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Spiderman's Politically Correct Replacement
jbarr writes "In the latest Marvel Comic series 'Ultimate Fallout,' Miles Morales replaces Peter Parker who has been killed off by the Green Goblin. Morales is a half-black, half-Latino teen, and the creators haven't ruled out that he might be gay. From the article: 'Marvel's editor in chief Axel Alonso denied that having a black Spider Man was a publicity stunt. 'What you have is a Spider-Man for the 21st century who's reflective of our culture and diversity. As someone who grew up on a steady diet of Luke Cage, Hero For Hire and Shang Chi, Master of Kung Fu, I am personally invested,' he said. "
How is a half-black, half-Latino teenager more politically correct than a white teenager?
Next up, Wolverine's special two-part Bar Mitzvah issue! L'chaim!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Bendis is still writing the books. He has written good books for the last 11 years. I think we can give this a chance. If he had introduced a spider-man that was too close to the old peter parker this title would have jumped the shark. There is no reason to retread that ground in this title. If you want peter parker read amazing spider-man.
Political correctness is daintily tip-toeing around words and phrases because those words or phrases may or may not be taboo relative to modern cultural, racial, religious, sexual, etc. constructs.
A Spiderman with non-white ethnic background is just diverse. Anyone can get bitten by a radioactive spider.
All this death of Spider-Man stuff is in their Ultimate line that does away with existing continuity. Peter Parker's still alive and kicking in the regular books.
Am I the only that can't get the thought out of his head that the new spider-man was bitten by a radioactive spider-man?
Otherwise he'd turn into a spider after all.
Why not just let Scumbag Steve take over instead?
The more you know, the more you have to say and the more you should listen.
The Spiderman comic books have been dead to me since the whole clone wars debacle.. Seriously, I'm a bit surprised they're even still making comics anymore.. I thought Marvel and DC made their money off of franchise license these days?
I am so ready for another comic-book crush.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
terrible, antagonizing post title. having minority characters isn't inherently politically correct. sometimes it's just real.
I can really relate to this!
The main comics still feature Peter Parker. This is just the Ultimate line of comics, but from the way the article was written, you would think that Spiderman from now in in the Marvel Universe will never be Peter Parker again. Kill him off and then you have an article to write.
Raj: I can't wait to ask Stan Lee why he insists on giving all his characters first and last names that start with the same letter.
Howard: Oh, come on. Why would you do that?
Raj: Bruce Banner, Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Stephen Strange, Otto Octavius, Silver Surfer, Peter Parker, oh, and worst of all, J. Jonah Jameson, Jr.
Howard: Okay, I'm cutting. I'm not gonna talk to Stan Lee after you cheese him off.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Yeah the Daily Mail could tell me that today is Wednesday and I'd still double-check.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
RTFA: because in the 21st century, everyone is black and latino and a teenager and gay. Duh.
So, you can be Hispanic if you have lived in southern California for the past 10 generations or if you Nazi grandparents had fled to Argentina. Which can lead to some interesting situations. For example, my mom was classified as by her employer as Hispanic when there was a democratic was president and not when a republican was president. And while Mexicans and Peruvians think of themselves different, I would be most would think of themselves as hispanic - just like English and Germans would thenk of themselves as different and yet both as European.
This is what happens when a company like Disney buys out a comic book chain.
You should feel privileged that he wasn't bitten by a radioactive mouse from Florida.
Yes, the Daily Fail routinely picks up on stories that are true but then purposefully leaves out necessary facts in their reporting in order to create a controversy that doesn't exist. In this story they leave out the fact that this is in an alternate universe comic series. In the main series, Spiderman is still white bread Peter Parker. From what Daily Fail would like you to believe, Marvel has removed Peter Parker entirely yet this is just not true.
So is it time to start up the write in campaign for Donald Glover to be the next Spiderman again?
All those blacks, latinos, and gays walking around -- who knew that their very existence is a challenge to samzenpus and jbarr's political beliefs?
Certainly comics should only depict people who look like the vast majority in the United States as of 1950. They should only be marketed toward those people, who rightfully define our country in their own image. Anything else would be politically ... umm .... incorrect.
Because the Daily Fail routinely stirs the racial and homophobic pot with these overly sensationalist stories.
It's what conservatives whine when people don't let them engage in overt racism or when others refrain from racism. So yes, a black/hispanic gay Spiderman is "politically correct." However, I don't think Marvel should limit it's art to appease people who cry "Political correctness!" They want to tell a story about someone who reflects the new America and I think the gay angle is great because Spiderman has always been an underdog.
