Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Is switching STAR BOY's race stupid?

you know, i think shrinking violet in the current incarnation is intended as asian. she's so cool =3=! one think i do like about the shooter/manapul run is that lyle doesn't look "white" anymore... unfortunately, i think everyone forgot this when he met up with his parents again so hahha lyle looks totally adopted.

one addendum:

i think it's obvious that both star boys will be killed and booster gold will pass through some nerd business like a blackhole-time-stream-worm-hole and become younger and become the new star boy. this is evidenced by his star on his chest.

i'm just kidding but if this comes true, then it would be awesome or horrible. not sure which.

I echo Triplicate Kid's bemoaning of the lack of Asian legionnaires. Although a stereotype, Dragonmage was a welcome sight when he was introduced. At least he wasn't a "goody two shoes" who bowed in obedience to every elder who gave him an order. IIRC didn't he turn out to be a rebel?

I always had in mind that an Asian legionnaire could create or animate Chinese character symbols - perhaps a tad stereotypical, but at least it's not another martial artist or Zen guru. The Chinese culture is so rich in tradition that I wouldn't mind seeing other elements of its ancient history and civilization tapped into.

It's nice to see I'm not the only one to see Kitson's Cos and Vi as ambiguously Asian.

Good point, TK.

One might suppose, though, that by making Star Boy black Waid, etc., were hoping to attact an audience that was black, including (primarily?) African-Americans. The audience would therefore expect certain things of that character to match their own experiences. (Otherwise, you have a white guy who just happens to be colored black.)

Someone* once said that Bonanza was not about 1870s men, but about 1960s men (the target audience) in an 1870s setting, and that Star Trek was not about people in the 23rd century but about 1960s people in a 23rd century setting. Likewise, the Legion is not about Xanthuans, Braalians, Imskians, and Titanians, but about 20th/21st century earth people from those settings. As such, I think it's more than expected for Star Boy to be identifiably African-American, whether he is called that or not.

*I believe this idea is from The World of Star Trek by David Gerrold.

This is where a fallacy lies: assuming that all parallel-humans will look white unless they have non-white Earth descent!

Okay, trying to be logical about parallel humans is probably asking for too much.

(That reminds me: Remember how, on pre-Crisis Krypton, everyone was white. Then they introduced an island of black people. The writers explained that, because Krypton had never had slavery, these black people did not spread over the planet. This was built on a logical fallacy. On earth, there have been expansionist and non-expansionist civilizations. Non-expansionist civilizations greatly outnumber expansionist ones, but cannot compete with them. therefore, at any time in recorded history, the majority of the world's population is made of a few expansionist civilizations. The fallacy? On Earth, white Europeans formed the most expansionist civ. Why should the equivalent be true on another planet?)

I do recognize the point about a non-white audience.

________________________________________________________________________ The Adventure-era Thom sometimes came over as a wimp or a dim bulb. Those were his most endearing characteristics.

Well, those qualities have less to do with personality and more to do with common values and ways of getting along with others. Personality might be expressed in terms of how one shows that one is industrious, honest, a leader, or a follower, and race sometimes plays a factor in how one is taught to express those qualities.

My old World Book dictionary defines “personality” as “the personal or individual quality that makes one person be different and act differently from another.” But where do we get that quality from? Usually, it’s from our parents, friends, community, etc.—all of which usually (not always) are connected by race. Even in America, the great “melting pot,” people of one ethnic background tend to live and associate with others of their same kind (there are numerous exceptions, of course).

I guess my point is that writers need to consider where their characters came from. They don’t have to be overt in telling us “Character A is an inner-city black youth from Detroit” and “Character B came from an isolated, white farming community in Kansas.” But each character should convey the sense that he or she had a life, a family, and a cultural background before we encountered them.

Agreed, though the inclinations might be different for white people, just because we have different associations and experiences with race.

I want to be careful here not to overgeneralize. Not all white people in the U.S. would have the same experiences and inclinations any more than all black people would. But because of the history of this country with regards to race relations, media represetations, and limited contact (for many people of all races) with others who are different, I think it’s fair to say white people generally view race differently than black people do.

