...On Moses from Liberty's Kids

Today is the 4th of July, also known as Independence day in the United states, and like most people I know I'm sitting at home and playing a rousing rendition of "Firework or Gunshot!"

Pictured: An accurate representation of my face with each explosion outside

Beyond the discomfort presented by the cacophony of barely controlled explosions in the world beyond my walls I find the weight of history and my own awareness of it bearing down upon my mind and twisting my emotions in ways both painful and cantankerous today. This day has not been one of unadulterated celebration for me since I was a child and spared from the sobering understanding that this holiday, this "Independence Day" was not in its inception or its character, meant for me. I suspect that I've struggled with this truism for some time whether I was cognizant of it or not. For many years I just saw this as another day in the year, rather than battle with the intense melancholy the day brought about, and yet today the full force of the aforementioned truism is inescapable.

Current events have exacerbated this truth for me by orders of magnitude unfathomed, and this meditation on the interwoven knots of fact and fiction associated with this day has only had its difficulty enhanced.

And through all of this a single character has been running through my mind today. A character by the name of Moses.

No, not the Moses of the Bible or the Ten Commandments but Moses from the PBS show, Liberty's Kids. 

"I am a free man–in the employ of Benjamin Franklin"

Liberty's Kids was a show that took a rather unflinching look at the American Revolution and for a kids' show it did a number of things that still amaze me to this day. While not perfect, it examined the plight of the Native Americans in the war effort, examined the merits of both sides of the revolution (the colonists and the loyalists) and most pertinent to this post, didn't shy away from the issue of slavery, nor the uncomfortable truth of many of the founding fathers as slave owners. At the center of a great deal of this unflinching take... was a former slave and self taught engineer by the name of Moses.

As a young man Moses may have been one of my favorite characters I'd ever seen. In many ways, he was the first black man in fiction who behaved in a manner worthy of the black men I knew personally, rather than the stereotypes oft presented to the masses for consumption, especially in historical fiction. A former slave, brought in chains from West Africa to the United States he taught himself to read and write, and became a blacksmith of considerable skill. It was with that skill he purchased his own freedom and in that I have always seen an example of Liberty's kids forthrightness and power. Moses was not "rescued" from slavery. As a kids show, this would have been an easy route to follow. Moses and the leading child characters were fiction. Fabrications purely for the needs of the show and as such any number of watered down narratives could have been used for Moses, including the white savior narrative so commonly trotted out as a way to do a "not all white people" lesson to help the audience not feel so bad about Moses' plight.

Instead they chose a backstory where Moses' freedom was not granted to him, but rather he seized it for himself and that boldness shined through in Moses consistently.

 Moses was kind, compassionate and wise as a caretaker for the main characters. Yet far from being the safe and neutered "Magical Negro" trope often seen in fiction where the black character only serves to pass folksy wisdom to the white characters, Moses had a will as sturdy as the metal he taught himself to shape. Though there was only so much he could get away with (the show takes place in the 18th century and is trying to be as accurate as it can be within the bounds of a children's show) he was still righteously intimidating when he had to be and had to fight and scrape for every ounce of respect he ever had. Even in a time when the white supremacy of the U.S. was so formidable, and people would attempt to intimidate the man, Moses refused to cede his ground.

More than once Moses would show his freedom papers, to another character and declare with great solemnity and pride "I am a free man–in the employ of Benjamin Franklin," and though had he been an actual figure in history, it is his employer who would likely have been his greatest protection from the injustices of his age, the pride in the voice actor's delivery at the line, "I am a free man" is always what was emphasized.

The most memorable and powerful line that cemented Moses' place as a character of unmatched strength and intensity was in a scene where he confronted a man in support of the institution of slavery. Moses, who towers over the other man and tells him in no uncertain terms...

"You are entitled to your opinion sir... just know that in its exercise, you would deny me mine!"

He manages this feat with a combination of dignity and barely suppressed rage I have rarely seen since and never in a children's show.

And so today I consider Moses. I consider how a fictional character, living in the 1700's manages to be so relevant to me today in the wake of the horrors of current events that swirl like the most turbulent of waters all around my life. Today I consider a man that had he actually lived, would have seen the signing of the Declaration of Independence for which we celebrate today, and would have to recognize that he was still not truly free. I think about the actual freedmen and women of the day who would likely look at their papers and have to wrangle the cognitive dissonance of knowing that a man heralded as one of the greatest of his age, a man who wrote: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal..." could write those words as a slave owner.

Like I imagine many a person of color before me has done and I know many are doing today, I wrestle ardently with the bones of this dissonance. I struggle with the fact that today celebrates the independence of a nation from what they considered cruel tyranny and yet in turn would have kept my ancestors as beasts of burden for its use in ways too gruesome to contemplate for long. And though the sting of knowing that history has been dulled by learning the lesson countless times, the matters of the present day make it clear that the idea of some, that we had banished racism to the four winds, is a delusion both entrenched and dangerous in the extreme.  My nation's racism is not a skeleton, long dead and rotting. How can it be when in my own life I have known men and women who saw the tail end of segregation with their own eyes?

