My Reaction To Reactions On Mainstream Comics' Representations
I'm Mostly Echoing Stuff Said By Mexicans and Possibly Other Hispanics
I’ve been seeing this come up a lot lately in regards to how Hispanic people are reacting to the mainstream media’s attempts at diversity. So yeah, I’m mostly collecting what people have been saying, including friend of friends, please take it with a grain of salt.
First off, they hate the label “latinx”. Apparently finding gender neutral terms just doesn’t do it for them. Okay maybe 4% are okay with it but 40% find it offensive. This is probably because “latinx” is an American model offsetting the language of origin (Spanish). In terms a PC bro can understand, it’s cultural appropriation.
But when I was doing research for my revisions to Mexican Comic Books (Historietas/Monitos) I came across a blog post that criticized American Comics “diversity campaigns”. This wasn’t even by a ComicsGater or a troll throwing toxins, just a blogger named Jaime S Hinte who makes webcomics. Okay sure, it has plenty of angry rants but some of them might have merit. For one because of American comic exports to Mexico and a few other Hispanic places, it essentially choked the life out of their local industries.
To this blogger at least, the diversity angle takes a cue from Angela Davis. Who? Some African-American activist, scholar, lesbian, feminist, and Marxist who said this:
Now while I am taking this out of context, you really have to consider when a left-winger like Miss Davis speaks about diversity like that, you might have to reconsider what diversity and inclusion looks like to people other than your inner circle.
Because despite all of the Voices and Heritage Month comics I see, there’re still hints that these are just checklists for brownie points. Not smart enough to be agendas like naysayers shout; just overworked artists, editors, and couldn’t-care-less executives who are just trying to sell the licenses to a number of people with minimal effort. Most of the time anyway.
Before anybody suggests I’m yet another naysayer I’ll just say that I’d rather you look at less corporate media when it comes to representation. The more genuine commitments to showing people living their lives.
Here are just a few places that serve better footholds of inclusion that aren’t Milestone. Or at least in as many English speaking places as I recall.
Hispanic/Latino/Latina/Latine(?)
Somos Arte (Or at least La Borinquena)
African-Americans
Native Americans
Pacific Islanders (I could only find Hawaii)
Chinese American
Queer/LGBT(X)/etc.
A few more like UMC are in GlobalComix. If anyone has any more suggestions I would like to hear about them. In any case, thanks for putting up with me.