Rethinking Race
Or: why does this shapeshifting alien look like my uncle????
What constitutes race? When people look at me, what signifies to literally everyone on Planet Earth that I’m Black? What makes me unambiguous racially where other Black people aren’t? Why does that even matter, and who does that affect? Who defines race? What facets go into it? How does it intersect with ethnicity and nationality?
More to the point, can an alien be Black? And in what ways?
Even though I’m a comparative human development major and also Black, I’m not going to try answering most of these questions. While they might haunt me daily whenever I sit down with the intention of writing or reading about a Black character, there are so many thinkers out there who spend countless hours interrogating every aspect of the social construct we call race, and they do it far more competently than me. Like, I’m 19. Don’t ask me for a thesis that will somehow cover every single individual’s situation and solve racial discourse forever, because I don’t have one. I’m smart, but not that smart.
Instead, I want to narrow my scope to aliens. Obviously, aliens can be Black. At the very least, since cape comics are usually boring and depict a lot of aliens as just humans in skintight outfits, there are of course aliens that would immediately read as such while on Earth. Because, like I’ve been saying, if race is a social construct and you’re checking off all the little boxes that make you readable as a particular race, who’s really going to say otherwise? Maybe the alien, but who gives a shit what they think, right?
I’m retracting my original statement. I actually want to narrow my scope to shapeshifting aliens.
See, race isn’t a choice. At least, it’s not supposed to be, even when legal systems bent on codifying it accidentally leave glaring loopholes. I’ve spent almost 20 years trying to cultivate a deep pride in my Blackness. It’s been difficult, for lack of a better word. Regardless of how many protests I attend or essays I write exploring representation, I still wonder sometimes if I’d choose to be Black if I had the opportunity to pick. I can’t imagine not being Black, but only because my life has been so heavily shaped by the weight of antiblackness that I can’t picture any other sort of existence. No aspect of my history can be separated from Blackness or racism.
But characters like Martian Manhunter take race and explicitly make it a choice. Maybe not initially, and maybe they don’t always commit to Blackness 100 percent of the time, but they still choose it and identify with it enough that it intrigues me. The reason I don’t bring up human shapeshifters is because they’re born into this racial system. J’onn and Augustus weren’t, but they adopted it, for different reasons and in different ways. In fact, I’d even argue that they represent the ways in which we test the limits of this system while continuing to exist inside of it.
Today, I’ll be looking at Nubia: Coronation Special #1 and Icon and Rocket: Season One #1-2 as I attempt to explore how these alien characters force us to rethink race on biological (ha) and social levels.
Before I dive into Icon, I first want to address the fiction of race as being a biological reality. For centuries, white supremacists have tried to argue on scientific and religious lines that Black people are inferior to their white counterparts. Throughout history, these arguments have been concocted to justify chattel slavery, wage gap inequality, segregation, exclusion from universities, human experimentation, and more. Scientists, especially eugenicists, would argue that Black people were more closely related to animals or somehow subhuman. They pointed to perceived lack of culture, different facial features, and even head shape to support these baseless theories. Said theories still persist today, even as we’ve disproven that race is a genetic reality. Since white superiority cannot be proven in the language of the body, it has become mostly the province of pseudoscience and law.
I say all this because it allows other people to grasp why I’m so interested in undeniably Black nonhuman characters. In the hands of less competent writers, Icon could instead be a character who reinforces the idea that Black people share no common biological history with white people. Luckily, he’s not.
Immediately, what I’m struck by is how much Icon reminds me of Superman. Not in terms of appearance (before shifting to resemble a Black man, Icon’s very much not human), but in terms of story beats.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: An alien, having lost his people, falls to Earth in an unearthly machine. When humans discover this vessel from the stars, a baby’s inside. Icon takes this familiar premise and turns it on its head.
While Clark is legitimately a baby when he lands on Earth, the same can’t be said for the alien that eventually becomes Augustus Freeman. Mimicking an infant is deliberately written as a defense mechanism, pushed onto Arnus to allow him to be nurtured by a safe intelligent species.
Now, as far as I’ve read, I can’t fully tell if this sort of alteration is something he himself would be able to do. Considering how the book later establishes he poses as his own son over and over, I doubt he’s truly a shapeshifter in the way a Martian is. Then why include him? His existence and extreme longevity still are relevant to the story of Blackness, especially in the United States.
When Augustus lands on Earth, slavery is still at its height. He lives on a plantation until his second adulthood, when his memories and powers return. One individual, in a Black body, lives through some of the worst atrocities on the planet. But he was changed to be Black by alien technology. So is he Black, or is he an alien? It’s a meaningless question to me; regardless of the fact that he’s not human, he will always be viewed as Black. His alien nature only adds another layer to the antiblackness he’s lived through and the pain he’s endured.
(Isn’t it interesting that there’s a point made that a Black alien can’t be worshiped while Clark is treated like God? It’s interesting to me, anyway.)
