Adam Huseinovic
AFAM 2100 31
25 January 2016
Prof. Young
A Black Captain America: Why He Never Existed
Does the struggle continue? We are all supposed to be so called, "free" but why is it that African Americans still face oppression in some aspects of life? Law enforcement across the country seems to have no trouble taking someones life away. I will argue that sometimes this brutal force is necessary, but why do the victims always seem to be young black males? Because the idea of whites superiority to blacks has been instilled since the late 1700s. The poster I chose was of Captain America but with a twist, here he is portrayed as a black male as opposed to a Caucasian male.
This poster quickly stood out to me, mainly because of the actual significance of Captain America's background. He is a WW2 soldier who goes through an experiment to make him let's say, unstoppable. In most of my history classes throughout school I always learned that African Americans played a huge role in World War 2, in fact I remember a high school teacher telling my class the war could not have been won without the help of the millions of African American Soldiers, but the original cartoon portrays this white male, "Captain America" as the sole reason for victory. So how was this decision made? Perhaps the fact that America could not handle the idea of an "unstoppable" black man. There was no way black men could possibly be given any credit.
I believe this cartoon portrays the social issue of "white supremacy." This superhero could have easily been a black male, considering African Americans had just as big of role in the War. However in 1941 nobody would have admitted this. Captain America, at the time was too important to America to even be considered as black.