Case in point: Public opinion on O.J. Simpson’s guilt was sharply divided along racial lines. It has been said that many blacks viewed his trial as another example of a successful black man being persecuted by a white system. Right or wrong, this view cannot be fully understood by most whites, simply because we have no history of being oppressed by “our” own system.

Are things fairer for minorities in this country than they were in Martin Luther King’s time? It depends on who you ask. Many blacks, for example, say that racism still exists; it’s just gone underground or become more subtle. Yet many whites would deny this because, after all, who wants to think of himself or herself as racist?

So, personality is built upon more than how we deal consciously with these issues. It is also built upon how we deal with them subconciously.

Agreed. Though there’s a difference between using derogatory stereotypes and being informed and aware of cultural uniqueness.

And, really, I’ve always seen the Legion as being a good place to explore and CELEBRATE diversity, not pretend that it doesn’t exist.

True. But, getting back to what I wrote above, I think writers need to KNOW their characters very well so they can represent a person of a different culture in subtle, not overt, ways.

I’m drawing a blank in coming up with good comic book examples (I’m sure someone can probably think of some), but, in the sci-fi TV series, “Babylon 5” several alien races were represented. The Minbari had a very different view of the universe and behaved much differently than the Centauri, who in turn behaved much differently than the Narn. Some of these cultural differences were very subtle. Some became major plot points as the series progressed; others did not. But all of these differences reminded us of where the characters came from. They created a much more believable and diverse universe than the “humans with skin attachments” of “Star Trek” and the unnecessary foreign accents of Marvel and DC characters.

All writers in any medium should be able to create fully realized characters by exploring their cultural/racial backgrounds, whether such details make it into print or not.

Don’t apologize! Thanks once again for a well-reasoned and insightful response!

I don't see it as a fallacy so much, as an assumption that, for whatever reason, the humans of Earth and the identical-looking inhabitants of Braal, Titan, Winath, etc. are all of common stock. Whether that be because most of them are colonists from Earth, or because Valor seeded Earth-descended humans all over the galaxy, or something to do with Invasion, I don't know.

If Xanthu'ans (and Braalians, etc.) *aren't* from Earth, however distantly, there's no reason for them to even be humanoid, let along have African or Asian or Caucasian skin-tones or facial structures or hair or whatever. (And any story presenting Titanians and Winathians having kids should just be taken out and shot, since it's about as likely as me impregnating a rhododendron...)

But Kid Quantums 1 & 2 were drawn with tightly curled black hair, brown eyes *and* dark skin, meaning that they were specifically drawn to look like Earth-Africans, and the creative choice to make them look like Earth-Africans means that they shouldn't be given a pass because they come from Xanthu. If they weren't supposed to evoke Earth-Africans, they should have been drawn with yellow squiggly tentacles coming out of their heads or glowing patterns of coral-like growths coming out of their shoulders or something, so that nobody would look at them and think, 'Oh, ethnic diversity of the future, how progressive!' and then wonder why the writers put a bunch of the least-black-possible black people in the book and if they thought anyone would possibly fall for what essentially turned out to be tokenism.

*If* someone appears Asian or African in appearance, I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect them to actually be of that heritage (even if they hopefully won't act like a caricature of the most cringing stereotypes of that ethnicity, unlike, say, Dawnstar, who lives in the 30th century and wears ****ing buckskins...), and not allow the creators to get a pass on inclusiveness by putting a bunch of alien space-darkies in the Legion, instead of having any real ethnic diversity.

When I referred to a fallacy, I was just thinking of the first time a black actor was cast as a Romulan. The Next Generation staff were unsure if he should be made up the same pale greenish tone as the other Romulans. They didn't know how to handle non-white humanoids.

for aliens to be human-looking at all, it heavily implies a common origin of some sort (whether by kin, or by non-humans implementing the specs for a designed or copied version of another world's humans).

thus humans of any ethnic background are just as valid as white people in space; if this happened outside of Earth colonization then localozed factors such as sunlight, ozone, solar radiation etc might favor different types of melanin.

