More than Mutants: The X-Men's tie to civil rights

Graphic developed by Lucy Osborn.

During the 1960s, Americans discriminated against others for reasons beyond their control due to fear and hatred. In response, two groups emerged seeking acceptance with very different approaches. One side believed in a future of peace with those oppressing them, while others wanted to address violence with violence.

To be clear, I am discussing the plot of the X-Men comics. If you mistook me for discussing the American Civil Rights Movement, you understand everything these characters were made to represent.

Just as George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” uses farm animals in place of humans to portray political corruption within Russian communism, the X-Men act as an allegory about the consequences of racial discrimination in America.

In a 2000 interview with the “Guardian,” Stan Lee, the creator of the X-Men comics, said the storyline was a great metaphor for what was occurring in the United States with the Civil Rights Movement at the time.

Lee said the civil rights metaphor came to him when he conceived the idea of the comics, and that “it made the stories more than just a good guy fighting a bad guy.”

In the comics, people born with the X-Gene, known as “mutants” in the Marvel universe, develop abnormalities that cause non-mutants to become afraid of these differences, “othering” them in the same way that Black Americans have been othered by white supremacists.

A common misconception is that Magneto is a villainous foe of the heroic X-Men led by Charles Xavier. While each man leads a group of mutants that often end up in conflict with each other, calling them enemies is wildly inaccurate. This perceived rivalry is similar to one claimed between Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X. King was famously misquoted as stating Malcolm “has done himself and our people a great disservice.”

In actuality, the goal of each leader is rooted in the same ideals.

Talia Flood, a first-year studying mechanical engineering and fan of the comics, said Xavier and Magneto started off very similarly.

“They wanted what's best for mutantkind and they wanted to, you know, protect mutants,” Flood said. “However, “[Xavier] wants mutants to be accepted so badly that he continuously goes against his own people.”

Throughout the comics, the X-Men are put into dangerous situations in order to appease those seeking to harm them. He has also created mental blockers within mutants that reduce the expression of their abilities.

“[Xavier] dampens mutants down so that they're more palatable to humans, which, I feel is kind of like hair relaxers and skin bleaching and all of those really terrible practices,” Flood said.

Just as Xavier is more socially acceptable in the comics, King’s approach is more palatable for white America. Both King and Malcolm were notable leaders in the Civil Rights Movement, but lasting perceptions are much more favorable of King.

Malcolm X was painted as a violent radical when I was first taught about civil rights in school. This view minimizes his legacy and significant impact on the empowerment of Black Americans. Malcolm’s approach was what he believed to be the best avenue for maintaining Black dignity and identity.

Similarly, there is no way that Magneto's mutant character can be easily labeled as a villain.

“He’s deeply traumatized, and I think he has good intentions and they've just gotten away from him to where his good intentions become bad actions,” Flood said. “He really exacerbates [human] fear. … It's mostly the fear of the unknown and the fear that they won't be able to compete.”

Colorism is also symbolized within the comics, as a group called Morlocks are outcasts who often have significant physical differences. They are shown to be resentful of the way others with more favorable mutations can blend into society.

Alongside internal conflicts between mutants, artificially intelligent robots known as Sentinels often pose a grave danger to all mutantkind. They were created by humans to hunt all with the mutant gene, regardless of their age or power. Marvel has clarified that Sentinels could be reprogrammed by extremist hate groups to target any group of people based on race or sexual orientation.

Other social concerns are paralleled in the X-Men universe as humans channel fear toward young people with characteristics out of their control.

“We see a lot of white people who were accosting Ruby Bridges, and a lot of the young children who were the first to integrate schools,” Flood said. “… There's huge mobs, and they're throwing rocks and they're yelling at the little girls. Then we have Kitty Pryde [in the X-Men], who is a big focus because she is a young girl that they are afraid of.”

It’s clear that Black history and the X-Men stories are deeply intertwined.

Racism does not have an easy solution, but as the X-Men mutants show, a battle for acceptance will remain ongoing as long as people remain oppressed. But any satisfying ending to the comics themselves will be first found in our own society’s approach to inclusion.

Article originally published by Technician as "OPINION: X-Men is the unknown allegory for civil rights," found here.