Hope says what I've always felt about mutant relations

[q99]

And I think she's absolutely right. Calling it the school for Gifted Youngster may have helped many young mutants who felt unsure of themselves or bad for being a mutant, but ultimately they're all just people, before anything else, and when dealing with co-existence that's what you've got to remember.

Comments

[salinea]

I dunno, Hope's PoV to me sounds like extremely wishy washy "both sides" type of "racism is bad m'kay?", the sort that tend to utterly be blind to context and stuff that are institutional, etc.


Which, well, it's true we're talking about mutants & whatnot in a universe where people dress in silly costumes to fight crime, but still.

[q99]

It doesn't strike me as wishy-washy at all- you don't help peaceful relations by trying to paint your group as better than the other side and being prejudice against them. That's true in the real world, and it's the lack of acknowledging that as Hope did that always struck me as weird.

[salinea]

I frankly don't think that calling it a school for Gifted student is painting your group as better than the other side.

It's... for most of the history of the school it was code. Saying outright that it was a school for mutants would have make it vulnerable to all sort of attacks (yeah, didn't stop it from being blown up still, but hey it's a comics), not to mention "outing" the students whether they wanted it or not.

[kenwyn89]

It's an exclusive club, an elitist organisation of mutants after all. And though it may well have not started out that way it's easy to believe how that thinking could change until the point new students think we're the best now we're in the X-Men. Being a normal human, if you couldn't get in (to the school or be a mutant) and secretly wanted to, you'd naturally resent it. And that leads to more mutant hate.

And it's not wishy washy... I see this as a more progressive view of communicating with people.

[kagome654]

Fair is not everyone getting the same thing, fair is everyone getting what they need. A majority member (humans, in this case) does not need access to a place intended for minorities. They have enough places to go, that's not the case for mutants.

If humans are going to become hateful bigots because there are some places that they're not just given free access to...well...I don't see how that's the school's fault. Not to say that I can't think of some benefits to opening up the school, but there's no reason to give in to angry human foot stomping.

[salinea]

Normal humans need to check their privilege :p

[brooms]

if you couldn't get in (to the school or be a mutant) and secretly wanted to

lol and suddenly Xavier's school is like Hogwarts.

[kenwyn89]

I admit after I wrote it I did see Aunt Petunia in my head...

[q99]

Yea, it does make a lot of sense as a code, and I also agree with Hope on it serving a purpose.

Still, there has been a fair amount of elitism in mutant circles- "Homo Superior" and all that, and probably more barriers drawn between the two than was needed (the X-men could've benefited from some more baseline faculty, or maybe non-mutant supers on the team, for a long time).

[salinea]

Still, there has been a fair amount of elitism in mutant circles- "Homo Superior" and all that
I can't say I ever take that side of things seriously. Not with the point to which mutants are presented as a minority.

Again, I think it's blind to how institutionalized things are.

he X-men could've benefited from some more baseline faculty
I attribute more this side of thing to "comics!"

or maybe non-mutant supers on the team, for a long time
Errr, hasn't there always been a lot of non mutants in the team, both staff and supers?

[icon_uk]

In terms of students... not many I think. Mimic was never really a team member (and his mutant status has wandered backwards and forwards IIRC), Warlock (Alien, but also a mutant according to plot requirements), Longshot, Betsy (sort of, since her father was human-ish, but from another dimension, though as she's in a completely different (human mutant) body now, I suppose she counts a mutant).

Oh, and Brian (by the same logic as Betsy), Meggan (Origins vague to say the least) and Cerise in Excalibur, but they weren't X-Men per se.

[salinea]

You forgot Shatterstar.

[icon_uk]

He debuted in a Liefeld comic... I regret nothing....

[q99]

Almost all of the non-mutants are aliens so that doesn't help too much on the human non-mutant relation front.

There's the odd ally that, while fighting aside them for awhile, isn't technically a team member (Ms. Marvel being the biggest example). The X-men have several non-mutant hero allies, but in terms of humans on the team without the X-gene, I can think of Mimic (mutate with the power to mimic powers), Karima (Prime Sentinel/cyborg), Juggernaut, and Amanda Sefton (sorcerer). Oh, and Madelyn Pryor wasn't for awhile, but then became one.

Pretty short list all in all, and some of those didn't last long.



I can't think of any non-mutants who taught a class at the school full time, though Moira might've. A couple more staffers, mainly Moira's people... but staff is pretty rare too.


Recent stuff does feel like less of a "mutants only" club than it used to be, with people like Dr. Rao and their public relations manager (and Namor still doesn't feel like a mutant, even though he technically is one ^^), and de-powered mutants who hang around (Dani, Prodigy, Jubilee).

