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There has been a lot of focus recently on structural racism and white supremacy. In terms of comics, my area of research, there have been a lot of outlets recently sharing lists about comics by black creators and those with anti-racist content. (Thread)
There& #39;s great recent scholarship on Blackness & comics:
@dewhaley, Black Women in Sequence (2015)
@prof_carrington, Speculative Blackness (2016)
@DrSheenaHoward, Encyclopedia of Black Comics (2017)
@QianaWhitted, EC Comics (2019)
@rawreader, The Content of Our Caricature (2020)
@dewhaley, Black Women in Sequence (2015)
@prof_carrington, Speculative Blackness (2016)
@DrSheenaHoward, Encyclopedia of Black Comics (2017)
@QianaWhitted, EC Comics (2019)
@rawreader, The Content of Our Caricature (2020)
Still, though, in thinking and looking through the comics and the scholarship, I& #39;m struck by how much work there remains to be done. In my research, I often see just how much past descriptions of social injustice still ring true today.
This time, this recognition happened as I read the words of filmmaker Marlon Riggs, known for Tongues Untied (1989), a film about the lives of Black gay men. He wrote an intro to Rupert Kinnard& #39;s B.B. & the Diva (1992), a book of comics featuring Black gay & lesbian characters.
Of comics, Riggs wrote: "Like much of pop culture in mainstream America, the comics offered me a world of unmitigated whiteness—a world in which the special humor and rich colors of my black Southern community were mockingly absent."
Riggs continued: "From panel to panel, I saw, without fully appreciating it until later, continuing testimony to my inferior status within America. Here, too, even in the & #39;funnies,& #39; African Americans, unacknowledged, remained invisible."
Riggs further continued: "Homosexuality, not merely unacknowledged but typically not even thought of then, occupied a place outside the margins of not only the comics pages but the entire newspaper."
In the following paragraph, Riggs wrote: "Still, like most & #39;other& #39; Americans, I read these comics, seduced by a brand of humor that though familiar was decidedly not my own—…"
Riggs concluded: "…humor that insidiously, often unself-consciously, conditioned (& conditions) readers, young & old, into mute subscription to the belief that the & #39;American experience& #39; & & #39;American humor& #39; are unquestioningly white & antiseptically straight."
Relevant links:
http://cbldf.org/2020/06/anti-racism-graphic-novels-reading-resources-list/
https://cbldf.org/2020/06/a... href=" https://etechlib.wordpress.com/2020/06/16/anti-racism-matters-in-graphic-medicine-too/
https://etechlib.wordpress.com/2020/06/1... href=" https://www.comicbookherald.com/supporting-black-comics-creators/
https://www.comicbookherald.com/supportin... href=" https://www.cbr.com/black-comics-artists-must-read/
https://www.cbr.com/black-com... href=" https://www.cbr.com/black-comics-writers-must-read/
https://www.cbr.com/black-com... href=" https://cartoonistsofcolor.com/ ">https://cartoonistsofcolor.com/">...
http://cbldf.org/2020/06/anti-racism-graphic-novels-reading-resources-list/
