The issue starts with Bat-Girl standing on a swinging swing, hitting a man who is on the top of a see-saw, because another man is stuck at the bottom of the see-saw.
This raises so many questons.
The other day, I said this:
Who wants ##% of characters to fulfill some role? Straw men? Idiots? Let’s go with idiots.)
and reader Spacesquid said this in the comments:
Just to go partially off topic and stick up for statistics for a moment: demanding x% of characters fulfil some role is foolish, as you say, but pointing out x% of characters currently fulfil that role is different, isn’t it? in fact, how else can you have this conversation, unless it’s grounded either in a) the current proportions of various types of people, or b) how that proportion is changing as time goes on (either compared to the other proportions, or on its own terms)? What are examples but points of data, and what is the drawing of conclusions from those examples but the application of statistics?
I mean, sure, some people do it very, very badly, but at heart it’s still number crunching; at the end of the day (and acknowledging the unpleasantness of this being framed as white vs all others) I can’t see how “Here are six examples of non-white characters in DC being badly treated” is actually qualitatively different from “Here are the proportions of white and non-white characters in DC, and the proportion of those that have been badly treated”. The latter would take much longer to compile, but that makes it hard, not stupid.
In short, I think there’s a difference between stating statistics are irrelevant in these kinds of discussion and pointing out statistics can be applied in exceptionally stupid ways.
Or am I missing something?
It’s a good question and I wanted to take the time to give it the attention it deserves. There are situations where statistics and/or proportions may shed some light on a subject, and they often serve as a pretty decent starting point at best. What I am against, though, is the use of proportions or real-life census stats as a guideline or as a tool for discussing race in art. Now’s the part where I attempt to express why I think that’s a mistake.
Race, as we live it in the United States, is a way to group people based on shared lineage. Due to the way race was approached decades ago, it is very simplified and dumbed down. You could be Salvadoran and your friend could be Mexican, but on the census, you might be ticking the same box. If you’re Afro-Cuban, everybody you meet might assume you’re mainline American black. Our approach to race is a complex concept dumbed down, but still a huge part of our lives. I’m black and from Georgia. I’m black on both sides up to my great grandparents, but sometimes my facial hair comes in with a red tint. That makes me wonder what other races are floating around in my genes. But, for the purposes of America, that mixed ancestry doesn’t matter. I’m black.
The main source for race-related statistics is the US Census. It’s probably the only thing with a wide sample size and anything approaching accuracy. Roughly, and I’m rounding a bit here because the decimals are irrelevant, the Census says that the population of the United States breaks down to 75% white, 12% black, and 12% hispanic. The next highest represented race are Asians, then mixed race people, and then American Indians. (For some reason, all of these numbers, after subtracting 2.4% for mixed race people, add up to 110%. Don’t blame me, I’m an English major. Just ride with me and know that America keeps it 110% real. Or understand that the Census counts “Hispanic or Latino (of any race) and that messes up the numbers some. [This is why statistics are evil.])
Applying a simplified version of these numbers to a comics universe means that you’d end up with 75 white people, 12 black people, 12 Hispanics of indeterminate origin, 3 asians, and 1 person to represent everything else. So then, when talking about racism or race in comics (they are two very different things), you could say that DC sidelining Wally West and his family reduces their Asian representation by an apocalyptic amount while reducing their white representation by a negligible number. That’s a fair point, and one way that statistics can be valuable.
The problem comes in deciding which metric to use. If you use my hometown as a model, you’d have 62 white people, 32 black people, 1 asian person, 3 latinos, and 1 person to represent everyone else. You could pop Black Goliath, erase Jason Rusch, kill Bishop, and evaporate Ron Troupe and it would just be a really bad weekend, rather than a minor bit of genocide. If you killed Jaime Reyes and Hector Ayala, though, you just decimated the latino population.
It gets worse when you start looking at regions. Which side of town you lived on decided which high school you went to, and the racial make-up of the town gets even more complicated. When I went to school overseas, I was one of maybe eight black people in the whole school. I was related to one of the others, and only two of us were high schoolers. The rest of the population was majority white/Spanish, and then latino, and then Asian, and then other. If I stayed home sick, that high school suddenly became 50% less black than it was before. New York City is less than half white. San Francisco is 30% Asian. Atlanta is sixty-some percent black. Los Angeles is almost half latino. And on and on and on.