[salinea]

Almost all of the non-mutants are aliens so that doesn't help too much on the human non-mutant relation front.
icon listed the humans in the staff I was thinking of :)

But yeah, people in the X-Men who weren't mutants often were aliens or weird stuff XD

I can't think of any non-mutants who taught a class at the school full time,
I think the issue here is there just wasn't much focus on class as a regular school would for the longest time. I don't believe it was even all that handled as a school as such until Morisson's run. Mostly because they'd rather focus on superhero action and soap opera melodrama though :p

I find the idea of "mutant only club" very troublesome. Why should there be more onus on integration on the part of the mutant school than there is on human society as a whole?

[icon_uk]

the X-men could've benefited from some more baseline faculty

For most of the time they ran the whole place with precisely ONE teacher, Professor X.

The few support staff that we saw (most notably added in the original New Mutants run) were all human; Stevie Hunter, Sharon (nurse) and Tom (groundskeeper IIRC). Oh and Moira MacTaggart as "housekeeper" for a while.

[q99]

-
For most of the time they ran the whole place with precisely ONE teacher, Professor X. -

That was pretty crazy ^^ I mean, during the original team of 5 days, workable, but he had to have quite a workload.

-
The few support staff that we saw (most notably added in the original New Mutants run) were all human; Stevie Hunter, Sharon (nurse) and Tom (groundskeeper IIRC). Oh and Moira MacTaggart as "housekeeper" for a while.-

Hm, didn't know about most of those. Glad they had a few.

[icon_uk]

I should perhaps qualify that by noting that Sharon and Tom had been Caucasians who were physically turned into Native Americans as a side-effect of the whole "Demon Bear" incident and joined the School staff partly to help them acclimatise to their new bodies. So whilst human, their recent life experiences had been slightly weird.

As for the faculty, as I've noted in the past, for a "School for the Gifted", the only alumni who actually gained qualifications of any sort were Dr Hank McCoy, and Certified Public Accountant Bobby Drake, even Kitty never got a degree.

[shadowpsykie]

which is what i think hope meant when she said it served its purpose at the time. but not now.

I think when it first started, Mutants were an urban legend, i don't even think the x-men themselves were percieved as "mutants" to begin with. (by the outside world). so they "could" be in secret .

[salinea]

which is what i think hope meant when she said it served its purpose at the time. but not now.
Yeah, possible, but she still came across as very ignorant, judgement and rude in the way she phrased it to Xavier.

Especially since at the time the school was destroyed and closed.

[shadowpsykie]

i don't think hope was being ignorant or rude, and she wasn't exactly being judgmental either. she doesn't think that he was Wrong. he thinks its wrong "Now"

she knows enough to know that a) Idie needs help b) Xavier has helped ALOT of people c) knows xavier is the person she could/should talk to.

i think she has very valid points. and she came off as a child trying to understand and explain what she feels. Hope is a kid, an intelligent and insightful kid. But she is no philospher. she was stating what she has observed and what she feels. a more educated and philosophically minded person might have said it with more tact and thought, but she's not that.

[salinea]

Dude, she was telling this to Xavier unsolicited, the first time she meets him and without letting him place any word. That's rude anyway you look at it, if her point wasn't trying to tell him how wrong he had been, then that's an extremely clumsy way to get it across.

c) knows xavier is the person she could/should talk to.
what? no she doesn't. We are never given any indication Hope sought out Xavier for anything.

I don't dislike Hope. I agree with you she mostly comes across as a kid, and having been raised in the future it's normal for her not to get the context. But she definitely came across as someone who didn't bother to learn before judging. Which is a frequent flaw in youth and reflects the way she feels having to deal with the responsibility of being seen as a mutant messiah - so I don't hold it against her. But I'll still say the scene doesn't make her look good.

[jlbarnett]

except there's some acknowledgable difference between them. And things are labeled. THe choice is monsterous, or gifted. Gifts can be minor things. A little bit more intelligent than average: gifted, a talented athlete: gifted, skilled at playing the piano:gifted. It's certainly better than something like blessed or superior

[q99]

Yea, it's good for deflecting the label of 'monstrous' or 'bad', but it's not good for the ultimate goal: peaceful lasting coexistence.

[batman]

...it's using the term "Gifted" in the same sense that we use the term "Special" in relation to special schools. If someone dislikes people with disabilities that necessitate them attending special schools, then they are pretty horrible people. It's not the fault of the students who need the school, it's the fault of the person holding gross views like that.