Minorities In Comics and Related Media

[Agent Z]

Great list..Cole Horibe is best choice imo of any potential castings I've seen... Steve Yeun would be very interesting.. but long as Iron Fist is Asian I will watch other wise I have no interest...

I admit, I myself was a little iffy on the idea of an Asian Iron Fist but I've actually kind of warmed to the idea.

It's always tricky when portraying characters of color as mystics and magicians as you don't want to end up "othering" said character's culture. Nico Minoru from Runaways, for instance, is a sorceress but her magic has nothing to do with her being Japanese.

[skyvolt2000]

http://www.thestranger.com/film/feat...of-suffragette

I didn’t want to write this review because I’m tired of writing about white people. I’m tired of fantasy worlds where people of color don’t exist. Where even the made up—excuse me—composite characters are white. It gets really disheartening to see yourself written out of popular culture, written out of history time and time again. It’s really hard to keep answering my son’s question: “How come there aren’t any brown people in this?”

When I met with the director of Suffragette, Sarah Gavron, she was quick to address the lack of women of color in the movie. “In America, you had a very different ethnic makeup,” she explained. “In Britain, you had immigrants, but you didn’t really have women of color at that stage—apart from two very prominent women. Later in the movement, you got the diversity that reflects the wonderful diversity we have in Britain today. But you did have a range of classes.”

At first I let this go, but it was nagging at me. This thought in the back of my head that it wasn’t right. As a person of color, I’ve heard time and time again similar excuses for why people of color have not been represented, especially in history. But the truth is, we are not a recent invention. One of the “two prominent women” that Gavron was likely referring to was Sophia Duleep Singh, an Indian princess who helped mobilize many Indian women in Britain in the suffrage movement. There’s photographic evidence that there were far more than two women of color in the suffrage movement. But the written record is primarily white.

A week or so after my interview with Gavron, the stars of Suffragette showed up in a Time Out magazine spread wearing shirts saying “I’d rather be a rebel than a slave.” This was a quote from Emmeline Pankhurst, the prominent suffragette portrayed by Meryl Streep. These pictures of white women wearing a shirt that implied that slavery is a choice offended many people, including me.

Because not only are the known prominent suffragettes of color left out of the movie, there are no people of color in this movie. Not in the streets, not in the factories, not in the crowds. Nowhere. They don’t exist. The creators of this film took creative license to generate a whole new main character for the film, but they couldn’t come up with a single brown face in a crowd?

But the same process that thinks an entire film in which people of color don’t exist is “relatable” is the same process that leads a group of white women to wear shirts exclaiming their brave preference to not be slaves. This isn’t new, it happens all of the time in our books and our television shows and our movies. It’s in the heroes we celebrate, the struggles we memorialize, and the lectures we get from our teachers.

[Gryphon]

So I got called a racist last week, for a silly reason. I went to a gym to sign up for a Tae Kwon Do class they have and was asked if I have any previous martial arts training. I mentioned I dabbled in Sambo training and for some reason the woman at the desk, who happened to be black, accused me of saying something derogatory to black people. I and others tried to explain that Sambo is a Russian style of martial arts but she would listen. 20 minutes later she calmed down and felt bad and because I'm Ukranian, she felt she had insulted my heritage. I said she didn't and promised to speak clearer in the future and she promised to not over react...so it ended well with no hurt feelings on other side

[Mr MajestiK]

So I got called a racist last week, for a silly reason. I went to a gym to sign up for a Tae Kwon Do class they have and was asked if I have any previous martial arts training. I mentioned I dabbled in Sambo training and for some reason the woman at the desk, who happened to be black, accused me of saying something derogatory to black people. I and others tried to explain that Sambo is a Russian style of martial arts but she would listen. 20 minutes later she calmed down and felt bad and because I'm Ukranian, she felt she had insulted my heritage. I said she didn't and promised to speak clearer in the future and she promised to not over react...so it ended well with no hurt feelings on other side

Are you saying that you weren't aware that sambo is a derogatory word used to dengrate people of African descent?

That's why the lady at the desk (who happened to be black) took offense initially.

I guess you both learnt something new.

[Gryphon]

edit:

I wasn't aware she would take offense when I was describing a style of martial arts. I had also mentioned my training in BJJ so I thought it was clear I was talking about combat arts

[leo619]

So I got called a racist last week, for a silly reason. I went to a gym to sign up for a Tae Kwon Do class they have and was asked if I have any previous martial arts training. I mentioned I dabbled in Sambo training and for some reason the woman at the desk, who happened to be black, accused me of saying something derogatory to black people. I and others tried to explain that Sambo is a Russian style of martial arts but she would listen. 20 minutes later she calmed down and felt bad and because I'm Ukranian, she felt she had insulted my heritage. I said she didn't and promised to speak clearer in the future and she promised to not over react...so it ended well with no hurt feelings on other side

That's just a problem with cross cultural words. I remember watching a youtube video from this one black dude who liked k-pop, and he had a article about a Korean song on the radio that bleeped out the word because it's the same pronunciation as our n-word, even though it has an entirely different meaning. (Forgot the meaning though.) Sadly issues like that is going to happen and they are very tricky.

