# Which super hero is most likely to be racist when he's off the clock? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 16, 2012, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-super-hero-is-most-likely-to-be-racist-when-hes-off-the-clock/613014 "2012-02-16T05:38:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![pompeybear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8c91f0/32.png) [@pompeybear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pompeybear)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2012, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-super-hero-is-most-likely-to-be-racist-when-hes-off-the-clock/613014/101 "2012-02-20T22:20:54Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Underdog. You win the thread. ---
**Author:** ![Beastly\_Rotter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@Beastly\_Rotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beastly_Rotter)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2012, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-super-hero-is-most-likely-to-be-racist-when-hes-off-the-clock/613014/102 "2012-02-20T22:26:31Z")
> [@cckerberos](#): > > Dredd is actually probably the most pro-mutie Judge in Mega-City One, responsible for laws letting them in. He must have mellowed since I last read it. ---
**Author:** ![Anglachel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Anglachel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anglachel)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-super-hero-is-most-likely-to-be-racist-when-hes-off-the-clock/613014/103 "2012-02-21T02:02:03Z")
I’ll defend Conan. He had at least one black lover and many more of many different races. When it came to women, he was certainly open to anything. There were certainly\* cultures \*he did not like, but in the context of the story, they tended to deserve the animosity. Howard may have been a racist, but I doubt Conan would qualify. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-super-hero-is-most-likely-to-be-racist-when-hes-off-the-clock/613014/104 "2012-02-21T02:49:49Z")
> [@](#): > > I’ll defend Conan. He had at least one black lover and many more of many different races. When it came to women, he was certainly open to anything. Were these actual relationships, or just one-night stands? It makes a difference, I think. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-super-hero-is-most-likely-to-be-racist-when-hes-off-the-clock/613014/105 "2012-02-21T07:31:32Z")
Thanks for that, I hadn’t seen that sort of thing before. ---
**Author:** ![Anglachel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Anglachel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anglachel)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-super-hero-is-most-likely-to-be-racist-when-hes-off-the-clock/613014/106 "2012-02-21T14:42:35Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Were these actual relationships, or just one-night stands? It makes a difference, I think. The one that comes to mind was a relationship. At least as much of a relationship as he would have until far later in the series. She was a queen of some sort who had taken him as a consort. Based on his relationships with women, I’d characterize him as a misogynist before a racist. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-super-hero-is-most-likely-to-be-racist-when-hes-off-the-clock/613014/107 "2012-02-22T00:00:05Z")
> [@Anglachel](#): > > The one that comes to mind was a relationship. At least as much of a relationship as he would have until far later in the series. She was a queen of some sort who had taken him as a consort. Based on his relationships with women, I’d characterize him as a misogynist before a racist. I will admit that much of the racism in Conan stories feels like author preaching rather than Conan the character expressing the views. And hell Conan is a sensitive feminist compared to real life, Conan is a horndog and not monogamous but a misogynist? He even had a great love, now granted they were both robbers and murderers and the sex was kinda freaky but still. I mean does Conan ever rape a woman? Ever slander women as a whole? What story had Conan in a relationship with a black chick? That was explicitly identified as black in story?:dubious: I was reading a copy of the stories with period artwork and all his women are portrayed as white. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-super-hero-is-most-likely-to-be-racist-when-hes-off-the-clock/613014/108 "2012-02-22T02:31:33Z")
She was the queen of the black coast, a female pirate captain, who was a negress. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-super-hero-is-most-likely-to-be-racist-when-hes-off-the-clock/613014/109 "2012-02-22T02:33:18Z")
> [@grude](#): > > I was reading a copy of the stories with period artwork and all his women are portrayed as white. That doesn’t really mean anything. There’s a long and embarrassing history of sci-fi publishers putting white people on the covers of their books, regardless of how the character is described in the text. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-super-hero-is-most-likely-to-be-racist-when-hes-off-the-clock/613014/110 "2012-02-22T02:40:51Z")
Johnnie Rico from Starship troopers was Filipino in the book, blond in the movie, but Argentinian (which generally means white). I believe Heinlein would’ve reacted with his characteristic grace, flexibility, and “live and let live” attitude… ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-super-hero-is-most-likely-to-be-racist-when-hes-off-the-clock/613014/111 "2012-02-22T03:41:01Z")