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It puts emphasis on superficial differences by trying to apply an arbitrary ontology on everyone.
For example, most media "latinos" are portraid as dark haired, brownish skinned people (which is not true in general, it depends on the particular population). They fail to include all the other latin populations: italians, spanish, french, romanian, portuguese, brazilian, etc. (I'm argentinian BTW, so I count as "latino").
It escapes me how stereotyping entire populations on superficialities became "the right thing to do" from PC point of view.
It's Spider-man, not Spiderman. Unless the new character is Saul Spiderman from upstate New York.
The underlying logic of many of these comments, and the phrasing of the story, is that white is normal, and everything else is some intentional 'weirdness'. Let's break down the logic: Of course, nothing could be 'weirder' than a bi-racial person, that's like a half-elf, half-vampire: it's just silly! it's trying to be too many things, like a doctor who solves crimes and is also the mayor! Further the introduction of non-white heroes to a story is a crutch, used to drum up interest to a bad book. If someone could write a good, interesting book, they'd of course have only white heroes, but sometimes they need extra publicity, so they'll add non-white people in there. Gay people are another publicity stunt, just an effort to drum up business. Lurking behind all this is the idea that white people are being squeezed out, in danger, that it's easy for non-white people to get good jobs and positions, but very hard for white people, that any job you see a non-white person doing, there's a white person out there who could do it better. Never mind that this is a fantasy, the grievances that people imagine in their everyday life are dragged in to every such discussion. How do you think this affects non-white people, and people who identify as two races? They're not vampires or elves, they're normal people. Next time you're on the bus take a look around and ask yourself about the people you see: are there any super-heroes that look like a young, fit version of that person?
Italian artist Sara Pichelli, who designed Spider-Man's new look, added: 'Maybe sooner or later a black or gay - or both - hero will be considered something absolutely normal.’
How about you make a NEW superhero that is black or gay, or whatever, and for the superheroes that I grew up with just leave them the fuck alone! Where's your goddamn originality? Of course this is a fucking gimmick to make money, you stupid asshole!
Even reading the stories on this change it is very evident, they are out of ideas.
What they are doing wrong is dismissing the large number of minority superheros that already exist but simply do not get much attention. So instead they have to repackage and existing character and hope to get away with it. It reminds me of the New Coke debacle.
I have no problem with them having a new hero with similar powers, someone who takes up the mantle but it obviously not the original nor ever claims to be such. Still for all the politically correct points being spent in just one character makes the whole thing a farce.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I'll continue to not buy it EVEN HARDER.
For god sakes man, don't sprain anything!
Is it now ok to kill Clark Kent and give Superman over to a guy named Harry Muskin who may or may not be from Krypton? Don't a superhero's public and private identities go hand in hand? I'm a little shocked that it's ok for someone to usurp Spiderman's identity rather than creating a new one. His superpowers are a bit different, his personality is different so call him Arachnoman or something.
Of course this is a publicity stunt. Killing off superheroes is always a publicity stunt, which is part of why deaths never stick.
Odds are, the replacement won't stick either. More likely Parker will come back in a year or two, possibly with minor alterations to his character design but nothing too significant. When this happens, the legacy character will either die, retire, or adopt a new superheroic identity; sometimes they do more than one of these, and due to this being comics they can come in any order.
If this is how they're talking about Spider-Man's replacement, my money's on the new-identity option, and that identity has probably already been fully designed and named with the first issue or two ready to go. The Spider-Man brand is merely a springboard, an attempt to start this guy's intended comic off with a pre-grown reader base.
Is how all these people have come out of the woodwork to comment about how horrible this all is. "PC movement is out of control!" "It's the Gay Agenda(tm) at work!" "The only way to have a black superhero is to take out the white guy first!" And these comments have been rated amazingly highly.
I had no idea Marvel had such a huge following among the KKK crowd.
I am a traditionalist and traditionally superheroes have been white or green. Let's keep it that way, shall we?!
Ever consider it's not politically correct so much as more interesting? As a writer I can tell you it's far more interesting to write about a half-black, half-Latino teen than what is Peter Parker originally? Boring? From Boringsville, USA? With a boring girlfriend? Who wants to write about that?
I guess a half-black, half-latino, half-asian transgendered teen was off the table?
