Let's talk about pretend racism.

[lord of flies]

I've been musing on the "hatred of mutants" trope in things like X-Men. How would anti-mutant sentiment develop, and as a corollary, how would pro-mutant sentiment develop? For example, pro-black sentiments have often been channelled into rejection of things identified with the white power structure: see, for example, Malcolm X's conversion to Islam.

 

But mutants, as generally portrayed, have no cultural legacy; and on the other hand, neither do their foes. Gays can look back on Rome or Greece; homophobes can call forward centuries of church dogma. The same goes for sexism, "religionism" and racism: these are traditions centuries old, and hated communities which are similarly old.

 

To take a particularly outlying example: european racism towards the native americans. While the europeans had no prior contact, they could build their racism on the old molds of religious hatred: thus the idea of the Aztecs as members of an insane human sacrifice culture. On the opposite end, the native americans could build their anti-racism on their millenia of unique history, which it is still predicated on.

 

Mutants have no cultural legacy. They do not smoothly fit in or correspond to any previously hated group, as "native americans" fit into "heathens." One could make the comparison to witches, but that kind of "fear of the supernatural" is mostly restricted to the third world in the modern era. Perhaps some small towns might get really afraid of a local kid who glows in the dark, but most people nowadays view the world through a particular, secular spectrum.

 

I can see a certain justification for mutant racism, as wrapping into that anti-"dangerous people" cypher, but surely there would be something deeper? I mean, this kind of reactionary discrimination generally has a motley crew of explanations which serve to disguise "I don't like it because," and so does the anti-discriminatory movement.

[Meshugger]

Nah, the mutants would probably be rockstars if anything. They would like Penn & Teller have shows in Las Vegas, showing off tricks and whatnot. The guy who can read minds will have one of the funniest talk shows ever.

 

Except for those with powers like Doctor Manhattan, but they would problably migrate to become gods of something in other parts of the universe.

 

Of course some of them would be "bad" as in breaking laws and killing people. But the reality show "Hardliners: Extreme measures", featuring several mutants with awesome powers like casting fire from their hands or super-strength, as an elite team that are only dispatched on the worst of the worst, will take care of that.

[Kaftan Barlast]

I dont think you can speak of "racism" towards mutants. We'd dislike mutants the same way we dislike emo kids or republicans.

[lord of flies]

I agree that most likely, barring some sort of extreme introduction, mutants will find themselves filtered into other appropriate roles in our society: entertainers, cult leaders, special forces soldiers, et cetera. The most likely scenario is that they are filtered into the third world very violently, but the first world adapts alright.

 

So let's presuppose an extreme introduction to put people off: the first mutant which the public becomes aware of is a teenager who inadvertently explodes in the middle of his school. Now when people think mutant, they think "bad, dangerous." How does this filter through? What are the justifications people give?

[Blarghagh]

I don't know. I suspect in today's society it will mostly rely on what information the media and the internet will turn popular. If the news only reports things like, say, a mutant killed twenty people, even if there was no proof at all, I think the negative thoughts in people's minds will reach critical mass pretty fast.

[Walsingham]

the first mutant which the public becomes aware of is a teenager who inadvertently explodes in the middle of his school. Now when people think mutant, they think "bad, dangerous." How does this filter through? What are the justifications people give?

 

You mean like some jifascist ****tard? They explode in schools.

[Calax]

It'd be like gays and lesbians are right now. Only problem is that a few mutants explode, and a few look different. Ultimately tho I don't think there would be the huge "evil" reaction like in the comics (where people are blowing them up and putting on power suits to beat up on them). And nothing would be like chuck austens run on Xmen where a bunch of honest to god farming hicks had power suits that almost beat a team of characters who'd beaten apocolypse. Seriously...

[Walsingham]

I think a lot of it depends on their aims, as some have already suggested. However, o an extent ANY individual capable of large scale unilateral change to the environment will be viewed - correctly in my opinion - as a potential hazard. One of the remarkable things about our species is that we can enact huge changes, but largely only in concert. This puts a degree of inertia into change. Rapid unregulated change of any kind is inherently toxic to living organisms.

 

By chance such a being would also pose a threat to vested interests, so I think you could be fairly sure that while bat-eared boy would be fine, atom man would be quietly poisoned.

[Musopticon?]

It'd be like gays and lesbians are right now. Only problem is that a few mutants explode, and a few look different. Ultimately tho I don't think there would be the huge "evil" reaction like in the comics (where people are blowing them up and putting on power suits to beat up on them). And nothing would be like chuck austens run on Xmen where a bunch of honest to god farming hicks had power suits that almost beat a team of characters who'd beaten apocolypse. Seriously...

Holy War wasn't started by Austen though, and it was a pretty good story compared to some of the dreck the comic had been going through for the last two years.

 

Ugh, anyhow, I don't feel it's fair to reflect mutant hatred in the X-comics to real world racism. Think about the history of racism in the United States, it's a history of violence, sure, but that violence was very one sided: The west was won(hahhah) by court orders, humane fronts and an idealogy of sustained coexistence on the basis that there really weren't any alternatives available. The extremist elements were relatively short-lived, say Black Panthers for instance, and left a legacy of pride, over and covert, instead of becoming bed time horror stories like Apocalypse.

 

Now, take racism(or bigotry, or speciesm or wte) in the Marvel universe. Remember Magneto taking the world hostage a dozen times? Remember Avalon? Remember Genosha pre-harvest? Remember Gene Nation? There's a justified reason for fear and loathing for the regular Joe and Mindy in the futuristic but all-too familiar US of Reality 616. I mean, their children are in the same school as a kid who can boil minds and her friends, one of whom bends metal like it's soft wax. Their government has a dozen departments and offices, public and dark, devoted to the safety of their citizens against roving unnatural terrors. These offices regularly emply power-armored officers, skyscraper size sentinel robots and a flying fortress housing an aircraft armada. They remember back in the 90's when New York was continuously taken over and nearly destroyed by freakishly super-powered villains(too many to count, heh), half of which vowed world domination and enslavement of the human race. Their freaking grandmother remembers the mutant riots in the late sixties when the government went involuntarily public since some of the "special citizens" decided that all the hush-hush was an orchestrated effort to tear down their spirit and steal their freedom and started burning campuses.

 

In a nutshell, Malcom X turned muslim, Onslaught warped Central Park into a psychic hellhole.

[Arkan]

Like a scrotum here it is in a nutshell:

 

People fear what they do not understand. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering, etc, etc.