Source: womenwriteaboutcomics.com
3. Introducing Dave Stevens
(Pages 2-4)
When Lois gets to…*sigh*…Little Africa, she finds that everyone she approaches ignores her. Every black person just silently walks away. They don’t want to talk to Lois. One of those people is literally a baby, but no one ever explains why Lois tries to interview a four-month-old.
Even a blind woman bails upon hearing Lois’ voice. Although Lois assumes this is because she has a white sounding voice, rather than because she was annoying the hell out of this random lady. Next, we meet Dave Stevens, a black activist who makes some of the only valid points about race in the entire comic book., as he presents a lecture to a group of teens.
Dave lectures a group of teens about the evils of pseudo-progressivism, which refers to people who are fine with black rights in theory, but fight against them in practice. It’s the I’m against segregation, but I don’t want them in MY school attitude that you still see today. It’s weird to see a point like this being made. It may be simplistic, but it’s fairly on point in this comic that otherwise completely misunderstands the issues it’s discussing.
That’s why I usually put this one more in the camp of It’s totally awful, but its heart wants to be in the right place than anything else.
