What of Xavier's Dream?

[FUBAR007]

I also remember when Xavier went on TV and told the world he was a mutant (just before he left for space). He ended up putting a big giant target on the Xavier Institute which led to mass protests around the Institute.

That was Cassandra Nova, not Xavier.

Xavier was imprisoned inside Nova's body while she possessed his.

[jwatson]

MLK isn't repudiating his dream and calling for black separatism. He's saying it's harder than he thought it would be, that the Vietnam War is making it even harder than it would be otherwise, and then he closes with a call for non-violence.

Xavier has explicitly renounced integration in favor of separatism and nationalism.

The allegory doesn't hold.

Allegory only fails if they were the same person, they are not. They both had a dream of coexistence, they both at points doubted it. Being individuals they went about handling that change different ways.

[RachelGrey]

MLK isn't repudiating his dream and calling for black separatism. He's saying it's harder than he thought it would be, that the Vietnam War is making it even harder than it would be otherwise, and then he closes with a call for non-violence.

Xavier has explicitly renounced integration in favor of separatism and nationalism.

The allegory doesn't hold.

But that's where we disagree.

Xavier was stuck between a rock and a hard place. What to do to prevent the genocide and extermination of all mutants on Earth in the little time they have left.

This isn't about segregation, this is about fleeing genocide. The mutants are refugees of the human perpetuated genocide, and the mutant refugees have luckily found a safe place to establish a home where the genocidal humans could not follow them.

As a means of protecting the safety of their home, Charles bought a multi-national pharmaceutical company and used some of the Krakoan flowers along with some of the best mutant scientists to create beneficial medicines that could be sold to humanity in exchange for peace.

This is the key word, the mutants are selling their medicines to humanity and the only thing they ask in return is that you agree to a peace treaty with the new mutant nation and allow the new mutant nation to seek recognition as an independent country with the United Nations.

Charles and Erik hired Emma Frost to be their Secretary of State and then they sent her all around the world to negotiate the peace treaties with all the countries. She sat down at the table with other diplomatic envoys and they hashed out a treaty that leaders of different nations could agree to.

So the mutant refugees finally have a safe home and they have peace with the majority of the human world. It's a tentative and a delicate peace, and it could fall apart at some point, but for the moment they are finally free to live their lives in happiness for once and not worry about looking over their soldiers who are coming to their homes to round them up for detention and death.

The dream still exists, it is just tempered with realism and the appreciation that humanity needs more time before they can fully accept mutants, so the mutants will live in the world and even strive to help those who hate them as best as they can, but at the same time they will look to their own safety too, the mutants will protect their families and their children by keeping them safe and secure from the human people who want to come at night in their uniforms to take them away.

[FUBAR007]

Allegory only fails if they were the same person, they are not. They both had a dream of coexistence, they both at points doubted it. Being individuals they went about handling that change different ways.

Sigh.

Xavier has traditionally been portrayed as the mutant allegory of MLK with Magneto as an allegory for Malcolm X.

Since Xavier has repudiated his dream of integration in a way that MLK never did, Xavier is no longer an allegory for MLK.

[RachelGrey]

Sigh.

Xavier has traditionally been portrayed as the mutant allegory of MLK with Magneto as an allegory for Malcolm X.

Since Xavier has repudiated his dream of integration in a way that MLK never did, Xavier is no longer an allegory for MLK.

MLK wasn't dealing with every African American in the United States being rounded up and put in detention centres and scheduled for either experimentation or death. The mutants are on the run from human perpetuated genocide. You don't stand still while your people are being exterminated, you flee to safety, and that is what they have done.

The allegory doesn't work because the stakes have gone beyond what can be tolerated any longer. This isn't about trying to live among the humans, this is about protecting your mutant families and your mutant children and getting them to safety where they cannot be killed by the genocidal human forces that want to kill them.

Only an absolute fool would stand still while their entire people are wiped out from the face of the Earth!

[jwatson]

Sigh.

Xavier has traditionally been portrayed as the mutant allegory of MLK with Magneto as an allegory for Malcolm X.

Since Xavier has repudiated his dream of integration in a way that MLK never did, Xavier is no longer an allegory for MLK.

This doesn't make sense. No one has ever said Professor Xavier IS Martin Luther King. So him coming to a different solution to a similar dream doesn't erase the his own history. That's not how that works.

Xavier and Martin had a similar dream. They both at some point came to see they were naive. They both asked for peace. Martin went on to continue to fight for civil rights and Xavier is continuing to fight for Mutant rights. Where does the allegory fall apart unless your saying to be an allegory you have to make the exact same choices as the inspiration.

[FUBAR007]

This isn't about segregation, this is about fleeing genocide. The mutants are refugees of the human perpetuated genocide, and the mutant refugees have luckily found a safe place to establish a home where the genocidal humans could not follow them.

The presumption of this comment is that all, or at least most, humans in the Marvel Universe are genocidal. They aren't. Some are.

The dream still exists...

