Cecilia, You’re Breaking My Heart (Exotic Black People Part Three)

If Aboriginal Australians are terribly underrepresented in the American comics canon, this would be just as true for African-Caribbeans. Let alone an African-Caribbean working in STEMM professions like medicine, as it is with Cecilia Reyes who’s a black Puerto Rican doctor. That’s not to say African-Caribbeans lack any presence in American culture, be they real or fictional, but when more Americans are familiar with African Americans than they are with African-Caribbeans that it’s really going to feel this way. Real-world African-Caribbeans that influenced American culture a lot include the Barbadian Rihanna, Jamaicans Harry Belafonte and Bob Marey, and in hip-hop we have DJ Kool Herc and Notorious BIG, who are both of Jamaican descent.

But since most Americans aren’t this deeply familiar with African-Caribbean cultures and countries, the way they do with African American people and culture, so African-Caribbeans will also register as exotic black people to them just the same. Whilst Britain’s not any better regarding black people, but when it comes to its relationship with Caribbean countries that it’s going to be far more direct than it is in America. For a good while in British culture, not only was it influenced by African-Caribbean cultures, but also how Britons were so familiar with African-Caribbeans (the prototypical black people there) that in the British literary and comics canon, characters like Cecilia Reyes would’ve been the norm there. Most of the older black Britons alive today have relatives who came from the Windrush ship.

Lately there’s been some talk about the African-Caribbean community disappearing in Britain, but as what somebody said on Reddit, that’s also due to the Caribbean populations being smaller than their African counterparts to begin with. So African-Caribbeans were bound to be outnumbered by their African counterparts, whereas it’s not like that in America despite the growing influx of African immigrants there. But when it comes to Cecilia Reyes’s lack of popularity with X-Men fans, she’s not necessarily without her own fans at all, as much as she doesn’t fall into the common American ideas about what black people are and ought to be. She’s a black woman who works in a scientifically orientated profession (medicine), as opposed to being an exotic black person that Storm’s often written to be/depicted as.

She comes from an actual American protectorate that is Puerto Rico, instead of somewhere else as it is with Storm hailing from Kenya or more recently Temper from Nigeria. There is an African American mutant known as Bling, but she’s not particularly that popular either. There’s a book called Black Women In Sequence on why American writers seem more fixated on making black superheroines come straight from Africa rather than America itself has to do with offering the illusion of multiracial diversity, whilst absolving white American culture’s role in continuing and enabling discrimination against African Americans. Or that Africans are seen as preferable and more subservient to white American interests, this could explain why there aren’t a lot of African American mutants in the X-Men canon.

Let alone those who are as popular as Storm is, despite mutants being something of a minority not trusted by many that an African American mutant would help make it clearer. It’s possible that there’s not a lot of prominent African American mutants that are as popular as Storm is that may not have a lot to do with nostalgia and the like has to do with how they’ll make the link between the two much more explicit, like how African Americans are more likely to be targeted by the police and be accused of any wrongdoing. An African mutant or an Aboriginal Australian mutant (Shard, Bishop) puts this at a safe distance, diverse enough to not be too western and white, but enough of a model minority (in a way) to not challenge white readers and writers a lot about their own racism towards homegrown black communities.

This may not always be the case but it does risk feeling this way at times, regarding how white Americans seem to see black people from other countries versus those from their territory. If characters like Storm represent the exotic, nonwesternised black person in the American mind, a character like Cecilia Reyes comes closer to home as Puerto Rico is an American protectorate. Although it’s nice getting African-Caribbean representation in international comics, I don’t think Cecilia Reyes is as popular as Storm is (it could be due to nostalgia or something). Not to mention it’s already kind of rare to encounter an African-Caribbean person who’s also into STEMM in any way in the world of superhero comics, as far as I know about it, I could be wrong about this.

Maybe not necessarily as close as that of African Americans in America, but it does feel this way given the position Puerto Rico is in. If I’m not mistaken, Puerto Rico used to be Spanish territory that got bought by and conquered by America. Puerto Ricans are immediately American citizens, so Cecilia Reyes counts in a way. But I also feel black Puerto Ricans occupy a position that although they are technically black Americans, they’re not necessarily the same as African Americans. So Cecilia Reyes as a character occupies a strange position between somebody who’s technically an American citizen and also different from African Americans, but one where her own country is also an American protectorate. I’m not too well-versed in Puerto Rico to know this.