How can it be when I have had teachers and colleagues across the spectrum who attended the civil rights marches of the 1960s?

How can it be when my own mother, as a young girl in Mississippi, was not allowed to read the books she desired because they weren't in her section and as a young adult was chased from a party at which she was the only black attendee by the site of a burning cross on the yard?

So I think about Moses and by extension the real freemen and women whom his story stands as representative for. I am once again drawn to a cartoon character from one of the most unflinching shows for kids about history I've ever seen. It didn't shy away from the ugly truths of the founding fathers of this nation as slave owners, not did it pretend that life was easy for black folks once they were off the plantation whether they were in the south OR the north (much of the show's bits with Moses take place in Pennsylvania).

And in the end I think about a simple fact: we have come a long way in this country... but when one considers the issues still before us, one and all, and the terror that still seeps deep into the bones of me and those like me, for whom, due to the color of our skin, this world was not built for us, this country has a long way to go before it can live up to the truth of its ideals, rather than the mere sentiment. It's what's owed to the real men and women who's stories Moses represents.

... On the Need for Representation in Comics

Originally, the plan for this week was to talk about a pet cause of mine: how Frozen could have been a better movie. That's on hold though. Why? Because things have gone rather crazy lately.

I'm not talking about the real stuff going on in the news. Frankly, this space is intended to be mildly comedic and those are all issues too heavy to touch on with any success here.

No, this week we're gonna talk about comic books. Specifically the news of Miles Morales becoming the new main series Spiderman and representation in media!

They say once you go black...

It's true, our new Spiderman is a black kid (yes I'm aware, bi-racial half black/half Puerto Rican)!

Naturally people were calm, shrugged their shoulders and decided to hold their opinions until they saw whether the books were any good and everyone calmly went on their...

Yeah I couldn't say that with a straight face either. No the actual reaction was something much more akin to... well this frankly.

I am gonna get SOOO much use out of this picture

The worst part is these reactions aren't even rare! This is the rule rather than the exception. Many people came out of the woodwork decrying the change. Folks claiming this was reverse racism, that this was just a publicity stunt, people asking why are they changing existing characters (almost always followed by the lament that "if you want black characters, make new ones and leave Spiderman alone!), or one of my personal favorites just because of how asinine it is: "if they want black characters why don't black people make their own!"

All of these are absurd for a number of reasons but as stated previously, happen frequently when creators try to change the race or gender of a character in fiction in general and in comics in particular. Remember this?

Falcon is Promoted to Captain America

Perhaps you also remember this one when Thor's mantle was taken up by a woman?

The mystery woman was worthy of Thor's Hammer... no not in that way you perv!

But perhaps the biggest and most ongoing one is the casting of Michael B. Jordan as the Human Torch.

I REALLY don't want to hear anything about his looks here. 

Perhaps this got the most flack because this isn't a new hero taking up the old one's mantle. This is a clear cut reimagining of the Human Torch and some people are demonstrably upset. Some fans feel like the lore is being disrespected, or like it was stuns casting. Some people feel like it doesn't make any sense. At the end though, all of these arguments ring rather hollow and like the complaining parties just either A. Don't want comics to change... or B. Are too racist to accept a black person as a super hero. So, in the spirit of craziness let's go through and dissect some of the arguments.

1. It's disrespectful of the lore/This is reverse racism. 

This argument falls apart for several reasons; among them being that in 3 of the 4 cases stated above the transitions are merely mantle changes. There have been at least 4 Earth based Green Lanterns, multiple Flashes and Batman's protege's have stood in for him from time to time. Not to mention the LONG list of Robins. Mantle changes are a big part of comics and have been for a long time. The second part of this is that reverse racism isn't a thing. Prejudice can swing both ways but black folks don't have the systemic power necessary to enforce the sort of violent, virulent and destructive racism that we've suffered on other groups in the U.S. Losing a single comic book character in one adaptation of a movie does not make this racism or even prejudice against white people. If for no other reason then there are still an innumerable number of white characters around. The pickings for POC's aren't anywhere near as common.

The counter to this is, "why is it okay for a black person to take on a role historically done by white actors, but it's not okay for white people to take the roles of POC's? Fair is Fair right? You're being a hypocrite and using a double standard!" Usually once again, accompanied by this face. 

Told ya I'd get a lot of use out of this.