No, it doesn't. Xavier has explicitly repudiated it, saying it was a lie.

Xavier has abandoned mutant-human integration. Period.

Now, he's supporting a slightly toned down version of Magneto's dream of mutant nationalism. The difference is that, while Magneto historically intended to wage war with humanity, Xavier has gone for political recognition...for now.

[FUBAR007]

This doesn't make sense. No one has ever said Professor Xavier IS Martin Luther King. So him coming to a different solution to a similar dream doesn't erase the his own history. That's not how that works.

Xavier and Martin had a similar dream. They both at some point came to see they were naive. They both asked for peace. Martin went on to continue to fight for civil rights and Xavier is continuing to fight for Mutant rights. Where does the allegory fall apart unless your saying to be an allegory you have to make the exact same choices as the inspiration.

For ****'s sake, go look up the definition of allegory.

[jwatson]

The presumption of this comment is that all, or at least most, humans in the Marvel Universe are genocidal. They aren't. Some are.



No, it doesn't. Xavier has explicitly repudiated it, saying it was a lie.

Xavier has abandoned mutant-human integration. Period.

Now, he's supporting a slightly toned down version of Magneto's dream of mutant nationalism. The difference is that, while Magneto historically intended to wage war with humanity, Xavier has gone for political recognition...for now.

You are also ignoring the fact that humans give birth to mutants but Caucasians don't usually give birth to black children. So to use the exact same method is impossible and seems as far out as my sentence.

[spirit2011]

The presumption of this comment is that all, or at least most, humans in the Marvel Universe are genocidal. They aren't. Some are.

True. one president of the USA has the codes to nuke millions. I can't do anyhting to stop him/her.

ordinary humans are powerless

No, it doesn't. Xavier has explicitly repudiated it, saying it was a lie.

Xavier has abandoned mutant-human integration. Period.

Namor didn't believed on him, but namor would want a war already against humans.

Xaviers seems very into this krakoa plan

[jwatson]

For ****'s sake, go look up the definition of allegory.

Yesh you should look up some synonyms for it so you better understand the word. like analogy, symbol, metaphor.

[FUBAR007]

True. one president of the USA has the codes to nuke millions. I can't do anyhting to stop him/her.

ordinary humans are powerless



Namor didn't believed on him, but namor would want a war already against humans.

Xaviers seems very into this krakoa plan

I'm still not convinced the Xavier we're seeing is really Xavier or that anything he, Moira, and Magneto have been up to should be taken at face value.

But, that's irrelevant to the argument at hand.

[RachelGrey]

The presumption of this comment is that all, or at least most, humans in the Marvel Universe are genocidal. They aren't. Some are.



No, it doesn't. Xavier has explicitly repudiated it, saying it was a lie.

Xavier has abandoned mutant-human integration. Period.

Now, he's supporting a slightly toned down version of Magneto's dream of mutant nationalism. The difference is that, while Magneto historically intended to wage war with humanity, Xavier has gone for political recognition...for now.

If the United States government has a military arm called the O.N.E. that is sanctioned by the US Government and the President to hunt down and apprehend all mutants for containment of elimination, what are you supposed to do.

You go hide in a town and some of the people in that town harbour you, but you are living in hiding under the constant threat that the government is going to come for you. One of the anti-mutant humans in the town find out that some of the people are harbouring mutants. They go to their local police station and report that mutants are being harboured in the town. 10 hours later an O.N.E. convoy shows up with the military forces and Sentinels they cordon off the entire town and they do a house by house search until they find all the mutants hiding in that town. The people who are caught harbouring the mutants are put in jail for violating a government regulation to turn all mutants in to the local authorities.

This is why you flee a genocide, if the agents of genocide are sanctioned by the local government, police, and armed forces if you stay in that country you are risking being taken. The problem in the Marvel Universe is that it hit critical mass and there were laws justifying the genocide of mutants in a large number of countries, and the countries where that was not the case the mutants were treated as the lowest form of alien immigrant possible and barely tolerated.

Do you want the true allegory, the allegory is that the mutants are the same as the Jewish people trying to flee the Holocaust. They are an allegory to the Jewish people who fled from subjugation and slavery in Egypt around 3000 years ago. When your people are being brutalized and killed all the time your only hope is to flee to freedom where your people, your families, and your children can be safe.

It doesn't matter if there are a large number of human allies, the problem is that the people who are agents of genocide are part of the government, the police, and the armed forces and they run the countries.

[Tycon]

Xavier never represented MLK and the way his words get constantly whitewashed and sugarcoated to demonize not only the mutants’ actions but, in real life, black rights activists. Anyway Xavier sounds more like MLK every time he appears in this new Krakoa era

[RachelGrey]

Xavier never represented MLK and the way his words get constantly whitewashed and sugarcoated to demonize not only the mutants’ actions but, in real life, black rights activists. Anyway Xavier sounds more like MLK every time he appears in this new Krakoa era

Tycon, thank you for posting this, you are truly awesome! This was wonderful!