This would be more newsworthy if Marvel hadn't created a Hispanic Spider-man 20 years ago and a Hispanic Spider-Girl 8 years ago.
...is they essentially undid all of Peter's character development, erased his marriage, made him back to a 'single nerdy guy'...and then killed him off and replaced him.
Hey, idiots? Why not just, I dunno, injure him, or remove his powers, or something, and let him retire in peace with his wife? And then have a new guy take over?
Yes, yes I'm aware Peter will probably be back from the dead, and take back up his position, but, seriously. Either you keep the character as he's changed and grown over the years, or you should just let him walk off into the sunset and bring in some new young single person for people to relate to. You don't rewrite his life and then kill him off and then bring in someone new.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
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It's a cowardly attempt to pretend to be in the minority, politically, because they feel guilty about being in the majority, politically.
The framing of this article seriously makes me want to take Slashdot off the list of sites I look at. Politically correct? Because he's not white? Cowardly, pissant, fragile ego white kids need to get over themselves. And now.
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To a majority of people Peter Parker is the real Spider-man just like Clark Kent is Superman and Bruce Wane is Batman. While it is SOP to shake things up with who a super hero is in the comic books, characters that have become well established outside of comic books through other media exist in the public mind as the most common variation of that character. Through the various movies, cartoons and video games the average person associates Peter Parker as Spider-man, and may not know or care about Miles Morales as Spider-man, just like they may not know or are about Dick Grayson being Batman.
Ask a few Brits. Most I know do not think of themselves as 'European'. They think of themselves as 'British'. Something about the island, wars, and cricket.
And I know several Brits, working with them both here and over there. They would encourage me to remind you also that the Scots and the Irish are special cases also.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I have no problem with them having a new hero with similar powers, someone who takes up the mantle but it obviously not the original nor ever claims to be such.
Agreed. its annoyingly stupid to rewrite a known character to reflect some passing 'politically correct' fad. More over, has anyone really thought about the 'why'? I thought Marvel got enough preaching about race issues out of its system by printing the unstoppable flow of X-men spinoffs. I get it Marvel, Mutants==Jews==gays==minorities==good people that just deserve a fair shake. Must you drag spider-man into it too?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
"'Marvel's editor in chief Axel Alonso denied that having a black Spider Man was a publicity stunt. 'What you have is a Spider-Man for the 21st century who's reflective of our culture and diversity. As someone who grew up on a steady diet of Luke Cage, Hero For Hire and Shang Chi, Master of Kung Fu, I am personally invested,' "
Ok, first, you're also personally invested in staying employed. I figured that out.
And you're also a hypocrite, or just a Progressive. 'denied having a black Spider Man was a publicity stunt? There is virtually NO OTHER REASON to do this, than to gain publicity and sales.
Please. Don't apologize or try to justify this as anything other than sales driven. It's ok. You are in the business of selling comics. Grow a set of your own and be comfortable with your career. Sheesh. Such disingenous BS leaves me with no respect for ya, Axel.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I went to buy this comic today and had lot of trouble. I left on my lunch hour to buy the book. The store is down town. Its 20 min dirve to get there and a 20 min drive back. Parking is a parking deck. No air conditioning in the store. They had copies of the book but were not selling them. They were all held for "subscribers." So a huge waist of my time for a 3$ book. I have read that the ultimate line is available digitally day and date. But I have looked and this is not true. The marvel chrome webstore does not carry ultimate spider-man day and date. I suppose it might be available on the IPad but I don't own one of those. I have been buying USM for 11 years and the experiance of getting the books sucks.
Hispanic can best be described as a linguo-cultural grouping; basically anyone who speaks Spanish or Portuguese and lives either in the Iberian Peninsula or in the former Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the Americas. To that, it's useful as an ethnological description, but utter meaningless from any kind of genetic standpoint. Your average Mestizo is going to be good chunks Amerindian, with a big admixture of Iberian, Berber, Arab, Germanic (via the Goths) and a splattering of pre-Indo European Basque in there.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Bonus points for homophobia, linking to the Daily Mail, and the phrase "politically correct".
Things white people like: white comic book super heroes.
That's about business as usual at /. You did realize you're reading a tabloid right? Just a tabloid aimed at the nerd market.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
They tried that with Ben Affleck, but that movie bombed
Marvel Comics has been Mickey Moused!
How ya like dat?
