Race in Retro Fandoms
So, like the cut text says, I got my degree in history, with a focus on American history. Specifically with a history on social movements (though let's face it, at Grinnell like 50% of all classes are about social movements in some way). And mainly what I gathered from all those classes is how complicated social change is in the US, and how basically everyone is in some way damaged by internalized prejudice. It's like, so obvious that all oppressed people should work together toward a common goal, but it's extremely difficult to get that to play out.
Most of the white feminist leaders were racist as fuck. At worst they actively, overtly disliked people of color (cough, Alice Paul). At best they were well-meaning but patronizing (cough, Eleanor Roosevelt, who may have invented "Some of my best friends are Negroes", although she was perfectly sincere about it. Sorry Eleanor I still love you the most basically!!). Mostly they just cared more about advancing their own cause and didn't especially mind throwing black ladies under the bus to get there.
Meanwhile the black civil rights movement was pretty friggin' sexist ("the only place for a woman in the SNCC is prone", or the way everybody swept Claudette Colvin right under the rug). Also pretty much everybody was anti-Semitic, just in a casual sort of way.
Overt and covert racism permeated American society and, from what relatively little engagement I've had with fandom, nobody wants to acknowledge that. XMFC takes place before the Civil Rights Act was passed. There was still segregation during XMFC. The Army was segregated during World War II. Where did Steve even get those token soldiers of color?
Old Jim Crow ruled in the Army as much as in the South. Blacks had their own units, mess halls, barracks, bars -- State-side, England, France, Belgium, it didn't matter. There were no black infantry units in ETO. There were nine Negro field artillery battalions, a few anti-aircraft battalions, and a half dozen tank and tank destroyer battalions. Some did well, some were average, some were poor. (source)
IDK, on one hand I do think it's better to have them represented on screen (and apparently they did exist in the comics, if not, like, in history). On the other hand, in fic, if the point of fic is to further explore the world of these characters... it's not pleasant, but it is true that they'd probs be pretty racist on some level. By the 60s, maybe not so overtly, especially in New York, but they'd still have been raised in that environment. I mean the X-Men were basically made as a symbol of why racism is dumb.
I hear people online complaining that the reason Darwin doesn't get written about much is because he's black. OK, well, if fans in 2012 are uncomfortable with him, how would his teammates in 1962 feel? Just because they're mutants doesn't make them immune to racism.
I'm not saying they can't ~learn a valuable lesson~ about it, or that every fic should be some didactic anti-racist propaganda. But just, honestly, if you're making a list of characteristics for characters who grew up in that era: subtle, ingrained racism should probably be on that list unless you have a specific reason why it wouldn't be be. And that reason can't be "because I like her!" I admire the work Alice Paul did on behalf of (white) women, but that doesn't make her not racist. Just because Charles Xavier loves all mutants doesn't mean there might not be a little part of him that feels superior to black mutants, even if he's not consciously aware of it. Especially if he's not consciously aware of it.
Perhaps the idea is that fandom is this fun little fantasy world where people have super powers and nobody's racist and everybody has threesomes, and it's certainly everyone's prerogative to write characters that way. But if you want to really explore the world these fictional characters live in: consider race. (I'm not even going to talk about homophobia. Or racism in contemporary fandoms. But for movies set before the Civil Rights Act, it's a really curious omission.)