I myself prefer the assumption that many/most UP worlds are Earth colonies, and different factors could have led to not only various ethnic combinmations, different patterns of genetic integration, and different on-planet mutations/trends as well.

Xanthu, as we have seen, has clear black and white populations, and probably a great deal of intermixing as well, unless some factor has led to genetic segregation for one reason or another. Presumably it had enough of a population base for ethnic differences to not be eroded out of necessity to maintain genetic viability.

As much as some may crave as much authenticity to past incarnations as possible, the editorial assumptions/directives of the 50s and 60s regarding ethnicity do not fit 2008 let alone 2958. Just as Levitz added character to pre-existing characters who were often a bit lacking or inconsistent previously, it is completely fair game to revision characters to have more variety, and hopefully in a way that avoids or minimizes stereotypes. Thom's ethnic change thus far brings nothing character-wise to the table, but that's better than suddenly making him 70s-Tyroc-II. The door is open for meaningful exploration when a story calls for it.

I wonder how long a thread like this would have been had Waid made one of the classic characters a different gender instead of a different race? Just imagine if we had been introduced to Ultra Girl in issue 1! Personally, I'd guess this thread would be about 3 times as long because a change in sex would've changed a character a lot more than a changeup in race.

I'm working from memory here, so if I'm recalling this incorrectly, please bear with me. I remember when Inferno was introduced as part of the Work Force during the reboot. From what I recall, we met this "sun girl", who had the same codename as the SW6 Dirk Morgna, before we actually met Dirk. At the time it seemed that we had a gender-reversal of the same character, and that ruffled a LOT of feathers! Hell, it's still unclear to me whether that may have been the original intent of the creative teams. Yes, it wasn't too long afterward that we met the "real" Dirk Morgna, but I'm not sure that wasn't done to placate the fans.

In any case, though the female Inferno had some adventures with the Legion, curiously neither character ever ended up joining. Inferno went back with Team 20 and decided to remain in the past, and Dirk was never more than an occasional guest star or supporting character. (Again, I hope I'm remembering this all correctly, or I'll look SO stupid!)

No matter what the thinking behind her truly was, it seems clear that she was meant to fill the solar-powered role from her inception, whether she was literally meant to be a gender-reversed Dirk or a totally separate character.

So which is better (if either)...changing a character's race or sex? To me, neither is better without their being some higher justification that makes for better storytelling.

If 3Boot Star Boy was ever even given some characterization that made him significantly different from the prior Thom Kallors along with the race change, I could see it. But he wasn't.

If the Legion were lacking for strong female characters, I might be able to see making Dirk female. But it wasn't.

Basically, instead of race-changing Star Boy, making Sun Boy a female, making Wildfire an amalagam of two different characters and making Projectra a snake, why not just create new characters? 3Boot, in particular, has been lacking original Legionnaire characters. Why couldn't we have had some racial diversity by using Jacques instead of Lyle, refurbishing Tyroc, using Kid Quantum or XS or actually creating someone we hadn't seen before?

Switching Star Boy's race wasn't exactly "stupid", but it seemed pointless and arbitrary.

Creating new characters would certainly be my preference.

Earlier today, I had to cut short my post due to a lightning storm threatening my computer (and then having to go to work), so I'm gonna put the counterpoint idea I was going to originally include about race-changing and gender-changing established characters.

As I said above, race-changing, gender-changing characters and doing other changes for the sake of doing them is just goofy, but there is one shining example of how this was at least once done right.

That example is the current Battlestar Galactica reimagined series shown on the Sci-Fi Channel. There was a lot of controversy and outrage surrounding this relaunch before the original miniseries ever aired. In addition to the fact that it was a reimagining as opposed to a continuation/sequel of the old cult series of the same name, there was tremendous controversy over the fact that two of the characters who were male in the first series were female in this one, particularly Starbuck.