Sorry, I don't get it: how was he any more PC than he was in Spider-Man 1 and 2? It was the same dorky white kid, except this time he finally had the girl. A black alien sludge infecting him doesn't make it PC.
Anyway, Spider-Man 3 was a horrible movie.
Ever notice the racially ambiguous people when installing Windows95 so long ago? You might be black, hispanic, asian..? No one really knows but they weren't white. I was like "geez... could they be more obvious?"
How is a half-black, half-Latino teenager more politically correct than a white teenager?
I completely agree with this. The change to some sort of racial token guy was a stupid publicity stun. Not to mention that 'half-black, half-Latino' is an oxymoron as there are black Latinos.
What's important in comics (or it should be) is the story and the super hero original character, not a ethnic makeup change. People don't give a rat's ass if he's a dreadlocks-wearing transgender half-mix between Flores Island Hobbits and Druids, raised and fed by Chinese-raised Klingons immigrants the futuristic ghetto of District 9 (although sadly, this is going to be the recipe for the next Twilight Spiderman Xtreme Ultimate, DragonBall-Z-meets-Sailor-Moon edition.)
... but I'd rather make an effort myself to view and treat everyone equally and pass these lessons on to future children, and hope that those around me do the same, and disassociate with those who believe race is some sort of hierarchy of superiority. Who knows, maybe someday this will catch on to the majority of the population and race will be the least of all our issues?
Marvel's been saying that Ultimate Peter Parker is going to die and be replaced by a new hero for months now, and there was very little complaint outside of a few people who didn't want to see Peter die and a few people that didn't think anybody else should be called Spider-Man. Now that we know he's not white, there's articles all over the mainstream media and even slashdot complaining that he's "Politically Correct"?
I can respect people who don't want to see Peter die and people that don't think anybody expect Peter should be Spidey, but if you think that the new Spider-Man is "politically correct", then you're the racist here, not Marvel Comics.
I never think of myself as European. I've never been there. I think of myself as an American. I suggest all Americans do the same.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Mod parent up, I didn't realize it was alternate universe until this comment.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
The new mixed-race, politically neutral,. inclusive, sexually ambiguous well-educated and eco-friendly super (or moderate) hero (or achiever). Differently-abled and culturally-aware with healing crystals, a dream catcher, wind chimes and a cape made from recycled hemp fibres.
Stick Men
Thanks for seeing a non-white superhero as somehow remarkable purely on the basis of his race, instead of any other commentary on the storyline, business decisions, or anything else driving the reboot of a franchise. That's, like, totally not a bummer to non-white fans of comic books.
I see this whole "preferential treatment" BS a lot. Before you go spouting off again, here are a few things to keep in mind. Let's take African-Americans as an easy example, since that is where Affirmative Action is almost always applied.
For hundreds of years, African-Americans were brutally oppressed. All of a sudden, in 1964, it became illegal to discriminate against them in many places, such as housing, jobs, etc. However, it's not like on midnight July 2, all of a sudden, African-Americans, who had been systematically denied access to things like education, job opportunities, social infrastructure, etc. were equipped with all of the tools, knowledge, and contacts to really be equal. And it's not like all of a sudden, the vast white infrastructure steeped in bigotry and racism suddenly said, "You know, let's give these folks a fair chance."
Unfortunately, what happened is that racism continued in various forms, just as it continues today. You have two candidates, one African-American and one majority white, applying for a job, each with equal qualifications? The theory behind giving the job to the African-American is two-fold. First of all, it is an effort to try to right the wrongs of centuries past. That African-American person who gets the job will now be able to send their kids to college, to integrate themselves in a more equal social structure, to provide much-needed diversity that will make opportunities truly equal, not just equal "on paper." Secondly, as for the white candidate that got turned down? Don't feel too sorry for him or her. Statistically speaking, that person has a much better chance at finding another job, and getting paid more for it, than his African-American counterpart would were the situation reversed.
People kill me, acting like those poor white people are so disadvantaged because of Affirmative Action. The stats just don't bear that out. I don't know a single white person who has ever said, "Wow, I wish that I were African-American!" because their job prospects would be better. They're not. I don't know a single white person who has ever said, "Wow, I wish that I were African-American!" because they wanted better pay. Why do you think that the recent recession has hammered minority communities a lot harder than white communities? Because even today, almost 50 years after the Civil Rights Act was passed, there are huge disparities in minority employment and minority pay as compared to their white counterparts. So yeah, poor white people, being all discriminated against with Affirmative Action. What's your idea for providing equal opportunity and upholding the Civil Rights Act?