But Cecilia Reyes occupies a striking place in the X-Men canon as one of the earliest Afro-Latino characters there, as one of a number of African-Caribbean characters in those stories as well. As X-Men stories are written by Americans, they often reflect an American view of foreigners especially towards people like Storm and sometimes an American view of black people. If Storm’s the exotic black person par excellence in the X-Men canon, with Bishop being more often than not remembered more as an African American than as the Australian Aboriginal he’s supposed to be. Cecilia Reyes doesn’t fit into either category and belongs to a rarer type of black character in the American comics tradition, the African-Caribbean.

I suspect that if the prototypical black person in the American mind is an African American, then African-Caribbeans are exotic black people to them just the same as black Africans. If black Africans are stereotyped as living in huts or poverty, or being kind of behind the (westernised) times in some way, then I suspect that African-Caribbeans are stereotyped as being into reggae, marijuana, Rastafarianism or some such. From what I’ve seen of her, Cecilia doesn’t fall into those cliches. But if it’s kind of rare to find black people who’re into STEMM in American fiction, it’s much rarer to find an African-Caribbean character doing the same there. True, African-Caribbeans don’t constitute that large a number compared to black Africans. But it does matter to have more characters like her.

The number of recurring black characters in X-Men is already pretty small, despite the two figureheads (Professor Xavier and Magneto) being often compared to Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Even rarer still is a black character who’s into STEMM as well as a non-stereotypical African-Caribbean and also an Afro-Latino to boot, I kind of said here before that characters like Cecilia Reyes are more commonplace in British fiction (in a way) due to Britain’s close relationships with its Caribbean ex-colonies. But in America it’s different because the prototypical black person there is more often than not an African American, both African-Caribbeans and black Africans count as exotic black people.

Likewise the American conception of a Latin American sometimes runs counter to its conception of a black person, the Latin American in the Anglo-American mind has somewhat darker skin than that of gringos, but not as dark as that of most black people (since albinism and vitiligo exist among them). Though Afro-Latinos do exist in the X-Men canon, the first one being Sunspot, but due to the prevailing conceptions of what a Latino ought to be that over time Sunspot stopped looking black. This has changed for the better alongside with the inclusion of an Afro-Latino who apparently remains the way he’s introduced as, but I feel Cecilia Reyes differs from Sunspot in that from what I’ve seen, she has recognisably black hairstyles from the start.

She had an Afro in her earliest entry to the X-Men canon and eventually got her hair dreaded, she is among the earliest Afro-Latinos in the X-Men stories. Angel Salvadore could count as well, but the main focus is on Cecilia Reyes. Cecilia Reyes embodies many things rare in the American comics canon, she is a black woman working in STEMM, a notable example of a rather non-stereotypical African-Caribbean woman, one of a number of Afro-Latino characters in the US superhero comics canon and an Afro-Puerto Rican woman. The only other black female comics character that I can think of who works in medicine is Marcy Armstrong from the Jumpstart cartoons, which again goes to show you that it’s rather rare finding black female characters working in medicine there.

There could be more of those but I feel the X-Men canon kind of testifies how vanishingly rare it is to find non-stereotypical depictions of African-Caribbeans and Afro-Latinos, the later being present if Miles Morales is any indication however Cecilia Reyes doesn’t have a higher profile, despite being one of the earliest black Puerto Rican characters in Marvel Comics.

A question of race

It’s easy to categorise somebody’s ethnicity based on their physical features, which was the case with anthropology before and still is so to some extent where if somebody has curly hair, flat nose, full lips and dark skin they’d be black and somebody with narrow lips and nose and pale skin is white. Likewise Filipinos and Indonesians were classified as Mongoloids but when it comes to genetics it gets messier considering the degree of admixture between ethnicities. The Berbers genetically and phenotypically run the gamut from being typical Caucasians to black (among the Tuaregs where some of them have substantial sub-Saharan admixture and DNA and they have a habit of assimilating people into their communities), this might also be the case with anybody who speaks an Afro-Asiatic or Indo-European language where they can be black, Austronesian or white (though that’s due to colonialism).