In real life, certain race-related statistics are so fluid as to be meaningless. I’ve lived in neighborhoods that were majority black, majority white, and evenly mixed. My group of friends over the years has ranged from exclusively black to mostly white to mixed evenly. Which one do you use as a guide? Where do you point and say “This is the right one?”
You can’t. All of them are right. Approaching race on a macro level, as in using the 75/12/12/3/1 ratio, is okay, but only for macro level things. It’s the barest of starting points, just something that gives you an idea that something is janky. The closer you dial in to a single person or area, the more the data twists and turns on itself. It’s like my English major’s understanding of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. The more accurate you try to be, the less you reflect the reality of the situation.
“America is 12% black” is an accurate statement. It is true for a very specific situation. What it isn’t, however, is real. You can’t actually use it to reflect real life, because real life generally doesn’t support that number. It’s being measured on too large of a scale. It’s like–the universe is more empty than it is full. There are electrons and atoms and whatever, but the space between them is what creates that figure. From our point of view, though, the universe is full of stuff. Its emptiness is something too big for us to see, like the exact racial proportions of the United States are something that only matters on a very high level and doesn’t really reflect life down here on the street.
Applying this to comics seems to me like an error in approach, and paying attention to diversity for diversity’s sake, rather than just writing books like real life looks. One of the most interesting comics on the stands has a 100% Japanese cast
Here’s the root of my problem with running with percentages: good stories are good independent of color. I think that, as children, it is important to see people who look like you doing positive and negative things. That’s one of the reasons I’m so thankful Milestone existed. But, overall? If you’re grown? If it’s good, it’s good.
Good writers and artists pay attention to things and create stories that stand head and shoulders above the pap. There was this recolored Legion of Superheroes thing that made the rounds last year. I thought it was pretty dumb, because all the choices seemed pretty arbitrary. Same thing with “Chromatic Casting.” There was no reason behind it beyond making the Legion less white. As far as reasons go… it works, up to a point. This, though, went far beyond that point into… what? Showing how things could be? That’s not how this works. What good is that? Let’s deal with the real, and if it’s artificial? Let it be.
An example of how to use statistics: Most black people marry other black people. Last I read, something like 93% overall marry within their race. If you look at comics… you can count the number of regular or high profile black/black relationships on what, one hand? It took until 2006 for Storm, the highest profile black hero by far, to start dating a black dude. So, if you look at the real life numbers (high percentage of blacks marry blacks) and compare them to comics (interracial marriage is more common than black/black relationships), you have the ingredients for an argument. What you don’t have is an argument, not yet. You need to look at the situation, examine the history, look at the characters involved, etc etc. You need to see about some context before you can say anything, and just saying “It’s 93% here and 10% there” isn’t enough.
One million words later: that’s why I don’t like using numbers to talk about race online. It works until it doesn’t, and when it stops working, it really stops working. It works as a starting point, just something to give an idea form, and then you need to find something else.
The only statistic that you need to know is that 4thletter! keeps it 2010% real.
I always welcome more Batgirls, but I don’t see it happening for the following reasons.
1. All of the Birds of Prey know Cassandra Cain and know her well. Sure, White Canary in Birds of Prey was wearing a half-mask, but they’d still know her. And wouldn’t it be a little awkward to introduce this big mystery character on the last page of Birds of Prey only to have the characters go, “Oh, hey Cassandra,” in the next issue? I guess we’ll see.
2. White Canary? Really? That’s the title? A spin-off of an already shuffled around character? That’s not the strongest title for a book. ‘Cassandra Cain,’ would be a much better title all on its own. You have the alliteration, the allusion to the homicidal Cain in the Bible. It’s like Damian Al Ghul. That’s an evocative enough name, and by this time a well enough known name, to stand alone.
