BigSleep666

Sweet Christmas!
In 1862, the Emancipation Proclamation outlawed slavery in the Confederacy.
In 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment outlawed slavery across the United States.
In 1870, African Americans gained suffrage with the Fifteenth Amendment.
In 1954, public schools were desegregated following the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Supreme Court case.
In 1964, the Civil Rights Act abolished Jim Crow Laws and prohibited discrimination in the government, public facilities, and employment.
And in 1978, the Super Friends began their minority recruitment program, with such multiculti masked marvels as
Apache Chief!
El Dorado!
Samurai!
...Speedy Jew...
...Deadly Turkmenistani...
And
BLACK VULCAN!
Now, I don’t really remember anything about Black Vulcan, but he sure was black!
And that opened my doors of perception to other redundantly black superheroes created by well-intentioned, road-paving white artists. Superheroes like
Black Panther,
Black Racer,
Black Spider,
Black Kettle,
Little Black Cloud in a Dress,
Black Blackity Black,
Black Manta:
You never saw him without his mask on, oh, but you just knew that motherfucker was black!
Black Lightning:
Whose superpowers were that he controlled electricity and he was black!
Black Goliath:
He "got big."
More of a pornstar name than a superhero name and, believe me, I have personally masturbated to all of Black Goliath's movies! I mean, my exhaustive collection of blacks-on-blondes pornography just proves how open-minded I really am.
Until finally,
Sweet Christmas!,
there he was: shirt unbuttoned, pants held up with a chain, and black:
Luke Cage! Power Man!
Because Luke Cage didn’t wear a mask you already knew he was black. He didn’t have to go around saying he was black all the time, and this saved Marvel Comics the trouble of putting out a comic book in the ‘70s called "Black Power Man,"
which would have alienated their middle class loser white child demographic.
(Exhibit A: Thirty-one year old middle class loser white child)
And, yes,
Marvel quickly emasculated Power Man by teaming him with a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Kung Fu expert from the Upper West Side donned in green and gold lamé sashes named "Iron Fist."
And, yes,
in the ‘70s, he spoke like a pimp from the ‘70s stepping out of a blaxsploitation film.
And, yes,
in 2001, he spoke like a pimp from 2001 stepping out of a neo-blaxsploitation film.
But, nowadays, he’s ditched his silver headband and yellow blouse costume and takes time out from smacking around crack dealers in Harlem to stop the Kree Skrull War while wearing blue jeans and a wifebeater before he dutifully attends to his family,
because he takes care of his kids!
And soon after Luke Cage’s debut
and a couple of decades of industry-wide maturation
where both Luke Cage and white artists learned
that they were less than their readers,
that being the first meant that more would follow,
that with great representation comes great responsibility,
there were black superheroes without "Black" in their supernames spreading throughout the superverse;
superheroes both awesome and lame!
Superheroes like
Green Lantern,
Captain America,
Storm,
Steel:
a.k.a. The Black Superman! You couldn’t you really call him "Black" Steel, because that sounds like, you know, a...
dildo.
Blade II:
Because Blade II was so much better than Blade I and Blade III!
and
Triathlon:
An Avenger so terribly lame, I’m expecting my membership phone call from Iron Man any day now!
So, Black Vulcan, as useless and out-of-continuity as you were,
thanks
for showing up
and making Robin feel uncomfortable!
And, Luke Cage, we salute you!
You’ll always be
Black Power Man
[points to center of chest] in here!