Having been a fan of the original, I certainly had a huge WTF moment when I heard about this change. But as I actually watched the show, I was won over quickly because this fact fit in perfectly with what I saw the creators were doing with this show, with this universe. The old show had some pretty good female characters, but this new one is all about equality among men and women, especially in terms of the female characters serving in the same jobs and roles that the men do. We have female mechanics, female military commanders, a female President and lots of female fighter pilots who bunk with, share bathrooms with and even get into fistfights with the male fighter pilots.

And this Starbuck is the very best pilot of them all! How better to get the point across than to give her the same role as her males predecessor in the original series? In fact she's one of my favorite characters from any series I've ever followed, male or female. She's complex, imperfect, unpredictable and I enjoy every moment she spends onscreen.

Now, that's a great, rewarding and far from arbitrary change to a basic aspect of an established character, be it gender or race! Doing that with Star Boy in the context of 3Boot is just fundamentally ridiculous! What was the point, really?

The funny thing is that Tyroc probably would've worked really well for Waid in trying to get his "Eat it grandpa!" point across. The character had already given the impression of having been a passionate nonconformist (albeit an 'angry black man') in his original run. If skillfully rendered, he could've worked well as a kind of doorway character that we never really had, one who could help sell the concept of what this new version was about to the reader. This could've been done without making him tiresome if the right effort had been put into it.

But that's the Legion for ya...it's always reboot-ready and comes with an "eff with these characters all ya want" card for the writers like no other mainstream comics property.

That said, Star Boy's change was probably less offensive than the changes to Wildfire and Projectra in the previous reboot, but it still comes across as having been done because they could.

But, oddly enough, the characters who were black in the original aren't.
I didn't think of that one!
I suspect most people would agree on that. Both parts.

Hah! I thought of BSG as well when reading this thread, so thanks for bringing it up.

I agree that BSG is an instance of pop culture entertainment where the gender-reversals are well-done and actually make a point. Apart from the gender-switching, there's also some kind of ethnic blender aspect. Just look at the faces matched to names like "Valerii", "Anastasia" or "Hoshi" - they're not exactly what you'd expect to see.

What I don't see, though, is why BSG's treatment of race and gender should constitute a singular "succcess" - i. e. why its modus operandi shouldn't or couldn't be adopted by other media, such as, for example the Legion.

With BSG's modus operandi I mean the series' making gender or race almost non-issues when it comes to characterisation and social roles (there are slip-ups now and then, such as the pregnancy&abortion episode, or the perceived-as-backwards Sagittarians being prominently made up by one ethnicity - bad casting decision - , but on the whole the series is doing very well).

But does this way of handling race and gender constitute some kind of lack or misrepresentation? Is Starbuck totally unbelievable as a woman and must therefore be a guy in drag? Is Dee not behaving "black" enough to be a credible character? Personally, I'd say "no".

BSG isn't constantly rubbing the audience's face in its equal portrayal of race and gender. This equality is implicitly understood and therefore not even worth mentioning to the characters. BSG is refreshing in that regard when what you're used to is "empowering" media where there are these constant reminders - look, those people are totally as competent and worthy as any young, white middle-class guy, but fear not: we'll never let you forget that they're BLACK or WOMEN or etc. - let's serve up some normative and/or stereotypical behaviour for them to underline our point, pronto!

Since I happen to like BSG's approach to these issues, I don't have any objections to reimagining established Legionnaires and switching their gender or race. I don't think that Star Boy's suddenly being black needs to only be classified as a "because they could" decision - it also ups the Legion's diversity, and the fact that his race isn't thematised in any way I actually see as positive for the reasons I mentioned above.

I'm also fine with creating a new character instead to up diversity, but, I agree with veryvery - please let them create a CHARACTER first and foremost, and then add ethnicity/gender/nationality, or you'll get Kid Cliché. The ethnic and/or national stereotypes that are still inhabiting comics today en masse are generally really painfully simplistic and off the mark. Personally, I wouldn't enjoy seeing myself being summed up in stereotypes, even if those happened to be positive stereotypes (i.e. black people have really great singing voices, or Asian people have "acient dragon magic wisdom"). Portrayals such as these are generally as fictious as "the Talokian warrior culture" is - after all, the characters being sold as "insert-earth-ethnicity-or-nationality-here" generally speak some new and exciting moon language unlike any that has been spoken on earth before (which is then passed off as Spanish etc.), and are often reduced to one singular character trait (just like Star Trek aliens - hey, the Ferengi are greedy, and the French are cowardly!).