Also, one thing that I think is lost on a lot of people is that it's not like if you have a large company, you have to have a 50/50 split of minority/majority employees. Affirmative Action only kicks when when there is such a significant statistical deviation from the norm that you are obviously discriminating in your hiring practices. If you have 2,000 employees in an area where minority population is, say, 20%, but only 3% of your employees are minorities, something's wrong, and you're going to get bitten. If 19% or 18% of your employees are minorities, you're not going to have a problem.
So when people gripe about Affirmative Action, I have to ask, okay, so what exactly do you think should be the result of flagrantly disregarding the 1964 Civil Rights Act? Let's say I'm a company with 2000 employees, and I have an implicit hiring policy not to hire any minorities, which is against the law. If there's no Affirmative Action, what's the punishment? I get to just keep right on discriminating and hiring white people exclusively because I hand-wave the law off saying, "they make better candidates"? I'm not asking at what point you draw the line between someone discriminating and someone not, but if you're against Affirmative Action, you're basically saying there should be no line, and without some sort of
wow..just wow... I think you may be correct. I just didn't realize it..wow.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
He's Black (half);
He's Gay;
He's from America.
Come on ... :-) We all got trolled big time :-)
What's next - his theme song will be about how he will never going to give us up ? :-)
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And I know several Brits, working with them both here and over there. They would encourage me to remind you also that the Scots and the Irish are special cases also.
If you include the Irish, you should have defintly included the Welsh as a special case. And it probably would have been better to special case the Anglo-Irish (and/or maybe the Ulster-Irish) rather than not make the distinction as most other Irish (esp those that don't live in northern ireland) probably don't think of themselves as Brits (even as a special case)...
I think that movie would have bombed no matter who they stuck in the starring role. Ben wasn't that bad, it was the rest of the characters and story and everything else.
I do forget the Welsh. Darn. And they have such a beautiful language. Yes, they are another non-brit case.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
"Diversity" a buzzword used by exploiters of buzzwords (marketers, advertisers), but to the rest of the world, it's just another way of saying "Demographic Statistics".
What is "our culture"? (actual question). I'm ethically Latino (Mexican origin), non-religious, and American. I grew up with, went to school with, and work with people of all national and ethnic origins. It's genuinely diverse here and thus I find it quite acceptable that there might be a black-tino boy questioning his sexuality.
But I do agree that it's obvious pandering. Comic books pander.
I don't agree that he'd be a vengeful sharia Muslim, though. That wouldn't sell comic books.
...and disabled.
In Living Color was way ahead of its time.
Handiman joined the Justice Legion to settle an affirmative action suit brought on by the U.S. government.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/4992/in-living-color-handiman-joins-the-justice-legion
First Nick Fury turned out to be black, then Batman turned out to also be black, now Spiderman is half-black half-latino. I am expecting Superman to turn asian within the next year or so.
I wonder if the critics who (rightfully) slam D.C. Comics for killing all of its minority characters and replacing them with white people will also condemn Marvel for killing a white character on explicitly racist grounds to replace him with a black character.
Read Amazing Spider-man. Peter Parker is still alive and well and that series isn't going anywhere. Ignore the scary version with the gay minority in it if it bothers you so much.
...is they essentially undid all of Peter's character development, erased his marriage, made him back to a 'single nerdy guy'...and then killed him off and replaced him.
Hey, idiots? Why not just, I dunno, injure him, or remove his powers, or something, and let him retire in peace with his wife? And then have a new guy take over?
Different universes..
The "One More Day" reboot / marriage-erasal / etc was from the main universe.
This is from the "Ultimate" universe, think of it like a parallel universe with different origins / back-stories / etc. The "Ultimate" line is still normally a good read, but the regular Spider-Man is still alive and well. Though still suffering from the horrible writing of One More Day and all of that.
Later than Jewish.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
They would say yes in the US, no if in Mexico.
Would a pre-Zionism Ashkenazi and a pre-Zionism Falasha think of themselves as the same race? What if their descendents are serving side-by-side in the same Tsahal outpost?
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
So what next Marvel writers?
Thor the Norse God of Thunder as a Rastafarian?
I'd like to read the Daily Bugle's take on this piece of news.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
I love experimentation. If I had to say something against this black/latino guy would be that he is kinda gimmicky, meaning, his background doesn't flow naturally from the plot but from a deliberate effort to make him a multiracial bi-minority.
