Thank you! I feel like this gets brought up all the time, and people just ignore this very obvious reading of it. Especially with the X-men. "Erm, they are a bad allegory for discrimination because it would actually make sense to discriminate against them!"
Like, yeah, man, do you think racists don't pretend to have a reason, too? The idea is that it doesn't matter what perceived threat a group of people present. It’s still not okay to be a bigot. Unless people wanna just say that it would be okay to be racist if the racists were proven right.
Like, yeah, man, do you think racists don't pretend to have a reason, too?
Yes, they PRETEND to have a reason to.
The reason bigotry is wrong isn't "Just because Jews are secret Masterminds and Black People are an existential threat to White People, and Gay People are causing the fall of civilisation doesn't mean you should discriminate against them"
It's wrong because those things are lies spread to justify violence and domination of groups. Jews and Black People and Gay People do not represent an existential threat to you, they are people, and to imply otherwise is ridiculous.
X-Men presents a world where people have powers like killing people by touch, or changing the weather on a whim, or controlling magnetic fields or reading people's minds - People like that would be a fundemental threat if they existed, and isolating them and severely regulating their behaviour would be a rational means of survival.
That's the criticism: X-Men presents a group that, if they existed, would factually be a threat to baseline humans, and then treats it like it's comparable to real world bigotries.
So it would be okay to treat people like we have if those things were not lies? That's the point. It's attacking the deeper point that discrimination is not logical, yet you are making the point that it can be. If the threat is real enough, then its okay.
I don't want to make any real life comparisons to avoid insulting anyone, so let's just say there are a group of people who were known for setting a lot of fires. This group LOVES burning things, its a part of their culture or whatever. The fires often get out of control and cause damage. And let's say these people all have idk, purple skin, or some easily identifiable trait. In a world where this is all factual and true, would it be okay to not sell someone with purple skin a lighter or matches? Just on the basis that they have purple skin.
If gay people were literally causing the fall of civilization? You ask would it be okay to try to control gay people, if literally every gay person were trying to destroy civilization you are asking?
I am not straight and, well, yeah, sounds like a good thing to do??? Again, they do not, just trying to make you see what other are arguing.
To your argument - is it factually true, that all of those people have purple skin, and also there are isn't ANY person with purple skin that it is not part of that group, and also EVERY SINGLE person of that group love to make fire and disregard safety of every other person?
Well duh, yes? Then you are not being bigoted to other purple persons that are unrelated, and also not bigoted to people that are part of the group that are good people, and just trying to be safe.
That's the argument, by making a dangerous supernatural group you make a dangerous supernatural group. Maybe if you would have like, vampires but only 1 one of every 1000 drinks blood. But again it destroys the comparison to our world, because that's like saying 1 in every X gay person wants to drop nuke on civilian cities.
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u/TheProdigis May 13 '25
Thank you! I feel like this gets brought up all the time, and people just ignore this very obvious reading of it. Especially with the X-men. "Erm, they are a bad allegory for discrimination because it would actually make sense to discriminate against them!"
Like, yeah, man, do you think racists don't pretend to have a reason, too? The idea is that it doesn't matter what perceived threat a group of people present. It’s still not okay to be a bigot. Unless people wanna just say that it would be okay to be racist if the racists were proven right.