I'd actually rather take a pass on any representation than getting something like that - therefore, less Dragon Mage, please, and more black Star Boy, who is representing diversity simply by being there, by being considered "normal" for the Legion's universe instead of being characterised as some kind of special butterfly whose skin colour everybody has to comment on, or by being an angry black guy, or by constantly lecturing everybody about race and tolerance.

i agree with insomniac girl's comments on star boy. i really do like him and people see him as a replacement for the old star boy but to me, his race and his characterization DO mean he's a new character. i have always read him as a totally different person, kind of like how uhh you know supergirl and powergirl are kind of the same person but not really?! like with Black-Thom and beardy-Thom, i'm not afraid that if they touch they'll destroy the universe.

as for WHY they use these characters and not just make new ones -despite my contention that they DID just make a new character-, well it's for the nostalgia factor! haha well i'll explain now that i kind of read the legion backwards. when i read that one issue where dream girl is like "actually, i really like star boy" all that meant to me was "oh, an interracial couple, +500 points for waid! =3=". then LATER when i understood the history i went "OH WOW, THIS DREAM GIRL LIKES STAR BOY TOO!" and then i took a puff on my nerd-inhaler and pushed my glasses up my nose. you know, that sort of "I KNOW THE SECRET THING BEING SAID" here type thing.

on my end, it's cool for me to see how they differ and where they're the same! i get a weird enjoyment out of it! i can't explain it but i think that's why the writers do that!

and honestly, new characters have a history of being hated violently. you notice that uh... NO ONE from the gates-shikari-etc universe appear in waid's run? i miss them but i'm sure if you asked the people here, a good amount of them will tell you how much "archie" legion makes them puke, how they hated every character from it, blahblahblah. 9__9 unfortunately, comics culture is ruled by "WE HATE CHANGE". i'm sure (i hope) no one's actually racist on this board, but when someone complains so loudly about a character's skin simply changing color...! i try to remember that it's just because they fear change. i'm sure that 10 years from now when black-starboy is more solidified as a nostalgia fetish object, people will appreciate him more. (i'm sure people hated tyroc at the time and now everyone loves tyroc.... though i don't know why everyone loves that naked, embarrassing man ;_;)

someone mentioned inferno! wow! i NEVER saw her as a sun girl, i thought they just reused a name hahaha wow! i just thought "a girl with fire powers" i never associated her with "sun" just "fire"! and wasn't there a dirk in that universe too? that we saw for a couple issues? so i really never got her confused with sunboy!

i guess i have a different view when i see reboots...i just think they're the way of things! i'd rather have a revolution than stagnation! and i like it when a character's gender or race changes because USUALLY it's a sign from the writer to that minority going "hey i'm thinking about you :D" and i'm like "yay! they're thinking about me". hahah but sometimes it goes SO BADLY.... and then you drink yourself to sleep at night and hope that writer X will die or quit or get fired.

with starboy? well i think "yay, they're thinking about me!" and then i read more and he's not like, a horrible stereotype that offends me so i go "YAY" some more. man... i really don't see why people have a problem with him at all! he's such a nice guy! and again, white-thom is totally still alive and well, guys!

re: babylon 5 - YES. GOD i love JMS for his representations of diversity ;__;!! yes THANK you ;__; YES!

and to show that i am the most complex form of nerdohydrate available on the marker, IT WAS REVEALED IN STAR TREK THAT ALL THE RACES WERE RELATED AND FROM THE SAME STARTING RACE WHICH IS HILARIOUS AND SILLY BUT STILL NICE AND ADORABLE.

Kind of a broad generalization, and very untrue as regards many, if not most, of the posters to this thread. We've got people arguing passionately that the Legion would have been better without Superboy... That's sure not a fear of change, since removing Superboy would be a HUGE change!

