‘It’s Not About Race’
Not only do these arguments always turn out to be implicitly racist, but they usually directly contradict themselves. In the midst of trying to defend not wanting any of their favorite superheroes to be depicted as Black, some people claim that the argument has nothing to do with race – a claim that’s impossible because the conversation in and of itself is indeed about race. One comment on a message board said, “I’m not for changing Spiderman to a black dude. This isn’t about race and it wouldn’t matter if Spiderman wasn’t such an iconic character. Change Daredevil to a black guy, no one would care …. Spiderman is the second most popular superhero of all time trailing ONLY Superman in his awesomeness.” So there you have it, it’s just the awesome characters who can’t be changed to Black characters — but it has nothing to with race and everything to do with how awesome one race is allowed to be portrayed.