But in the spirit of experimentation, why not create a new superhero? I think it's lame that you have the dare to experiment with his race but avoid experimenting with a new franchise.
But... the future refused to change.
How about you make a NEW superhero that is black or gay, or whatever, and for the superheroes that I grew up with just leave them the fuck alone! Where's your goddamn originality? Of course this is a fucking gimmick to make money, you stupid asshole!
The comic book industry already constantly messes about with their established superheroes and comes up with stupid ideas to keep people buying their ink-marked sheets of reconstituted dead tree, and has been doing so for donkeys years. (*)
These are what are known as "fucking gimmicks to make money".
So how is this one any different? Let me guess, when (e.g.) the current Superman traded places with one from a mirror universe created by the Green Goblin- the new Superman having a purple cape and his nose on upside down- it's an acceptable money-making gimmick, but when the character's black or gay it's "unoriginal" and messing about with the superheroes you grew up with?
(*) Yes, comic book history, chronology and all that "canon" bollocks that fanboys get obsessed with is, is essentially 50 years worth of ratings-chasing dicking about piled into an impenetrable mess.
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Imagine the outcry if they had decided to replace the Green Goblin with a character who is a half-black, half-Latino teen, and whose creators haven't ruled out that he might be gay. Whenever the hero is changed it's lauded as a reflection of our diversity, if it were the villain being changed it would be called a throwback to old negative attitudes.
Me as well. My last comment somewhere else is now void. Sorry.
Stuff that matters?...
Spider-Man! Yeah, I am picky. :P
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But everyone knows that only Americans that agree with my political beliefs are real Americans.
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Most friends of mine from Chile tend to think of themselves as 'American' after Chilean. Some are even insulted when I use 'American' to refer to people from the USA exclusively.
Btw, the majority of Chileans from German decent in Chile arrived well before WW2, I imagine it's the same for Argentina but those wouldn't make your example more interesting.
"I'm not much interested in interoperability. I want substitutability. I want to be able to throw your software out."
But, but.. doesn't he wear a mask? How's anyone going to tell he's black? (Or, for that matter, how could anyone tell Peter Parker wasn't?)
UTF-8: There and Back Again
Bye bye, Marvel!
Most of the Spider-Man merchandise (where the real money is made) is bought by parents for their young boys. You're about to turn off a whole new generation. Watch your profits take a dive.
If 15% of the population is purple, and 15% of the characters are purple, it's real.
If 15% of the population is purple, and 30% of the characters are purple, it's politically correct.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
And let's be honest, Peter Parker was never the most dynamic character in the world, so it's not that sad to see him go Though I was never a Spider-Man fan to begin with so I'm biased
What I do not want to know
He's Black (half);
He's Gay;
He's from America.
What I want to know
How to get bitten in the exact same fashion as the original spider man, to get the exact same powers, to be able to BE the next spider man....
THAT ...is the question!
American. Not Hispanic, not Asian, not European.
I'm sure that happens.
I'm sure it would sell great in Gaza.
The thing about "American" culture is that it's a blend of many. Some people hold on to their lineage's native culture more steadfast while others are quick to adopt anew. Some would argue that American culture is the politically charged "traditional values" of Christian morality, heterosexuality, self-reliance/boot-strap outlook, and fear of those who look/speak/act differently. And surely, that's part of it.
But there's also a plethora of other religious and philosophical understanding of our world, lesbian/bisexual/gay/transgender/transsexual/questioning sexualities, the desire to help another before (or along with) one's self, and the complete addiction to other cultures.
That's all American. In fact, it's the lack of homogeneity that is so distinctly American (melting pot, etc.).
There's the problem. Many don't want a melting pot. They want their own imported culture to be dominant. Political correctness helps them in this endeavor, since any culture except for white European Christian is praised and elevated. You are allowed to be racist, as long as you aren't a white racist. You are allowed to express your religion, as long as it isn't Christianity. You are allowed to assert that your LGBTQABPNWXYZ sexual preference is desirable or even superior, but you're a homophobe if you promote heterosexuality. To state that an immigrant should learn the language of this country is practically forbidden. We should learn the languages of the immigrants if we want to communicate with them.
And don't even get me started on the hypocrisy this all engenders when to PC platforms collide.