If you look around this place, you'll see some pretty surprising popular characters. Infectious Lass has a following. Matter-Eater Lad has a following.

Tyroc? Not so much.

It has, IMO, little or nothing to do with racism, and a lot to do with Tyroc being a terrible character, and, indeed, a racist caricature of the 'angry black man.'

Ironically, you'd get better mileage if you suggested that someone who 'loves Tyroc' might be more likely to be embracing racist stereotypes than someone who thinks that he's a cringe-worthy and kind of embarrassing depiction of a black man.

If the new Star Boy was named something other than Thom Kallor of Xanthu, I wouldn't give a rat's patootie if he also had gravity controlling powers and replaced the bearded white guy. *I* like Dream Boy (despite loving Dream Girl), so I *hardly* 'fear change.'

But he was made to appear African, *despite not being African.* He's from another world. Making him appear black is utterly pointless. It's not diversity, it's actually an insult, since it suggests that the only way a black man is going to be a Legionnaire is if he's 'not really black' or some sort of 'safe black, because he's really just a dark-skinned alien.'

The last thing I need is to be protected from the scary black man by having a black-looking but 'safely not-black' character replacing a pre-existing character.

If Invisible Jacques had been introduced as some sort of rebooted Lyle Norg, it would be a completely different story, because Lyle comes from Earth, which means that if he got retconned into being black, that would mean he was actually of African descent, and not just some alien who happens to look like a black man.

If the writers want to diversify the Legion by introducing ethnic characters, they darn well should actually be ethnic characters and not just aliens oreos.

But why should white people be allowed to be from Winath, Braal, Naltor and so on, with all the flights of fantasy these made-up origins allow, while black people have to be bound to some specific earth-referential origin?

You might say that being from one of the Legion universe's fictional space-Caucasian races with their accompanying super-powers isn't of much importance, since any black super-hero with an earth-referential origin can just as easily be given equally interesting and original powers. Not that this isn't true, but this fails to take into account why the Legionnaires were conceptualised as being from outer space in the first place. If these outer space origins didn't add anything special, then why implement them; why not have all Legionnaires stem from earth?

I think limiting other-than-Caucasian characters to an earth origin is terribly reductive. This handling of ethnicity makes being white once again normative - so much so that Caucasianness hasn't any relevance or signal-function in itself and can therefore be easily replaced by being Winathian (etc. etc....) - and being black the exception which has to always refer to itself, which has to have a "point".

I also don't think black characters with non-earth origins are - intentionally or subconsciously - implemented to create some kind of "safer", more "palatable" black presence. This tactic clearly wouldn't work - if someone's racist, he or she won't be less afraid of or offended by the "scary black man" showing up in their comic if the comic's editorial told them that this character wasn't from Nigeria or the U.S. or wherever, but from Xanthu. The character's skin colour trumps everything else in a case such as this.

Having grown up in a terribly racist town (where black people were forbidden by law from settling within the city limits, an obviously illegal and unenforceable 'blue law,' but one never taken off the books), and seen the ridiculous lengths people will go to, I disagree.

We had one black family move into town, and their place of business, home and barn where all burned down over the course of the summer. 'Freak accidents.' They moved out. Years later, a black youth enrolled in our high school. He was clearly, visibly 'black,' but everyone insisted that he was okay, because he 'wasn't really black, he was from Puerto Rico.'

I felt like screaming at them, 'Yes, he's from ****ing Puerto Rico! He's a *black kid* from Puerto Rico!' But I kept my mouth shut, because if it was loudly pointed out that he was black, the 'good old boys' probably would have run out of excuses for why they weren't running him out of town.

It's been 20 years since then, perhaps the town is a little less racist, but I really don't know, I got the hell out of there after high school. The *nice* people would argue with the really racist people by saying stuff like, 'You shouldn't talk that way, *they can't help being born like that!*' and I would clench my fists and walk away, since even the people talking against violence were still racists, claiming that whites should have sympathy for blacks because they were just 'born wrong.'

