A Question About Race

[ed2962]

I've noticed this trend in the comics for a long while. IMO I think it's very insulting for female black readers. But I guess comics want to go out of their way to show they are being 'Politically Correct' with inter-racial relationships. It would nice for a change to show same race couples instead of what they are doing now.

I think it's only an insult to black women in particular when black female characters are either marginalized or written out as love interests. Or denied love interests of their own. On the other hand, black females that immediately comes to mind are Storm, Misty Knight and Spectrum who at least get to have an occasional love interest or date. I'm not sure what Amanda Waller's status is in the nu52 now. Thunder was dating Grace in the old 52, but I guess that goes back to the thing of minorities not dating the same minority thing.

[Tracer Bullet]

In a nutshell it's because:

1) Writers are motivated to come off progressive because we live in different times, etc.
2) There is an assumption that non-Black readers will have more trouble connecting to storylines with Black characters, or perhaps the writers themselves have trouble relating and lack confidence in their ability to depict these kinds of romances.
3) There are way more existing White characters than Black characters, so we get what seems a disproportionate amount of
interracial pairings

It's not Friends/Seinfield bad, but agreed.

Slightly off-topic but Seinfeld was waaayyy better at showing POC in NYC than Friends ever was, so it's always strange when people lump them together as far criticizing lack of diversity on tv.

[ed2962]

Slightly off-topic but Seinfeld was waaayyy better at showing POC in NYC than Friends ever was, so it's always strange when people lump them together as far criticizing lack of diversity on tv.

It's because when the shows originally aired they were on the Same network and seen as going after the same market and the fictional characters would have been from a similar white upper middle-class demographic. But, yeah...at least in Seinfeld you had minor characters and reoccurring guests that were from a variety of ethnicities. It wasn't the one token black for a very special episode. And it wasn't the all white NY that Woody Allen used to depict.

[Razor Tiara]

I thought Seinfeld was great at showing black characters. They were all distinct and memorable, I still get a laugh from the old guy that yelled at George for being unable to park cars.

Friends made a token out of Aiesha Tyler only as an answer to the backlash they faced due to the lack p.o.c. She came off as forced though and never really fit into the group well.

[Prisoner 6655321]

Steel & Lana Lang, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, Patriot and Kate Bishop, Storm & Wolverine, Mr. Terrific and Power Girl and now Val-Zod is dating Power Girl, why is it Black comic book characters mostly date and marry outside their race? Are there that many comic book fans of color in interracial relationships, or is it that creators don't like to see two Black characters get together?

I'd guess it has more to do with there being many more white super hero types than anything else. There are few enough minority superheroes that it probably seems more artificial to couple them more frequently together than otherwise.

[Mr MajestiK]

I'd guess it has more to do with there being many more white super hero types than anything else. There are few enough minority superheroes that it probably seems more artificial to couple them more frequently together than otherwise.

Nope, the writers are just perpetuating a bizzaro fictional universal ideal where Black men and Black women do not have romantic relationhips......period.

[CSTowle]

Maybe I'm naïve, but I really don't think the majority of comic writers give this issue any thought. Any outcomes are more out of ignorance (not thinking about how it may be perceived) than any malicious intent. Still not great, but not actively bad.

[People Of The Earth]

Steel & Lana Lang, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, Patriot and Kate Bishop, Storm & Wolverine, Mr. Terrific and Power Girl and now Val-Zod is dating Power Girl, why is it Black comic book characters mostly date and marry outside their race? Are there that many comic book fans of color in interracial relationships, or is it that creators don't like to see two Black characters get together?

It's a reflect of society as a whole, rather than a reflect of who comic book fans are dating. Or at least, western societies ?
I don't know where you are living but here in France, inter couples are fairly common. Black/White/Arab/Asian/Indian... I can tell you I've seen all the possible pairings and experienced some of them myself.
I noticed it was pretty much the same thing in London, so I assume in the UK it's fairly common too.
Bottom line: western societies are a lot more mixed than they were decades ago and comics of today are reflecting that in their stories.
I don't see this as creators trying to go against couples of the same ethnicity at all.

[Razor Tiara]

Maybe I'm naïve, but I really don't think the majority of comic writers give this issue any thought. Any outcomes are more out of ignorance (not thinking about how it may be perceived) than any malicious intent. Still not great, but not actively bad.

That sounds like code for "it's not an issue for me, so it must be irrelevant".