[skyvolt2000]

edit:

I wasn't aware she would take offense when I was describing a style of martial arts. I had also mentioned my training in BJJ so I thought it was clear I was talking about combat arts

That is on her if you and others explained it and she was still mad for 20+ minutes that is on HER.

That is why we have google, bing and other websites for her to look that up. Heck that word is even used as a wrestling term a variation of a suplex that Brock Lesnar, Ken Shamrock, Tazz & Shelton Benjamin used. I know I heard that word in a few Taz matches in ECW.

[Mr MajestiK]

That is on her if you and others explained it and she was still mad for 20+ minutes that is on HER.

She was fully justified in being upset before Gryphon took the time to explain it to her which is why she apologised.

I'm not sure why you're making a song and dance about it being on her for at this juncture.

That is why we have google, bing and other websites for her to look that up. Heck that word is even used as a wrestling term a variation of a suplex that Brock Lesnar, Ken Shamrock, Tazz & Shelton Benjamin used. I know I heard that word in a few Taz matches in ECW.

I suppose the lady was supposed to have taken a quick time out to jump on Google to search up obscure Martial Arts terminology in between dealing with patrons.

Do you realise how ridiculous that sounds?

Gryphon handled the situation well and the lady apologised.

Case closed.

[Old Man Ollie 1962]

That's just a problem with cross cultural words. I remember watching a youtube video from this one black dude who liked k-pop, and he had a article about a Korean song on the radio that bleeped out the word because it's the same pronunciation as our n-word, even though it has an entirely different meaning. (Forgot the meaning though.) Sadly issues like that is going to happen and they are very tricky.

I was at a social gathering with some American and British folks. An overheard conversation was misconstrued as offensive because one of the party members used the term fag. What the offended person didn't know is the British and Australian colloquialism for cigarette is fag. Incidents like this happen frequently.

[Surf]

Way to real. Attachment 28737

[HUTHAIFA]

So I got called a racist last week, for a silly reason. I went to a gym to sign up for a Tae Kwon Do class they have and was asked if I have any previous martial arts training. I mentioned I dabbled in Sambo training and for some reason the woman at the desk, who happened to be black, accused me of saying something derogatory to black people. I and others tried to explain that Sambo is a Russian style of martial arts but she would listen. 20 minutes later she calmed down and felt bad and because I'm Ukranian, she felt she had insulted my heritage. I said she didn't and promised to speak clearer in the future and she promised to not over react...so it ended well with no hurt feelings on other side

Sounds like everyone handled themselves like Adults. Kudos.

[Moose100]

That's just a problem with cross cultural words. I remember watching a youtube video from this one black dude who liked k-pop, and he had a article about a Korean song on the radio that bleeped out the word because it's the same pronunciation as our n-word, even though it has an entirely different meaning. (Forgot the meaning though.) Sadly issues like that is going to happen and they are very tricky.

This is a good point. In general there's like no way or context to glean the meaning in reality. I can always see why she would get offended. At the same time if you do know this you should take care and add a disclaimer.

THing is thats what that Korean video did. THere's an awareness there that they took care in using. I think applying that awareness or the lack of it is what lead to her offense.

I can see why it would lead to a clumsy moment too though.

Glad it turned out well though. Too many times we see these types of things end with bitter emotions. It's a microcosm of what should occur in some situations.

[KOSLOX]

Have you all seen Master of None on Netflix? It's Aziz Ansari's show and deals with him being an struggling actor and provides some awesome commentary on casual racism.

[leo619]

This is a good point. In general there's like no way or context to glean the meaning in reality. I can always see why she would get offended. At the same time if you do know this you should take care and add a disclaimer.

THing is thats what that Korean video did. THere's an awareness there that they took care in using. I think applying that awareness or the lack of it is what lead to her offense.

I can see why it would lead to a clumsy moment too though.

Glad it turned out well though. Too many times we see these types of things end with bitter emotions. It's a microcosm of what should occur in some situations.

Agreed, but at the same time, I believe both parties shouldn't jump to conclusions, and that explanations should be given for clarification purposes before taking issue. Especially when dealing with something of a foreign language. Living in San Diego, spanish is all around me, and of course the reference to the color black is the n-word. Thankfully I'm semi-decent in spanish but even so, when I was first exposed to that word (Coming from Detroit, I wasn't expose to Spanish) I wanted clarification on the word so I can tell the intent behind the statement. That's why I said it's a very tricky business. Of course, she wouldn't know what the Sambo meant in another language. But to take an offense before an explanation could be given means jumping to conclusions too quickly. What and why are always part of my vocabulary lol.

The korean video on the other hand is a different situation, because you don't have someone who can explain to you what that meaning is, in Korean. There's no what or why questions you can dive into. So that makes a lot of sense why they censor that word. So I completely agree with censoring the word on the radio, though I disagree with the woman taking offense so quickly without clarification. With that said, the black k-pop fan (Michael Scott Grant aka Mr.Popo/Youtube) was completely against censoring the word due to the fact that it was a foreign language and the meaning behind the word is different. So it's understandable for different people to have different viewpoints.

[Smoov-E]

Have you all seen Master of None on Netflix? It's Aziz Ansari's show and deals with him being an struggling actor and provides some awesome commentary on casual racism.

I've only seen the first episode which I loved, I don't binge watch things a lot so I will slowly make my way through this show