I keep referencing systems of white supremacy. Icon again and again lashes out against these systems, and again and again, he’s knocked back down because of his efforts. Who else can say they beheaded the President of the Confederacy and immediately got nearly fatally punished for it? By necessity, the Black struggle is his struggle, and it’s a thankless one to have to live through for countless centuries.
But I feel as well I still have to nod to him being an alien. If not for the pod, he wouldn’t be able to fit into the racial system the world has at all. There are no categories that reliably fit a man who is only humanoid in the sense of having the body plan someone might recognize. And even then, he still maintains an alien physiology that people can’t replicate. So he’s Black. He’s an alien. And these labels rest differently in his hands because he wasn’t born resembling Blackness, but was raised within that system anyway.
If you’re tired of me writing about systems of oppression, sorry! We’re pivoting to J’onn now! Hold on to your butts!
I’m not the world’s biggest Martian Manhunter fan. It’s not because I hate him or anything, I just feel uncomfortable claiming to be a huge fan when I’ve never read too many comics centered on him. That being said, from what I’ve seen of him over the past few years, I like him. More than that though, it’s been interesting to see the pivot in how he expresses himself in a human form.
Now, I can’t say for sure if live action is responsible for this. But just look at his actors. (Yes, I know some of these are voice roles.) More consistently in the past few years, he’s been played by Black men on the screen. I’ve even seen reviewers claim that his depiction as preferring Black forms in the comics is a direct result of synergy between the two mediums. I can somewhat believe this. But that’s a Doylist interpretation. We’re going Watsonian, folks.
The thing is, being Black is not advantageous, and especially not in America. There especially is no material benefit to being Black in the police system, but J’onn chooses to be anyway. In Nubia: Coronation Special, he’s present to help her adjust to the realities of American antiblackness.
Physically strong Black women are seen as inherent threats to the social order, especially when they fight back against white men. In this case, it’s even more apparent why Nubia was arrested and then painted as a violent monster because she was preventing the sexual assault of a Black woman. Throughout history, white men both desire Black women and despise their attempts at resisting unwanted desire. It’s not uncommon for attempts at receiving justice to be turned back on Black people. We’re seen as liars or even the true aggressors, whichever is most convenient for the narrative being told. And the police lap it up.
Nubia is not fully aware of this, but J’onn is. By his demeanor in this story, it’s clear he’s become accustomed to the ways of Man.
Misogyny impacts all women, but intersectionality as a tool was crafted by Black feminists (think Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw) for a reason: to examine how oppressive systems involving race, gender, and other factors distribute uneven privileges in some areas and magnified oppression in others. In J’onn’s own words, he sees Nubia as having more in common with him because they’re both Black, regardless of being alien or Amazon. They are both subjected to antiblackness in a way that Diana will never experience.
Note J’onn’s use of ‘my chosen form’ here. Then note how he talks about how slaves were ‘never to partake in humanity’. He admits plainly that how he presents himself makes him a target. He’s regarded as not important; even as he has a title, it’s more lip service. But he willingly allows himself to be objectified because he identifies with the Black experience above the more palatable form, the more white form he could take on. It’s both sad and ironic how someone who will never be human can relate to the plight of those who are human but are still viewed as never quite enough to deserve mercy, understanding, and empathy.
As they discuss politics, J’onn presents an interesting conundrum. Could he conquer all of America and force the erasure of antiblack structures? Maybe so, especially if he had help. But he can’t fit that into his moral worldview. His argument - not wanting to stoop to the white man’s level - reminds me of discussions on Black Twitter and also in real life that I’ve been privy to. It’s a common statement that the fear white people have of us is hilarious because they don’t understand true fear, not really. The protests about ending police brutality and securing fair wages? They are nothing in comparison to the generational trauma throughout the diaspora and the atrocities waged in apartheid, slavery, and segregation. He wants change, and is clearly discontent with the lack of it, but enslavement will never be a part of his toolset. His powers mean he could do far worse, but he doesn’t. May all the white people in DC’s America be grateful for that.
I started writing this because I wanted to understand how an alien could choose to be Black. Why observe people, comprehend that whiteness is the way to go, and still choose to live under antiblackness anyway? Why work as lawyers and detectives, knowing that the skin you’re in is a detriment? I’m glad we have fiction that is deliberately examining these decisions, but the answer still eludes me.
What I’ve decided on is therefore rudimentary, but it makes the most sense to me. Regardless of previous circumstances and the level of choice in their form, they take on the Black struggle because they identify with the dehumanization and objectification of Black people. And, honestly, if you’re choosing to live as darkskin Black men in THIS America, I applaud you for committing that much to the cause, to the point where you’ll certainly experience lateral violence by colorist morons you’re trying to be in community with.
Anyway, this might not be the most polished essay in the world, but I’m happy to release it out into the world. J’onn and Augustus are Black. Race is a messy story that rules our reality. Life goes on. See ya next time with another hyper specific essay on metahumans or more comic reviews, whichever comes first!