Melting pot is good. Trying to destroy the pre-existing culture is not. From the existing culture there is a duty to accept and integrate the desirable aspects of the new cultures. From the immigrating culture there is a duty to assimilate that I don't see happening much.
No justifying either way here, but just a commentary on human behavior.
Many people joke their way through awkward situations as a way of covering their own fear or confusion.
In the case of those who have "transitioned," I'd imagine that there's a whole lot more of both, and a lot of issues that spring from it.
For example, the bathroom issue for those that are "in transition" (men's, women's, or a new bathroom, which is less discriminatory).
But beyond that, there's an element beyond the usual homophobia, etc. Most times, if you're interested in a given gender, it's a simple thing in concept. I'll use the male viewpoint for example.
Meet girl, hit on girl, succeed or get shot down. If you get shot down, then does it matter whether the girl is non-interested in you or your gender? If a guy is interested in you (and you're not), hopefully a simple "sorry, not my thing" will suffice.
But how about, meet girl, succeed (have relationship), discover that girl isn't actually a girl (extra parts) or wasn't originally a girl (missing parts in some ways). Not everyone is honest about that sort of thing, and it's probably not something most people are going to share in a crowded room. There are people who actually fear that scenario, and anger/gallows-humour/etc are often how those people cover such things.
In circles of geeks with lower social skills, meeting somebody within your gender of preference is *hard*, and leads to plenty of feelings of inadequacy etc. Within my friends there are plenty of higher-level-geeks so it's come up as a topic of debate rather than crude jokes (what *would* you do if you discovered your S.O. wasn't originally of the current visible gender), but it's still a pretty complex situation with a variety of levels of acceptance/coping/etc.
Again, I won't say that it's the *right* behavior, but for many - usually people who are hiding their own insecurity - one can see where the behavior comes from.
Just off the top my head I can think of a latino superhero ( Araña ) and two homosexual ones (Apolo and Midnighter from the Authority) and I'm pretty sure that anyone who's more of a comic book enthusiast than me can think of many more. Superheroes who are minorities are nothing new so to me the article is either a) just the typical sensationalist ploy to improve readership from whom ever posted the article or b) Marvel tooting their own horn to sell more copies of the book. All publicity at the end of the day.
You fabricated 'facts' from prejudice,
It's sad that you can't see your fellow people; they're just representatives of 'groups' to you; it's us vs them. But really it's the bigots vs everyone else. Join us and you'll find that all your hatred and paranoia is a waste of time.
Yes, racism will just disappear if we keep only putting white people in media! Increasing visibility of POC is clearly an insidious liberal plot to reinstate slavery!
I hate all people, does that make me racist?
Only Robots and Aliens for me!
That is what the new reboot should have been, a half-robot half-alien, radioactive spider bitten superhero!
Seriously that would be awesome!
An Alien spacecraft crash lands on earth. Its mysterious badly injured occupant is found by Doctor Octavius. Using his (Patent Pending) design for symbiotic robotic arms, he saves the aliens life, but for his own nefarious purposes. The alien after inadvertently finding out about plans to use him/her/it, attempts a dashing escape from the lab through the rector level. However during the escape a radioactive spider bites him. The rest is history... :)
Every time I hear about the republican party becoming the party of racists I know that the person was not a close observer of history,Republicans pushed many on the civil rights acts and only the 1964 act which some objected to because it had the government telling private business who to hire, even then the majority of republicans voted for the passage. The Ignorant say the shift happened with Nixon and the southern strategy, Nixon was has huge civil rights supporter and member of the NAACP while his opponent JFK was not, Nixon broke up unions because of their discrimination policies and even enacted the first affirmative action policies so racist southerns decided to vote for a republican who was heavily in favor of civil rights? Then came Jimmy Carter mysteriously all the racist white southerners disappeared he won the south, then Regan won the south and once again the the racists white southerners were republicans, then came Clinton who won the southern vote, followed by Bush and the southern racist white republicans won the south. Obama was the first democrat in a long while to not take the south and win the presidency, unless you contend that the racists southerners didn't start voting republican till 2000 your argument falls apart pretty quick. Here are a few Dixicrats that folded back into the democrat party that played a prominent role in the party for some time Richard Russell, Mendell Rivers, Clinton's mentor William Fulbright, Robert Byrd, Fritz Hollings and Al Gore Sr. It's time to realize that your skewed view of the south is ignorant the south is not filled with dumb racist white Republicans who hate Obama because he is black.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make