority" that don't threaten the human-dominant status quo. Mutants, on the other hand, do threaten that status quo, and like with real-life American minorities, there is the very real probability of them becoming the majority population in the not-too-distant future, which would force a dramatic paradigm shift for which many if not most in the dominant culture aren't and maybe never will be ready.

[Tycon]

That aplies to almost everywhere. At one point or another people came in and took the land from someone else in almost every nation in the modern world.

Love how you try downplaying the genocide of the Native Americans by saying how dangerous imperialism is.

jesus, I hope some of you really hear what you're saying

[Talon1load]

Except he's right. Pretty much every country that exists, exists because it was conquered by someone else. No one is downplaying anything just stating facts. The Native American's arent' the only ones who've had their land taken from them. You can blame Imperialism or Colonialism or whatever you want but had those things not occurred you wouldn't be here being able to be self-righteous online right now. You can't change history, just learn from it. The US isn't going to give the land back so constantly complaining about it isn't going to change anything. That doesn't mean to ignore it but going on and on about how we are on stolen land is just stupid.

[AbnormallyNormal]

Except he's right. Pretty much every country that exists, exists because it was conquered by someone else. No one is downplaying anything just stating facts. The Native American's arent' the only ones who've had their land taken from them. You can blame Imperialism or Colonialism or whatever you want but had those things not occurred you wouldn't be here being able to be self-righteous online right now. You can't change history, just learn from it. The US isn't going to give the land back so constantly complaining about it isn't going to change anything. That doesn't mean to ignore it but going on and on about how we are on stolen land is just stupid.

I think feeling a sense of guilt or shame is morally appropriate and an aspect to the healing process and not repeating those mistakes.

[Chaos Reigns]

Except he's right. Pretty much every country that exists, exists because it was conquered by someone else. No one is downplaying anything just stating facts. The Native American's arent' the only ones who've had their land taken from them. You can blame Imperialism or Colonialism or whatever you want but had those things not occurred you wouldn't be here being able to be self-righteous online right now. You can't change history, just learn from it. The US isn't going to give the land back so constantly complaining about it isn't going to change anything. That doesn't mean to ignore it but going on and on about how we are on stolen land is just stupid.

No it's not. It's decent. It can change how we act on it, we can use the horrors of the past to be better today by honoring the treaties that exist now and making sure we stop exploiting the natives and the stolen land we are on. What's stupid is putting your head in the sand and not honoring the dead whose land was stolen in the first place. I get we live in the west and as a result of the culture of individuality we ignore corporate crimes committed for our benefit. The lie that governs so much of our culture is individuality with no corporate accountability but we can always strive to be better and make things easier for the surviving descendants now. We can't do that if we minimize the horrors our ancestors put them through.

[Chaos Reigns]

Love how you try downplaying the genocide of the Native Americans by saying how dangerous imperialism is.

jesus, I hope some of you really hear what you're saying

This is what racism is. Of course they don't hear it.

[Talon1load]

Why should any of us feel guilt over something that we had nothing to do with? Every country is built on conquering someone else. Whining about something that people did literally hundreds of years ago is stupid. There is nothing you can do about it. Native Americans' can easily assimilate into the rest of the country. Many have. They can maintain their traditions and no one can or will stop that but it's not their land anymore, except for reservations, that's just the way the world works. Someone said that a sense of shame is morally appropriate to help the healing process, I'm sorry but stop. I have no shame because 1. it was atleast over a hundred years ago, and 2. I didn't take anything from anyone. Neither did you, so stop with that foolishness. Your shame isn't going to change anything for anyone. If you'd like to do somehting to help then do that but don't waste your life on feeling shame for something you had nothing to do with. And it's not racism to say that it's stupid to say we live on stolen land. All land is stolen from some one. Native American's stole it from other Native American's and American's eventually conquered it from them. That's how countries are formed. Realism isn't racism.

[yogaflame]

Wow.

Privilege, ladies and gentlemen.

[wano]

I think feeling a sense of guilt or shame is morally appropriate and an aspect to the healing process and not repeating those mistakes.

None of us did that, in South America Spaniards conquered everything, then left, and now we're pals because it was the guys from 500 years ago and they're dead and buried. I don't blame Spanish people or anyone for conquering the land, it was long ago, most of us here are multi ethnic thus our races aren't pure, everyone here decided to move on and assimilate, natives, whites, Asians, blacks, etc. We have more pressing issues than pointing fingers on stuff that happened centuries ago, it's part of our history and we acknowledge it as such but we aren't gonna blame people that have jackshit to do with it, it's just idiotic. We moved on and decided to solve our own problems instead of blaming it on the evil conqueror from centuries ago, playing the blame game it's what opens old wounds

[Talon1load]

None of us did that, in South America Spaniards conquered everything, then left, and now we're pals because it was the guys from 500 years ago and they're dead and buried. I don't blame Spanish people or anyone for conquering the land, it was long ago, most of us here are multi ethnic thus our races aren't pure, everyone here decided to move on and assimilate, natives, whites, Asians, blacks, etc. We have more pressing issues than pointing fingers on stuff that happened centuries ago, it's part of our history and we acknowledge it as such but we aren't gonna blame people that have jackshit to do with it, it's just idiotic. We moved on and decided to solve our own problems instead of blaming it on the evil conqueror from centuries ago, playing the blame game it's what opens old wounds

Exactly. It's not privilege, it's reality.