African Americans and Nigerians are black but the former has a higher amount of white DNA due to non-consenting relationships with white people and that blond hair, red hair and pale skin can appear independently of white genetic influence due to milder forms of albinism (which causes overall depigmentation). Though among African Americans (if it includes those who’re half African American), the tendency towards rufosity and blondness is chalked up to European admixture. If I’m not mistaken among the Fulani people, their ability to digest lactose is attributed to admixture between and influence of North Africans and Europeans. The Hausa have a lot of R1B y-chromosomes, R1B being common among West and Central Europeans so there could’ve been some amount of admixture between the two as well. (According to one source, a Hausa-Fulani may have 11% North Africa DNA.)

Likewise, if I’m not mistaken some contemporary Egyptians do have some degree of Sub-Saharan African DNA and that the Nilotic Nubians are more related to Ethiopians. So classifying somebody based on phenotype alone gets complicated by things like genetic admixture between different ethnicities that if we classify people based on DNA then Filipinos should be Indo-European because they have small amounts of European and Indian DNA while Indonesians should be Afro-Asiatic because they have small amounts of Arabic DNA. Logically because African Americans have substantial European DNA, they should be considered Europeans as well. (Odder still, some of the earliest Europeans had swarthy skin and blue eyes while those in Sweden were already pale.)

So classifying people based on either genetics or phenotype isn’t always helpful when it comes to a degree of admixture, among some Sub-Saharan African ethnicities there’s some amount of North African (read Caucasian) DNA going on that points out to admixture, intermarriages and cultural assimilation (as with the Tuaregs).

Mukokuseki

The Japanese word for stateless but in the sense that when it comes to the way people of their own ethnicity portray themselves they see themselves as unmarked whereas they other those of different nationalities and ethnicities, which sometimes leads to facial profiling. Anime characters aren’t necessarily white just as The Simpsons aren’t necessarily Asian in that if they’re the default ethnicity, they can’t be stereotyped in any way. Those of other ethnicities tend to be marked, for instance a black person would be stereotyped as oversexed, well-endowed, thuggish or animalistic whereas white people aren’t (in white made media).

I suspect this extends to writing where it’s like how black people would be stereotyped and described as either Mandingos, sambos, mammies, Sapphires, Jezebels, animals (often simian or primate) and thugs. If it were written by a black person, because blackness would be the default here black characters wouldn’t be portrayed that stereotypically unless if that black person has internalised racism and projects it onto women (from my personal experience). If a Nigerian did Nigerian stories, their ethnicity and nationality would be the default and this extends to how ethnicities see each other where a Yoruba sees themselves as unmarked but the Igbo and Hausa are.

This also extends to gender where if men are the default, women are the marked other or for another matter sexuality where if homosexuality’s other, heterosexuality would be default. When it comes to mukokuseki for black people, that’s only when blackness’s made default that we get less stereotypical depictions of black people (though it’s possible to have non-stereotypical black characters in a white-majority or multicultural setting). But it becomes less stereotypical in the sense that if a Nigerian did a black character, that would be the default ethnicity (no special markers needed). It’s not so much of a matter of ethnic and racial differences but rather the perception where if your race’s default it wouldn’t be stereotyped in any way unless if self-hate issues are present (which do exist among some black people).

It’s actually telling with the Milestone comics that the characters are portrayed in a less stereotypical manner than they would be in most other superhero comics at the time, though if it were coming from let’s say a black person (or if that black person’s not that misogynistic and full of self-hate) we’d get a lot of non-stereotypical black characters. When it comes to African comics, this becomes more telling that on one hand they don’t stereotype blackness but on the other hand they’d stereotype African nationalities and ethnicities. Even without comics, this becomes telling in the way they perceive themselves and each other.

A white German wouldn’t see themselves as a stereotype, just the default ethnicity but they’re going to mark Italians, blacks, Turks and Moroccans as the other. It may not always be obvious in writing but it does play off that way, for instance Italians would be stereotyped as lusty, emotional and dark-haired. The more different the ethnicity is, the likelier they are to be othered. The more default the ethnicity is, the less likely they’ll be stereotyped. It does make sense this and why it does deconstruct racism to some extent when it comes to seeing whichever ethnicity’s default.

It may not always be the case but it does make sense that in anime if Japanese people are the default, they wouldn’t be stereotyped in any way but the Chinese and Americans usually get stereotyped and othered in ways they wouldn’t be in their own media and soils. It could apply to any ethnicity and still prove my point right about whichever ethnicity’s predominant.