> [@BMalion](#): > > She was the queen of the black coast, a female pirate captain, who was a negress. Really? That was the “great love” I was speaking about and even in the text she is…well whatever race a “shermite?” (I was thinking middle eastern) but there is a clear distinction between her and her black male lackeys. They worship her as a goddess because of her appearance, if she was the same race why? Yes I had a good laugh that Conan manages to fall in love with the only white woman on the black coast. See here wikipedia, which has her as semitic. > **[Bêlit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%AAlit_(Fiction))** > > Bêlit is a character appearing in the fictional universe of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian. She is a pirate queen who has a romantic relationship with Conan. She appears in Howard's Conan short story "Queen of the Black Coast", first published in Weird Tales #23 (5 May 1934). She is the first substantial female character to appear in Howard's Conan stories. Partly thanks to her substantial appearance in the Marvel Comics' Conan series, the character is recognized as being Conan's "true Sh... > [@](#): > > As a native of the Hyborian nation of Shem, Bêlit is Semitic. Her name may have been taken from Bel, god of thieves in her native land. Apart from jewellery, she wears only sandals and a red silk girdle. Despite her race and her lack of clothing in the tropical sun, her skin is “ivory white”. > > She is described in her first appearance: > > “ She turned toward Conan, her bosom heaving, her eyes flashing. Fierce fingers of wonder caught at his heart. She was slender, yet formed like a goddess: at once lithe and voluptuous. Her only garment was a broad silken girdle. Her white ivory limbs and the ivory globes of her breasts drove a beat of fierce passion through the Cimmerian’s pulse, even in the panting fury of battle. Her rich black hair, black as a Stygian night, fell in rippling burnished clusters down her supple back. Her dark eyes burned on the Cimmerian. ” > — Robert E. Howard, Queen of the Black Coast ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-super-hero-is-most-likely-to-be-racist-when-hes-off-the-clock/613014/112 "2012-02-22T04:08:09Z")
Whoops.:o ---
**Author:** ![Lochdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/edb3f5/32.png) [@Lochdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lochdale)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-super-hero-is-most-likely-to-be-racist-when-hes-off-the-clock/613014/113 "2012-02-22T05:42:56Z")
> [@B.Serum](#): > > [No](http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lwiz6ajaJ81qmavteo1_500.jpg). And that is from the 70’s right… ---
**Author:** ![DarkFire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/34f0e0/32.png) [@DarkFire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarkFire)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-super-hero-is-most-likely-to-be-racist-when-hes-off-the-clock/613014/114 "2012-02-22T12:56:33Z")
> [@Interrobang](#): > > Doesn’t Wolverine get with Storm in one of the timelines? Of course, I guess that could be an example of jungle fever winning out over prejudice. Of course, Wolverine has a tendency to prefer Asian women. He’s been with lots of women throughout the Marvel universe but somehow it seems he always ends up with a Japanese woman. A guy like Cap..he might be a man out of his time, but I doubt Steve Rogers could be racist, ever. I don’t have info to back this up, but the way he is portrayed he was always the guy that did the good thing, respected everyone, etc even before he became a superhuman. I can see Ultimate Cap being one of those “get off my damn lawn” type old guys like Eastwood in Gran Torino though. 🙂 Thing is of course that these characters are written as ‘good examples’. So even when they should technically be racist (because of their age, background, etc) they won’t. Luke Cage would be like the guy in the Chris Rock sketch. “When the revolution starts, my wife is the first to go. Just so they know we mean business” Wasn’t Rorschach racist? If he didn’t say it out loud, I’m sure he secretly felt it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Satchmo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/satchmo/32/4223_2.png) [@Satchmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satchmo)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-super-hero-is-most-likely-to-be-racist-when-hes-off-the-clock/613014/115 "2012-02-22T14:16:30Z")
> [@DarkFire](#): > > Wasn’t Rorschach racist? If he didn’t say it out loud, I’m sure he secretly felt it. 🙂 You really think Rorschach was ‘holding back’ in his internal monologue/diary entries? 😉 I think he hated anyone that didn’t measure up to his high standards, so pretty much everybody. This makes him either the most prejudiced person in Watchmen or the least, depending on your point of view. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2012, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-super-hero-is-most-likely-to-be-racist-when-hes-off-the-clock/613014/116 "2012-02-25T00:45:15Z")
> [@Beastly\_Rotter](#): > > Judge Dredd. He’d kick your mutie ass over the Wall and back into the Cursed Earth before you could say snut. Judge Dredd is not a Marvel character, so he doesn’t really count for the purposes of what I was talking about. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-super-hero-is-most-likely-to-be-racist-when-hes-off-the-clock/613014.md?page=5)