[leo619]

It's a reflect of society as a whole, rather than a reflect of who comic book fans are dating. Or at least, western societies ?
I don't know where you are living but here in France, inter couples are fairly common. Black/White/Arab/Asian/Indian... I can tell you I've seen all the possible pairings and experienced some of them myself.
I noticed it was pretty much the same thing in London, so I assume in the UK it's fairly common too.
Bottom line: western societies are a lot more mixed than they were decades ago and comics of today are reflecting that in their stories.
I don't see this as creators trying to go against couples of the same ethnicity at all.

And as mention before, many of these pairings aren't pairings today. Out of the entire group listed, only Luke Cage and Jessica Jones are still together. The others aren't, and Val Zod isn't' even confirming to dating Power Girl. The bigger issue is that black men are primarily not placed in relationships, and when they enter relationships they are mostly tossed out rather quickly. I can list quite a bit intra racial relationships with black men and black women as well but just like their interracial counterparts, they aren't together anymore. So when you have most of the black men not in relationships, and the fact that you have one pairing that is in a interracial relationship, that one interracial pairing sticks out.

[Mr MajestiK]

It's a reflect of society as a whole, rather than a reflect of who comic book fans are dating. Or at least, western societies ?
I don't know where you are living but here in France, inter couples are fairly common. Black/White/Arab/Asian/Indian... I can tell you I've seen all the possible pairings and experienced some of them myself.
I noticed it was pretty much the same thing in London, so I assume in the UK it's fairly common too.
Bottom line: western societies are a lot more mixed than they were decades ago and comics of today are reflecting that in their stories.
I don't see this as creators trying to go against couples of the same ethnicity at all.

Nope. the writers are just perpetuating a bizzaro fictional universal ideal where Black men and Black women do not have romantic relationhips......period.

I really don't see this as being coincidental at all.

[Razor Tiara]

And as mention before, many of these pairings aren't pairings today. Out of the entire group listed, only Luke Cage and Jessica Jones are still together. The others aren't, and Val Zod isn't' even confirming to dating Power Girl. The bigger issue is that black men are primarily not placed in relationships, and when they enter relationships they are mostly tossed out rather quickly. I can list quite a bit intra racial relationships with black men and black women as well but just like their interracial counterparts, they aren't together anymore. So when you have most of the black men not in relationships, and the fact that you have one pairing that is in a interracial relationship, that one interracial pairing sticks out.

They look pretty cozy to me, the handwriting's on the wall.

[CSTowle]

That sounds like code for "it's not an issue for me, so it must be irrelevant".

That sounds like someone with poor reading comprehension twisting my words to fit their narrative. Go back and re-read it a few times and you'll see nothing of the sort. Rather you'll see me saying it's not a good thing but there's a difference between someone actively trying to keep black/minority characters from ever having relationships with one another and someone writing a relationships taking a black/minority character and pairing them with the nearest convenient character who (at least in the world of mainstream superheroes) were mostly created from the '40s-'60s and thus are mostly going to be white. Malicious intent vs passive ignorance of the issue. But don't let facts get in the way of a good story.

[Razor Tiara]

That sounds like someone with poor reading comprehension twisting my words to fit their narrative. Go back and re-read it a few times and you'll see nothing of the sort. Rather you'll see me saying it's not a good thing but there's a difference between someone actively trying to keep black/minority characters from ever having relationships with one another and someone writing a relationships taking a black/minority character and pairing them with the nearest convenient character who (at least in the world of mainstream superheroes) were mostly created from the '40s-'60s and thus are mostly going to be white. Malicious intent vs passive ignorance of the issue. But don't let facts get in the way of a good story.

Actually what you said sounded dismissive, like there wasn't an issue at all.

Maybe I'm naïve, but I really don't think the majority of comic writers give this issue any thought. Any outcomes are more out of ignorance (not thinking about how it may be perceived) than any malicious intent. Still not great, but not actively bad.

As you said yourself, you may be naïve, but a harmful outcome is still harmful, regardless of the intent that caused it.

[Handsome men don't lose fights]

I've noticed this trend in the comics for a long while. IMO I think it's very insulting for female black readers. But I guess comics want to go out of their way to show they are being 'Politically Correct' with inter-racial relationships. It would nice for a change to show same race couples instead of what they are doing now.

Yeesh, that's strong language. Is it insulting for black men, when women of color create reading clubs dedicated to interracial fetishism? Let's not go overboard here.