Originally Posted by
Blind Wedjat
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.