And that's where I get my dislike of people being portrayed as 'safe blacks,' like the mulattos in Haiti who were put in positions of authority by the French (because, being part-white, they were 'better'), or the 'black and whites' of South Africa who had greater status than 'kaffirs,' or the people who insist that Obama isn't 'really black' because he has a white parent and therefore it's 'okay' to vote for him because he's 'not really black.'

Threeboot Thom is a 'safe black.' He's not African in the slightest, and therefore he's not 'inclusive.' He's actually worse than not having any black people at all, because he creates the false impression of an inclusive future, while actual African-descended people are shoved back into the corner, while this alien faux-African is paraded around as if he's somehow a sign of racial inclusion.

Dawnstar and Tyroc, for all that they were egregious examples of some tacky racial stereotypes, at least were created as actually being descended from the cultures they were caricaturing.

Set, some excellent points.

If changing Thom had a point, Waid never got to it, and thus it is pointless in that regard. So I see it more as (yet another) missed opportunity than anything else.

On the one hand, before a hypothetical new reader even reads one word on the page or hears one shred of backstory, the simple visual of a Legion with Earth-ethnic diversity would hopefully be more in line with contemporary assumptions of a viable future... but it does need to be more than image.

You've put my ideas in words better than I have.
This is one case where I recognize Set's point. Racists can certainly be (and often are) concerned with invisible characteristics associated with visible ethnicity. I still can't agree that making non-white characters who aren't from a recognizable Earth culture is harmful.

I'm sure we can agree it would've been better to have more than one black Legionnaire in the threeboot, so no one character had to represent an entire race.

Until the word "race" becomes associated with diversity of culture instead of color, I think a color and facial features change is about as much as the writers are going to be able to get away with.


If for example the characters are to be African-American descended, about all the writer will get away with is showing the character celebrating Juneteenth (a day I think all of us USer maybe should pay more attention to) or maybe even showing Kwanzaa as having survived the millenia. This is no more than what they did with Gim and did it really add any "diversity?" Does it matter that Gim is Jewish? Not really IMO because it never came into play as for how the character acted and reacted.

Even avoiding African AMERICAN and all the baggage that entails and attempting to depict an "Afican" descended, who picks the characteristics that define an African? It's a helluva big place with as much diversity as any. Who can show me how to depict "african" descended people?


If the chosen stereotypes are not safe, if they're relevant, then to many they're tacky.

If the chosen stereotypes are not relevant, then why bother?

Tyroc was clearly depicted as being descended from a early 70's African-American reform culture that was quite prevalent, a culture that was angry and demanding reform and yes, hated "whitey." It had its vocal components and it had its in the home only components, just like any other culture.

It existed. It was real and it impacted today's culture yet was and is still seen as stereotyping (in the "tacky" sense of the word).


How does the writer accomplish both diversity and not tacky for an audience that doesn't know in it's own mind the difference between race and culture? How has any writer represented a culture without resorting to "stereotypes" be they be perceived in general as postive or negative?

Set, I really see your point now, but you've still not completely convinced me.

What I absolutely hadn't factored in are these gradations in the perception of race you describe in the example with your home town or the "Obama is white"-stance. Both concepts are totally foreign to me - the first one because I find it utterly bizarre that anybody could operate on a level of self-deception high enough not to recognise the similarities between "black" and "Puerto Rican black", the second one because everything I've ever gotten from the news or individual person's opinions, be they from the U.S. or elsewhere, has without fail portrayed Obama as black, completely and undeniably black (no matter whether that's logical considering his heritage).


The discrimination and/or favouritism in the examples with your home town, Haiti and South Africa was rooted in the perpetrators' knowledge about the genetic make-up and national origin of the persons favoured or discriminated against.

Now, if you do not provide any comparable, earth-specific knowledge in fiction - if, for example, the only context given for race and origin is "Xanthu" - then your garden variety racist has to orient him- or herself on skin colour. This might lead to them maybe regarding a comparably lighter-skinned "ethnic" character in a more favourable light than a darker-skinned one, but what exactly should make them come to a positive evaluation of a character who undeniably shares visual markers with one or more groups they're holding in contempt?

