When it comes to X-Men standing in for ethnic minorities and nonwhite people in general, writers generally do a horrible job at it. Not just because most of the characters are white, but also because most of the writers there are white themselves. In the case with Storm, it gets more disappointing as she comes from a real African country (Kenya). Since Kenya exists in the real world, they should ought to do the research and get much of it right. For starters, Kenya is an East African country that uses both Swahili and English as the official languages with a good deal of Luo and Kikuyu among other languages. Its capital is Nairobi and its currency is the shilling, but it doesn’t just end there.
Due to British colonialism, many Kenyans, as well as Ghanaians and Nigerians, celebrate Boxing Day or the day after Christmas (though it’s St Stephen’s Day in other countries). As I realised, Storm never felt truly Kenyan. While it’s true not all Kenyans speak Luo, Swahili and Kikuyu (or any other Kenyan language) that fluently, it’s also true that things like Boxing Day are a big part of Kenyan culture. For some reason, we don’t get to see Storm eat or cook Kenyan foods like ugali and githeri. As I said before, it’s very disappointing since Storm hails from an actual African country so they should get the details right. Wakanda doesn’t exist, but Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and Uganda do.
There are other African characters in X-Men such as Tempest, but even then they should either get the details write or hire Kenyan and Nigerian writers to do X-Men stories. Free Nigerian comics/cartoons exist on websites like Vanguardngr and The Guardian.ng, both of them give an idea of what Nigerian culture’s like and what the Nigerian sensibility’s like. For Kenyan comics, there are Bogi Benda and Shujaaz. But not all of it’s free online, so your best bet’s through free African comics on websites like The Guardian.ng, though these are Nigerian websites that I’m talking about.
Somebody has brought up the issue of cultural appropriation in X-Men comics, though nobody ever bothered talking about the elephant in the danger room that is Wolverine. Though Canadian in nationality, Japanese culture has been presented through him. Even though in reality it should’ve been done with Sunfire, who’s actually Japanese but sadly he’s nowhere as popular as Wolvie is. Ironically he’s the one who’d represent Japanese culture better, if because he’s Japanese himself and even today it gets repeated with non-Japanese characters again when it comes to Kate Pryde.
To be honest, I have done my fair share of cultural appropriation at some point. But I did learn from my mistakes, from my clumsy attempt at trying to be more Chinese I eventually grew to learn and enjoy writing in Chinese characters and learning Mandarin. It’s not that sophisticated yet, same goes for my Vietnamese. But it does bring up the question whether or not X-Men writers bother learning from their mistakes, as well as actively learning any non-Western and minority language. Not to mention the fact that there are so few X-Men writers of colour, the only ones I could think of are Peach Momoko and Vita Ayala, speaks volumes about the near-absence of any nonwhite, nonwestern perspective.
It’s getting better these days, but honestly I can’t think of any Kenyan, Nigerian or Filipino who has written any issue of any X-Men comic. As cartoonists and inkers maybe, but hardly as writers on par with British and American luminaries like Grant Morrison. When it comes to the portrayal of nonwhite, nonwestern characters it’s often a spotty record. Either they are stereotypes, Western ideas of what an exotic nonwhite woman’s like (as it is with Storm) or conduits for white characters like Kate Pryde and Wolverine in the case of Ogun. The paucity of nonwhite X-Men writers magnifies this problem.
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