This post relates to: Lady Deathstrike, Nico Minoru, Jubilee, Armor, Storm Shadow, Silver Samurai, Lady Shiva, Batgirl, Katana, Karate Kid, Shang-Chi, Revanche
On the topic of diversity, I was reading the thread titled "Who is your favourite Asian Superhero?" and I posted in the thread. After that, I came to two realisations.One, apparently all anime/manga characters are automatically Asian, which I don't understand the logic to. While you can't differentiate from facial features, you can tell by the hair. I've seen characters with blonde and brown hair. I also find it slightly offensive that people would imply that anything that comes from anime/manga must be automatically Asian, where you can expect different nationalities from superhero comics.
Two, now that we're getting onto the comics, here are the characters that were racially stereotyped:
- Revanche - Japanese and has a psionic katana.
- Shang Chi - Descendent of Fu Manchu (or something like that) and a master at martial arts.
- Karate Kid - Master at martial arts; half Japanese.
- Katana - Comes from Japan, wields a katana as her weapon.
- Lady Shiva - Trained somewhere in Asia, master at martial arts.
- Cassandra Cain - Also a master at martial arts. I don't think it's been stated where exactly she comes from in Asia, but it's obvious that she does hail from there. (And I think I also see a racist subtext as well - the fact that she has difficulties speaking English.)
- Sin - Also Asian and was training to become the next Lady Shiva.
- Silver Samurai - Comes from Japan and wields a katana.
- Storm Shadow - A ninja.
Here are the characters that weren't racially stereotyped from the thread:
- Armor
- Jubilee
- Nico Minoru
- Lady Deathstrike
- Agent X
Why is it that characters that hail from Asia need to have some parts of their culture attached to them? You can see that the Japanese characters are either ninjas or use a katana as a weapon. The other characters who have not had their countries identified but clearly come from Asia are masters at martial arts. This, my loyal readers, is racial stereotyping, and it's definitely not cool because stereotyping in general is not cool; you don't see Spider-Man (or any character that comes from America) eating hamburgers, wearing cowboy hats all the time. So why is it that characters from Asia need to be identified specifically through their cultures? Of course, it's important to have diversity (like I said before) so it's important for people to take notice of their nationality, but the way in which we identify with people from the east is through stereotypes. It's not right and it's still happening. It really sucks that it has to be this way, because it shows that the comic industry is still dominated by white people and it goes to show that white privilege exists - that being white is the "norm", that being white is the default in today's society.
Me, living in western society, I would say I am pretty lucky to be because of the many nationalities and types of foods I get to eat, even though there's a ton of racism that comes along with it. Racially stereotyping unfortunately still happens towards me. One time, this person spoke to me very slowly, as if I didn't know how to speak English just because I'm Chinese. Funny thing is, I don't fall into that stereotype, nor do I fall into that stereotype of the comic book characters that I just listed. If I were to go by the logic of comics, then I wouldn't be Chinese at all because I don't wear traditional Chinese clothes (on a few special occasions, but I hated it because the clothes were restricting), I eat hamburgers all the time, I don't do martial arts (I did it for three weeks but then I got bored, and I didn't do it just because I'm Chinese), I don't keep a katana under my pillow, I don't speak in the Asian accent that Hollywood created and I only use important phrases that contains a hidden lesson from Yoda, not from the movie Karate Kid. Silly logic, huh?