3. As I understand it, when Ian Sattler was asked at Heroes Con, about any upcoming Cassandra Cain books, he said they planned to leave the character alone for a couple of years. In my experience, the default answer for these things is ‘sure, ____ might come back soon,’ no matter how unlikely it is, so if someone is actually willing to say that there’s nothing planned, there’s probably nothing planned.
Or are they running a double game on us?
What people like this Mark Engbloom guy don’t understand is that my post about Ian Sattler’s comments wasn’t a reply. It was a dashed off “Your mama” or “u mad?” He said something stupid, and rather than coming with a point-by-point reply, I came with jokes published by his own company. It’s like joking about “White Power Rings.” No, they aren’t called that in the text. No, it isn’t a valid criticism. Yes, it is funny.
But fine. Let’s look at exactly why Sattler’s statement is the most clown shoes, two-faced thing to come out of DC since the last time somebody up there talked about how much they liked Milestone.
It’s so hard for me to be on the other side because it’s not our intention.
It’s not how we perceived it. We get the same thing about how we treat our female characters.”
That’s nice, but who cares about your intentions? If I’m stomping around with my big feet and I accidentally stomp on your toe and break it, I don’t get to say, “Yo my bad about your toe, dog, but that wasn’t my intention.” I can either apologize if I’m feeling sorry or I can move on. I don’t think forcing people to apologize is a worthwhile endeavor, either. I know that I gave enough insincere apologies as a kid and have seen enough as an adult to completely devalue the thought of a forced apology meaning anything at all.
When faced with criticism, you can either appease people or you can stonewall them. If you don’t think you did anything wrong, stick to your guns. “I don’t think it was racist” is perfectly fine. “We didn’t mean it, but also people say we’re mad sexist, too, isn’t that weird?” isn’t.
There is a reason behind it all. We don’t see it that way and strive very hard to have a diverse DCU. I mean, we have green, pink, and blue characters. We have the Great Ten out there and I have counter statistics, but I won’t get into that.
The problem with this statement is that green, pink, and blue people don’t exist. In fact, comparing actual, real-life people to fake people when discussing real-life issues is a pretty screwed up thing to do, isn’t it? It’s saying, “Yes, I understand your complaints, but look over here! This thing that we made up is just like what you want, just a different shade! That’s the same thing, right?”
No, it really isn’t. The point of diversity is to reflect reality. If you’re bringing up imaginary people when talking about actual people… you probably should just stop talking. A real life example: you’re making a cartoon for kids. Your boss asks why there aren’t any kids in your show. You respond that there are several kids, like this dwarf, this baby dragon, this baby goblin, those are like kids, right? No.
If you have counter statistics… bring them out. Setting aside the fact that this isn’t about statistics at all (Who wants ##% of characters to fulfill some role? Straw men? Idiots? Let’s go with idiots.), show me what you’ve got. Here, I got a head start on them for you! I did a rough count and came up with 73 DCU covers in their August 2010 solicitations. I didn’t count CMX, Wildstorm, or Vertigo, so these are strictly books with characters owned by DC. There is one Brazilian woman, one Asian woman crying in a cemetery (and perhaps another in Birds of Prey, but I can’t tell through the mask), and five black people. Except, two of the black men are unnamed criminal henchmen, one is Azrael, one is Static, and the other is Bumblebee on Tiny Titans. I didn’t count the covers Damian appeared in, but probably should have, as he is at the very least part Arab and part Chinese. In contrast, there are eight alien characters who have recurring roles and seven blonde teenage girls.
So, please. Tell me about how you “strive very hard to have a diverse DCU.” There’s an equal number of talking monkeys and black women on your covers. Scooby Doo is on more covers than that.
John Stewart is the only Green Lantern to not show up on any covers. Hal, Kyle, Guy, Alan, all of those guys get covers. Hey, pop quiz! Does the JLA have a Luke Cage? No? Well… name a black supporting character in a DC Comic on the level of a Sam Wilson! Steel? Now name another. Or hey, name one on the level of a Robbie Robertson. Just Lucious Fox? Really? Whatever happened to Ron Troupe? Remember him? Married to Lois Lane’s sister, had a kid with her? Oh, right. Lucy Lane is back and superpowered. Ron and the baby are a footnote and a question mark.
