This
story features a lengthy flashback sequence involving Daily Planet editor
Perry White and Planet owner
Franklin Stern, in their younger days.
You already know what color White is (duh) — Stern is black.
The
events in the flashback take place in (probably) the 1950s, in a town called
Melonville (as in watermelons?), in an unspecified Southern U.S. state. Crosses are being burned, people are being
killed and kidnapped.
When
he meets Stern for the first time, White says, “I may be a reporter from up
north, but the truth is my job … and I’m telling you, the entire white race
isn’t responsible for these murders!”
To
which civil-rights activist Stern replies, “The whites enslaved my people! They denied us voting rights … schooling …
equal opportunities —!”
Soon
they find that a red-hooded, red-robed group called the Aryan Brotherhood is
behind it all. White’s Planet
contacts uncover an “abandoned” iron mine, where the pair find an Aryan
Brotherhood training camp, along with a genetics lab with files going back to
Nazi Germany — and a meat locker where the bodies of more than a dozen black
and white human corpses dangle.
After
a wild escape with the files -- proof of the nefarious goings-on --, Stern and
White call in the Feds, who clean up the mess and cart the evil ones (including
the town sheriff) off to face justice.
This
incident steels Stern’s resolve to take Harvard Business School up on their
grant to get his doctorate. White, we
all know, went on to become Planet editor, where he again encountered
Stern. And they both continued their
quests for justice, with Stern using wealth as his road to power — the power to
make a difference for the better.
A
final angle on this issue is that the flashback is introduced by Keith White,
whom Perry and Alice White adopted when his mom was killed. It doesn’t matter to them that Keith is black
and they are — well, White. Or to Keith,
either. Or to me.
Supergirl # 23, July, 1998
The
title of this tale is “Double-Edged Sword”; it’s written by Peter David (yes,
the same guy who cranks out a TREK novel every other weekend) and penciled by
Leonard Kirk. It’s up to you to decide
on the sword of the title. I would say
that the phrase describes truth, and freedom of expression.
The
story opens with a sign-carrying demonstration against an upcoming speech by
the controversial Taylor Landers at Stanhope University. In an interview with Cutter Sharp one of
Supergirl/Linda’s friends/supporting cast, Landers says, “My research indicates
that, quite simply, the black population of this country stands to be the
ultimate ruination of it,” because of
“the lowering of quality in the workplace due to Affirmative Action, the
rewards granted via welfare for the uncontrolled birthing of children who will
be poorly educated and a drain on resources, …” and so on.
Not
surprisingly, there’s also a protest at the speech site. Superhero Steel (a black scientist in an
armored technosuit) shows up. “I believe
in the First Amendment,” he tells the crowd.
“But even the First Amendment is not absolute. There are limits where it presents a danger
to the health and well-being of the populace.
“I
know this man, this Dr. Taylor Landers, Sociologist and Anthropologist. I know the poison he speaks. In his words, in his actions, he slanders an
entire race of people.”
Talking
with Linda Lee Danvers (Supergirl’s Secret Identity), Cutter tells her of a
march in Skokie, Illinois, where the ACLU stood up for a Nazi group’s right to
march in a Jewish neighborhood. Cutter
says (wisely, I would say), “The cost of my freedom to talk up — I dunno,
Israel — is Nazis having the right to spew their attitudes. Don’t you get it? The moment anybody is shut up, everybody’s
at risk.” A smart guy, eh?
When
Landers shows up for his speech and Steel tries to stop it, Supergirl says that
even hate speech is protected speech. “I
fight for ideas, Steel,” she says.
“Who’s going to decide which ideas get spoken? You?
Me? And what will happen when people
don’t say what’s on their
minds?”
They
are distracted when the Student Union is bombed. In the mêlée, Landers, “the bigot,” saves a
black cop from a fiery death.
The
final page, a postscript of sorts, contains a conversation wherein we discover
that a future Stanhope speaker will be Dr. Muhammad Santos — variously called
“one of the foremost thinkers of the nation of Islam, a major proponent of
Black Pride,” — and “a noted anti-Semite.”
The point
being, free speech must be allowed, whether you agree with it or not!
However,
true pride in yourself must come from your own unique qualities and
achievements — not from your membership in any
group and its supposed superiority to any other group and its
members!
Editorial
time here: It doesn’t matter if
Cleopatra or Jesus or Moses were black or white. What matters is the human achievement behind
the pyramids. What matters is that Moses
led his (whatever color) people out of slavery.
What matters is that Jesus was born and died for everybody, bigots and
saints alike. As He said in the book of
Mark, it’s not the healthy people who need a doctor. It’s sickies like you and me. (End of sermon)
Well,
this was a brief survey of a few comic-book tales concerning black-white
relations and problems thereof. I only remembered these few issues off the top
of my head. Remember, the fact that we
are alive, and human, is more demanding of friendship and assistance than any imagined differences!
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