If there is no info given to them that the fictional character is bi-racial with a white parent in the mix, or from an "acceptable" national background - "mitigating" factors they might use to justify their racism as being based on logic, "fairness" and only tagetting those who "deserve it" - then what would hinder them from classifying the fictional character as "target-worthy"?

Here I really hope you'd be of the opinion that making someone African would be served well enough with giving him the according background, and not with including any specific "African behaviour", otherwise we'd probably be back to the ethnic carricatures pretty fast.

Also - why does an inclusive future have to be necessarily false? I'm against "colour-blindness" in media with contemporary or historical settings, as well - that approach can severely hinder any accurate depiction of the setting and the characters therein - but why completely deny the possibility of a future utopia where racial strife amongst humans has ceased to exist? If a writer wants to explore issues of race, gender, religion and the like in an utopic setting, then the sci-fi medium offers the possibility to remove these issues from "earth history" and transplant them onto alien races, while the resulting story can still be relevant to a contemporary reader and get a point across.

Yes, but I still vastly prefer what you're calling the "oreos" over the Dawnstars and Tyrocs - the latter are not doing anybody of the approximate ethnicities any favours, either. All they do, in fact, is repeat and strenghten inaccurate or plain false and oftentimes insulting stereotypes in the minds of readers not belonging to those ethnicities. In that way they're not much more or much less representative of a certain ethnicity than "black Thom Kallor" is "African" - their ethnicity is a clichéd fiction in the first place.

They even made up a word for it. Obama is called a 'halfrican' by some Fox News weirdos.

It would be enough, *if he was African.*

But he's not African. He just *looks* African. He's Xanthu'an, which means he tells us nothing about the status of Africans from Earth.

He doesn't need to 'act black' or have some stereotypes behaviors (obviously, given my dislike of Dawnstar's cliched behavior, I'd rather they didn't make any Luke Cage-esque blaxploitation racial caricatures). He could be like Jacques or Danielle Foccart, obviously of African descent, but just 'one of the guys.'

Given that this is the 30th/31st century, the whole black/asian/native american thing should be *ancient* history anyway. One thing that tends to happen with humans is that different groups that don't like each other tend to band together against someone that is 'more different.' WWII-era Germans of Hessian and Prussian descent had nothing but contempt for each other, until they found a common enemy in the Jew, the Romany and the homosexual. In the face of first contact with shapeshifting Durlans, I'd not at all be surprised to see Earthers of all different colors and creeds united in their shared discomfort upon meeting a completely new and alien race.

Obviously, Geoff Johns thinks this way as well, since he's got a massive Earth-centric 'anti-alien' thing going on, even if it makes not a lick of sense to occur after almost a thousand years of Earth interacting with alien races, barring some sort of deus ex machina like Universo controlling everybody's minds.

you know, my friend disliked the action comics run because she felt that part was unbelieveable too! but hahah having grown up in a hella racist environment, i didn't think it was ludicrous at all. i'm sort of traumatized, i guess, i get nervous

you see to me, what people might consider "safe blacks" are more relateable to the rest of us. asking for an angry black person or someone that's constantly in victim more etcetc is JUST as racist. i like thom because i can see myself in him, he seems like a more realistic person? he just seems uh, normal?! and in the universe of the legion it seems anachronistic that he'd be tyroc-esque!

even the politically minded people i know, both white and not white, are not those horrible caricatures of anger and constant annoyance. just normal people with political ideals/thoughts that inform their decisions/opinions, etc. me and my POC friends, have never been thrilled with characters who are soap-boxes, it just makes them 2-dimensional.

and again, i think, in the legion's case, the world is supposed to have evolved past racial discrimination (and the underlying subtext in many issues throughout the long years is that some people have moved onto alien racism instead).

hmmm,you know, from what you've been saying, i don't think your problem is that Thom is black or that he's not political enough in particular, perhaps more that you wish the legion was more diverse in general? more black characters with more evidence of politics imbued in them? i'm very much for that as long as it doesn't seem ah... out of place and anachronistic? subtlety is our friend