This fails on two levels. The first being false equivalency. The fact is there are, historically a dearth of roles for POC actors of all ethnicities. White actors receive the vast majority of roles and most characters are written and concepted as white. This is especially true in comics when many of the most enduring characters were created in a time long before the civil rights movement. The second issue is one of erasure. People get mad at white washing, especially in historic films because historically it's been used to undermine and erase people of color from impressive things that were part of their history. Exodus: Gods and Kings and the Ten Commandments, both films set in Egypt (what many scholars now believe was probably a multi-ethnic society) featured either few or no POC's or, in the case of the former, all the white actors as royalty and the black actors as background characters, servants, soldiers or slaves. Basically anything but royalty and folks in charge. Think about that for a minute. A movie set in an African nation, and the brown people aren't even in charge there! 

Not only does this take away from POC actors but it's a tool to subtly reinforce cultural stereotypes about how things are "supposed to be" and reaffirms, intentionally or not, whiteness as the default setting for western society while also saying, "POC's don't get to be heroes." 

2. Don't change my characters/If they want POC characters they should just make new characters

This one can almost be grouped with the others at the top but was different enough that it deserves its own shredding. Both in the case of Miles are complete idiocy. Miles IS a new character; as new as Jason Todd was from Dick Grayson in his day. He's his own person with his own issues, fears, foibles and problems. He just happens to use the same mantle. And once again, this only seems to come up when a straight, white, male character changes to a non-white male of any persuasion.

That leads into the next problem. When people say new characters they don't mean new characters. They mean new heroes. On the one hand this CAN be a valid complaint. Some people say that black folks shouldn't just get white hand-me-down characters and that it's insulting. On the one hand this sounds reasonable. On the other hand it's often not used that way. Often it's used as a "you can't play with my toys and should have your separate heroes over there where they won't mess up mine!" This seems predicated on the I believe highly erroneous idea that if a hero is made black they're somehow lesser. 

Sadly, if the comics companies didn't get black characters into circulation this way, there's a great fear people wouldn't buy them. Comics is a business. They need to make money to survive. In a community that fears any change they make like the plague, comic publishers just don't see it as being worth the risk of creating a new character when they can explore new things and have the name recognition of an old one. Especially when in the recent past, comics fans went with their old security blankets rather than try the new toys set out for them.

3. Why change existing characters!

This has been sort of touched on already. Even Stan Lee doesn't like the idea of just redoing or changing old characters. And of course he doesn't! Stan Lee's a creative. He LOVES coming up with new heroes. (Nobody pick on Stan. He's NOT a racist, nor is he the problem here). 

As has been stated though... comics fans seem reluctant to open their wallets for anything new these days. With the wide range of choices, why try anything new when you know you'll like the old stalwarts?

With most of the cases here, that's not what's been done. Peter and Spidey are not the same character. One writer online pointed out that he doesn't want Peter changed because as a white, cis-heterosexual male, his privilege and behavior all make perfect sense with his character. And that's true. Nobody's talking about changing Peter... it's SPIDERMAN who's changing. Nobody suggested making Peter a black kid. Spiderman on the other hand... well that's a whole other issue. What many ignore is that this is a way for the creatives to have their cake and eat it too. A way to explore new ideas, new stories and new concepts with the safety net of name recognition without fear that the property won't be interesting to readers. It also allows comics to do what they need to do to grow. As a medium for some people, the lack of diversity can be off putting. It makes them feel as if they're not welcome in the genre. But these changes give people a sense that they're welcome in the genre, not second string characters or people but that they too can be full fledged heroes in their own right.

(It should also be noted that when they did the reimagining of the DC verse as if Stan Lee created it he did some interesting things with Batman, Wonderwoman and the Flash among others. It was called Just Imagine looks interesting). 

4. If you want POC led comics go make your own.

Newsflash... We do! I assume the people who make this claim haven't heard of the Milestone or Dakotaverse. I hadn't until I was older but it was an imprint especially created to add some diversity to the comics world. 

From left to right: Icon, Rocket, Static, and I think Hardware is the last guy's name

Beyond that there are innumerable indie creators out there slaving away to tell great stories. But comics are a hard medium to sell at the best of times even with the recognition of big publishers. Most indie guys have a hard time getting into large retailers where people can see them. That includes online where the name recognition of a publisher can really impact your distribution. 

Most of the asinine arguments out of the way, one moves on to tackling the arguments that actually do have something going for them. 

1. This is stunt casting/Tokenism

Too often, this has been painfully true. Usually the company gives the mantle to someone new, only to return to the status quo and nothing really changes. Then there's the change only to sell books. The LGBT community sees this a lot in media with "queer bating" when a show teases same sex attraction subtext with no intention of delivering. There are arguments that it also does nothing to change the larger trend against diversity in the genre i.e. that characters of any group other than white are still much less common than planetary diversity would suggest. 

