Racism in entertainment may not be what you think. (But sometimes it is)

I have been thinking a lot about race and comics and media in general lately. I also believe that I have a unique viewpoint from which to see the situation which means I may see some things others don't or can't or simply can't acknowledge. As a black male I was born in a predominantly white country (Canada) but only lived here when I was at an age where I didn't see skin color but saw people as simply people. Sure I could tell there was a difference and noticed how few black people there were but my friends were simply friends and not "my white friends". Then I moved to a predominantly black country (Barbados) where I grew up, able to see the difference in races but not really feeling the anger that has to come from being enslaved or discriminated against. I love and respect my race the way I respect most things. Nothing is greater than the other... they all have things about them that make them great and it's more than normal to be proud to love such things whether it be race, comics, music or whatever it is you love.

Okay. That being said:

This train of thought came along due to two main things:
a) The Justice League having so few (and often one "token") black characters.
b) The Avengers having so few black characters and the recent outcry for a black Avengers team.

Let me start by saying that I don't think that either of these issues stems from any conscious racism. It simply stems from society and years and years of stereotypes being presented to us. Racism existed at it's strongest at a time when culture was at it's height in many ways. The problem this created is that for years and years and years all the characters in literature and TV were white. Even now, in countries that are predominantly black, people still get a lot of North American television and books and magazines so they are presented with images where main characters (heartthrobs, hot girls, heroes, etc) are all white. Now, when you create a character you automatically draw them according to what you think that kind of person would look like and our subconscious memory is filled with tons of Caucasians in these roles. Truthfully, in designing characters you're TAUGHT to use stereotypes.
Think, for instance, of an old wizard. Go on. Imagine one. Now most of you thought of an old man with a long beard and maybe a pointy hat. Okay... now think of a Superman-type character. This time the mental image you had most likely  had a cape despite that not being something which specifically belongs to only Superman. And all librarians wear glasses and are either old or super attractive. See? That's how we're programed. Because if you draw something that other people will recognize right away it makes it easier. Don't believe me yet? Go look at some anime. Notice how many of the "hot girl" characters are white (blond hair and such). Honestly, though, at this point in time I believe the average reader to be smart enough to shrug off the initial surprise - that for instance, the librarian can be a young man of moderate looks and not wear glasses  - and move on.

See? They're essentially the same wizard because that's how we are all trained to think when designing characters.

So the real reason the Justice League is all white is because creators were basically drawing the SAME PERSON over and over again. He's the hero stereotype. Look:

They're all the same age, build, height... in fact they ALL have blue eyes. (excluding cyborg of course) They are the same person.When you look at it that way you see that the problem isn't not wanting to use black heroes but simply not thinking about it. And it's not just black heroes.
Name 3 of your favorite Asian comic characters. Can you do it? Okay... how many of them are martial artists or scientists. Exactly.
Do the same for Latino characters. Okay. Now how many are involved in gangs or are heartthrobs with names like "Ricardo"? Right.
Despite sounding simple, though, this is a very hard habit to break out of. Writers and artists today would have to teach themselves to question their design process. To not draw the wizard the way every cell in their body tells them to.To make a team and then forcibly go back and say "okay... I have to make some of these characters look different".

But that brings me to my next point. What I said was  that the designer would have to make some of the characters look different... not add some different looking characters. THAT is the difference between a good character who happens to have a different skin color and a stereotype. The former is a person first and it makes sense for them to be there. The second doesn't fit and so his purpose becomes his skin color. That is, after all, the only reason you added them in there. So all they do is act their color (or, i suppose, gender) which in and of itself is a flawed way to think. In Milestone comics Static was the former. He lived in a city full of gangs but he essentially had a personality closer to Peter Parker's than to your classic "ghetto- kid". For a basic rule of thumb- if the race or gender of a character is at the beginning of how you refer to them (BLACK superhero, FEMALE supervillain, ASIAN superteam, etc) then you are making a mistake.They should be who they are first and what they are last- unless what they are is directly important to the storyline.
This is also why a team of black Avengers wouldn't work and why it made me mad when people clamored for it.
1) Why would you even want that? Do you not know that's just segregation? Why segregate the Avengers by, instead of learning to get along and treat each other equal, putting them on a separate team and sending them off somewhere else? Don't say "it would give them a team they can call their own" either. That's stupid. If in response to being asked why there aren't more black people at a certain company the CEO was to open another identical branch down the street and send ALL the black people there but still never hire any in the first building would people say "oh, now they have an office they can call their own"? No. They would say "He did WHAT?? ARE YOU KIDDING ME???"
2) IT MAKES NO SENSE. Don't agree? Okay here's a scenario. Try to come up with a scene wherein Tony Stark explains why he needs to form a team comprised ONLY OF BLACK PEOPLE for a mission. Go on. I'll wait. Is there any non-racist way for that to happen? No. There isn't. So shut it.
The problem is that again, people are missing the whole point of civil rights and equality. Equality isn't rounding up the blacks/latinos/asians/women/etc and giving them a copy of what you have, only somewhere else. That is, as I stated, segregation. It's like having a separate water fountain for them. Equality is reaching a point where you see all people as people and therefore you would, for instance, hire a black person/Latino person/Asian person/woman to do the same job as anyone else without even considering skin color or gender. And maybe, if we all work hard to give some of our characters a little more variety the next generation will be able to do that without thinking about it because these new characters are what they think of when someone asks them to draw a wizard, or librarian or superhero.


Now I will end on a slightly sour note. I spent a lot of this entry mentioning how I don't think a lot of the artists and editors at the major companies are actually racist at all or at least not intentionally so. There ARE, however, a lot of times where you can't let things slide. This is why "The Last Airbender", a movie based on a series I LOVED, was so terrible and got so much heat despite it's large fan base. (Well also the fact that M.Night tried to fit a season's worth of story into one movie by taking out all the pacing that made it epic)
To illustrate... here are the four tribes as seen in the cartoon:

Earth. Could be Caucasian. They look kind of Asian.

Water. Least racially ambiguous of all. They all have darker skin.

Fire. Caucasian maybe. Likely Asian.

Air. Most likely to be Caucasian. Also possibly Asian.

Or they could all be Latino. Ha. Now here are the movie characters compared with their counterparts:

Why did I point all this out? To make one thing very clear. In the cartoon the water tribe is obviously Inuit or something similar and it makes NO SENSE to cast people from the south pole as anything else. Every other kingdom and nation - and this is very important - including the fire nation has a light skin tone and could feasibly pass for Caucasian if you cast it that way. But in the MOVIE they made every tribe, kingdom and nomad (the good guys) Caucasian and the Fire Nation (badguys) are the only people with dark skin. EVERYONE in the fire nation has dark skin. In other words in a movie where anyone with half a brain would have cast some ethnic groups people on the side of the good guys since they're supposed to be from all over the world they chose to make it so that every one was Caucasian except for the villains.You mean to tell me no one noticed this? Suuuuuuuuuuuuure.
M. Night had no part in the casting (I'd assume not since it's not his job), so it's his horrible, horrible luck to get caught up in the most blatant racial scandal in entertainment in recent history. I feel your pain, Night. (EDIT*** Turns out that M. Night is actually completely responsible for most of this mess. He personally picked out Zuko and the Katara. For shame.)

Now I am off to bed to dream of a world of equality. Real equality. If I see a team of all black Avengers in my dream I will punch them all in the face. I swear.