Why is Superman White?

Why is Superman white?

It sounds like a ridiculous question.

Maybe it is.

But before you dismiss it, consider a few dates.

In 1908, Jack Johnson became the first Black world heavyweight boxing champion. When former champion James J. Jeffries-the man celebrated as the "Great White Hope"-came out of retirement to restore the heavyweight crown to white America, Johnson demolished him in 1910. His victory was followed by racial violence across the country.

Two years later, Tarzan appeared.

A white baby raised by apes in Africa grows into a man stronger than everyone around him, masters the jungle, dominates African warriors, communicates with animals and eventually proves that even without civilization, education or apparently a decent pair of shoes, the white man can still come out on top.

Coincidence?

Probably.

Then it happens again.

In 1936, Jesse Owens walked into Hitler's Berlin Olympics and won four gold medals, delivering one of history's most spectacular rebukes to Nazi fantasies of Aryan physical superiority.

In 1938, Joe Louis destroyed Max Schmeling before more than 70,000 spectators at Yankee Stadium in one of the most politically and racially charged sporting events of the twentieth century.

And in 1938, America met Superman.

Faster than a speeding bullet.

More powerful than a locomotive.

Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

And, naturally, white.

In WHY IS SUPERMAN WHITE?, award-winning author Jerrimiah Stonecastle takes a provocative, frequently funny and deliberately uncomfortable journey through race, superheroes, sports, Hollywood and the American imagination.

Stonecastle isn't claiming that somebody saw Jesse Owens running and immediately ordered a white superhero.

He's asking something more interesting:

What if nobody had to?

What if the heroes a culture creates naturally reflect assumptions so deeply embedded that nobody involved even thinks to question them?

From Jack Johnson and the Great White Hope to Tarzan and colonial fantasy, from Jesse Owens and Nazi Germany to Joe Louis and Max Schmeling, Stonecastle follows the historical trail into the world of Superman and asks who America traditionally allowed to represent ultimate strength, virtue, masculinity and heroism.

Then Hollywood enters the picture.

Who was allowed to inhabit Metropolis?

Who became the criminal?

Who got rescued?

Who got to be Superman?

And what should we make of Richard Pryor's extraordinary arrival in Superman III, when one of America's biggest Black stars finally received a major place alongside the Man of Steel?

The investigation eventually reaches the question hiding underneath the title:

If Superman's race doesn't matter, why does the idea of a Black Superman matter so much?

This isn't an attack on Superman.

It isn't an indictment of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

And it isn't a conspiracy theory pretending coincidence is proof.

It's an examination of something much larger: the relationship between the heroes America creates and the people America historically permitted itself to imagine as heroic.

You may agree with Stonecastle.

You may think he's completely out of his mind.

Either way, you'll probably never look at that cape quite the same way again.

Think the analogy is crazy?

Open the book.

It gets worse.