2. This doesn't address the real problem which is hiring practices and visibility in the industry!

This is a loaded one used for good and for ill. When used for good it's a call for cautious optimism. A "good, but do more," deal. It's been used equally often as a dismal tactic which is kind of shameful to say the least. Stuff like this is baby steps. But they are steps. While black creators will always create our own infrastructure, characters and heroes we control, these kinds of things are good steps forward as well. Someone has to kick down the walls of the opposing citadels while we build our own with open doors. Some kid who may need to see a Miles or a new Thor or a black Captain America might get the push they need to become a creator themselves out of it. There's no reason both can't be done.

As for the hiring... that is a truly legitimate grievance. Stepping back to Fury Road for a minute George Miller brought in one of the writers of the vagina monologues and a noted outspoken feminist to help check his work when dealing with the interactions of the survivor women in the movie. As stated before, it got a lot of good press for its treatment of the women. As the OTHER comics related thing that blew up recently shows... that was probably a good thing as the all male team for the Furiosa comic delivered scenes like this:

Here we see Furiosa doing to the survivors what the comic does to the movie

Now, having women do writing may not have solved the problem of the rampant sexism reviewers noticed in the book (more on that here). After all, Twilight was written by a woman and we all know how that turned out. And it's not to say that black people aren't capable of internalizing the general racism of the country either... but some people are rightly concerned about the fact that we have a  story with a black lead that black people don't necessarily control, when historically speaking, that hasn't gone well. That said, the team in charge of Miles seems to have done a good job so far from what I've heard and read. 

This brings us back in some ways to the nature of these changes. The final and most egregious thing that usually gets trotted out by detractors of these things is "I'm all for changing the race of a character if it makes sense..." That phrase at the end there is the crux as well as absolutely, mind numbingly absurd. Why does a POC character have to be justified but a white one doesn't? Historically, the only reason white people were the primary ones making comics at the big 2 was due to discrimination in everything from education to hiring. Short of rare exceptions, the creators of the time and their bosses couldn't conceive of heroes being anything but white. Now writers are trying to adjust that as the times change.

For example, the Bruce Banner is fine as he is... BUT could he be even more interesting as an asian guy? There's an article here that makes a compelling case. The gist of the argument is that for the sake of drama, it makes a certain amount of sense for Banner to be as far from his dangerous Hulk side as possible. Since we don't typically expect extreme emotions from men of asian descent it would make for some compelling explorations and surprise factor. 

It's also a similar logic as to why Hulk is one character who probably shouldn't be black. At last not right now. The stereotype of the angry dangerous black man is low hanging fruit. It's easy, insensitive and boring as a narrative device even beyond just the racist attitudes embedded in the trope. 

Similarly, does Iron Fist NEED to be a white kid to be the fish out of water type character he is? The undertones of the white savior always seemed highly uncomfortable to me. I love the Last Samurai for example and even I have trouble with the fact the movie uses the trope of the white guy coming in and somehow, in a matter of months, being better at being a samurai than the guy's who've been training as samurai their entire lives. This article makes a solid case for the Immortal Iron Fist to be played by an Asian American and even tackles the pesky, "all Asians know martial arts" stereotype well. 

What's frustrating about the continued pushback against non-white characters taking over historically white roles is that it's a pushback against creators trying something new. At this point, the all or majority white, cis, heterosexual male media landscape is a cliche and symptomatic of a larger problem of resistance to racial equality in the U.S. If we can't even have equality in fictional worlds how is it going to happen in reality? 

Another aspect of this is to understand that when someone decries a work as sexist or racist they aren't necessarily saying the work is a hateful or repugnant (though it very well could be). More often they're saying it uses tropes lazily. The idea of the white savior and that a white character doesn't need justification but a non-white one does are lazy ideas we should be past it and able to do more by this point. It's a call for the creators to do better and consider that there may be other avenues to take that are more interesting. 

Some argue that Captain America being black makes no sense with the country's treatment of African Americans. That ignores that 1. There's been a black Cap before AND 2. Black folks fought for this country in every war the U.S. ever fought. Dealing with how a black Cap handles being the symbol for a country that historically doesn't have a great track record for African Americans could make for some interesting and touching story lines with the right writer and one would never be able to tackle the stories in the same way with Rogers still toting the shield. 

The same thing can be said with an Asian Iron fist or Hulk... or yes, even a black Spiderman or Human Torch.

The goal is always telling more interesting stories and exploring where things can go. It bothers me in more ways than one that so many people who claim to love the medium of comics get so upset about more opportunity for non white characters and actively advocate for discrimination (it's like they never really absorbed the "discrimination is wrong" message from X-men). Furthermore, the ultimate argument that these people are making, whether they realize it or not when they oppose more black characters in comics or more fair and diverse hiring is that they can't identify with a non-white character or are afraid of being forced to face stories that might make them uncomfortable. 

I wonder why they have so little faith in their own empathy? 

Fwooo. Okay... that was... longer than even I planned on. Next time... I'll try for something a bit shorter.