Riri Williams/Comics Diversity by Dwayne McDuffie
Unsurprisingly as soon as Riri Williams was announced to take over as Iron Man from Tony Stark, there were people on the internet looking at it as proof of Marvel’s agenda to replace all white characters with POC.
This is one of my favorite pieces from the late/great Dwayne McDuffie regarding fan reaction who perceived a “black agenda” when he was writing Justice League. Much of McDuffie’s writing/work really relevant today.
“But there is a hardcore piece of the audience whose back goes up whenever you go into these issues, and they don’t even realize it. And what kills me about it is that when they’re writing about it, they’re always hyperrational. You know, Look the fact is, there are more white characters, and if you picked randomly, you would end up with all white teams. And the fact that there were three black people on this team is statistically ridiculous. It’s obviously a quota. And the quota arguments on fictional teams crack me up. Because who’s actually I’m sorry, is somebody losing a job here? Which fictional character is losing a job? There’s no connection. They’re not talking about what’s going on in the comics. They’re talking about what they think is going on in their lives (and that’s not really going on either.)”