DC Comics isn’t a racist company and it isn’t run by racists. This does not, however, mean that they cannot do and say stupid things that are racist. Killing Ryan Choi is not, in and of itself, racist. Ditching Ron Troupe and marginalizing John Stewart is not racist. Replacing Jason Rusch with a more boring version of Firestorm isn’t racist. These are perfectly valid story choices that, in a better world, would have taken place in stories that were worth reading.
The problem is the trend. Jason Rusch gives way to Ronnie Raymond. Kyle Rayner and John Stewart give way to Hal Jordan. Wally West and his multiracial family is replaced by Barry Allen and Iris West, a good ol’ down home American couple. Ryan Choi is replaced with his equally unlikely to support an ongoing series predecessor. Milestone is publicly courted and wakes up to find money on the dresser, with a note saying “Lose my number.” Despite the fact that white people are a global minority today, the official future of the DC Universe is about as lily white as it can get and most of the aliens are white people. In what world does that make sense?
When you consider the trend of how DC has treated its non-white characters (and the fact that this argument has to be phrased in terms of white vs ______ is foul), DC Comics comes off looking pretty stupid. I don’t care whether these characters fit into their Silver Age nostalgia or not. When, as a company, you have made a habit of marginalizing a specific type of character, introducing new characters that you’re going to let die on the vine in an attempt to show how “diverse” you are, and then talking out the side of your mouth in public…
Whatever. I don’t have time for things that don’t respect me. Kick rocks.
Alert reader elad, during the last podcast, was good enough to point me to the Execution of Mister Mind in the old Captain Marvel Adventures. It was just as good as I imagined it would be.
Better, even.
What’s even better – someone I know from my local comic book shop brought in the full color, massive trade of the Captain Marvel Adventures and let me see how this went down in glorious color. (Take that, proponents of e-comics, of which I technically am one. Oh well.) Highlights include the foreman of the jury declaring that they didn’t even have to leave the room to decide whether Mister Mind was guilty or not. They knew right away.
All I could think, from Captain Marvel acting as the prosecuting attorney to the verdict to the teeny, tiny electric chair that they strap Mister Mind into, was this needs to be a Law & Order episode. The pacing is perfect for the ‘dun duns’ and the work out that Jack McCoy’s eyebrows would get through the whole thing would be epic.
But I’d settle for an animated short added on to a straight-to-DVD movie. I love that dead worm.
A serious topic came up about how characters who are minorities who happened to be legacy characters like Ryan Choi are killed off so their caucasian counterparts can return and how they feel like they are being cheated or sidelined out of their roles. Sattler took a more serious tone. “It’s so hard for me to be on the other side because it’s not our intention. There is a reason behind it all. We don’t see it that way and strive very hard to have a diverse DCU. I mean, we have green, pink, and blue characters. We have the Great Ten out there and I have counter statistics, but I won’t get into that. It’s not how we perceived it. We get the same thing about how we treat our female characters.”
–Ian Sattler, DC Nation @ Heroescon
You walked into this one, man.
And honestly, if you think blue characters count toward “a diverse DCU,” you’ve got some issues… problems you need to iron out.
So, it appears that because of slow initial sales of the Wonder WomanDVD made Warner Brothers rethink their plans to make a Batgirl animated movie. And what’s more, it caused them to rethink making a Batgirl: Year One animated movie.
This saddens me.
In fact, it caused them to rethink making any movie with female leads. This angers me, a little.
Let’s focus, for now, on the saddening part, and what we can do to fix it. For starters, there is an internet petition already started to restart the Batgirl: Year Oneproject. I know, I know, internet petitions suck. However, I’m very much of a ‘throw everything at the wall and see what sticks’ mentality these days, and so I signed it and hope you will, too. I also hope you will blog, will ask questions at conventions, and will, if you’re old fashioned, drop DC a letter talking about how much you’d like a Batgirl:Year One movie. That is, if you do. And if you don’t, well, you’re a fool. Below I will list the reasons why I think that even if Wonder Woman had sold badly entirely, and not just initially, it would be a good idea to make a Batgirl: Year One movie.
