Truth, Justice, and the Reboot of White Supremacy

There’s a new Superman movie out. Again.

Listen, I grew up around superheroes, like most people my age. But I’m exhausted. Exhausted by the same tight-jawed, blue-eyed fantasy of virtue that gets reanimated every few years like America’s favorite ghost. Superman: the Doctor Who no one asked to regenerate. It’s not just boring, it’s oppressive. Every new reboot is just another affirmation that the ideal American hero still looks like a corn-fed white man with a square jaw and the privilege of passing as “just a guy.” Meanwhile, the rest of us are still waiting for the kind of privilege we don’t have to perform or apologize for.

Because if Superman is hope, then hope has a type…

—and it’s not me. Not because I lack power, but because I’ve never had the privilege of pretending I belonged in the sky. Every time I try to stretch my damn wings, white supremacy comes with dull rusty scissors to clip them.

Superman didn’t just fall from the sky—he was summoned. Born in 1938, in the shadow of the Great Depression and on the cusp of global war, he wasn’t created to challenge the system. He was designed to reassure it. The banks were failing, the jobs were gone, and the cracks in the American dream had started to show. People didn’t want a revolutionary. They wanted a white man who could lift a car and still make it home in time for dinner. His powers were fantastical, but his values? Pure 1930s Americana. Respect authority. Save the girl. Don’t make waves.

While Superman soared above Metropolis, real-life America was busy expelling anyone who didn’t pass for white. Mexican families—many of them U.S. citizens—were loaded onto trains and dumped across the border. Black folks were surviving Jim Crow, disappearing into prisons, or being crushed under the weight of labor and silence. Indigenous people were being reorganized, reclassified, and erased. We were everywhere, powering the machine, but never in the story. Superman never saved us—because he was never built for us.

That’s the real engine behind the myth: white supremacy doesn’t want healing. It wants a reboot. It wants to watch the same story again and again, as if repetition can undo guilt. As if a square-jawed man in spandex can stand in for the reckoning it keeps running from.

By the 1950s, Superman had traded in his Depression-era grit for something shinier—something suburban. He wasn’t just a hero anymore; he was the clean-cut protector of the American Way™. This was the age of television, of white picket fences and nuclear families, of conformity packaged as freedom. Superman fit right in. On screen, he was gentle but firm, morally upright, impossibly polite. He didn’t question authority—he was authority. And as the Cold War kicked off and McCarthyism took hold, his greatest enemy wasn’t injustice—it was difference. While America hunted “reds” and surveilled its own citizens, Superman reassured viewers that the system still worked—as long as you stayed in line.

But even before the television era smoothed his edges, Superman was already shaping white heroism in the 1940’s movie serials. Kirk Alyn, the first live-action Superman, debuted in 1948—smack dab in the middle of post WWII optimism and racial stratification. Alyn played Clark Kent with a wide-eyed sincerity that fit the mold: strong, polite, self-assured. The kind of man who looked like he could shake your hand and own your bank. He was the American dream in tights.

Never mind that the dream didn’t include Japanese Americans still returning from internment camps, or Black GIs denied the GI Bill. This version of Superman didn’t need depth—he just needed presence. And his presence was enough to remind audiences who this country was built for, and who it wasn’t.

While Black children were being spit on for trying to learn, Superman was busy comforting middle-class white America with a smile and a fist. On TV, he tackled jewel thieves, shady businessmen, and the occasional mad scientist—but never the police who brutalized peaceful protesters, or the mobs screaming outside newly integrated schools. He could fly, see through walls, and stop a bullet with his chest—but somehow never found his way to Birmingham, Little Rock, or Jackson.

In The Adventures of Superman, everything dangerous was neat and external. Problems came with masks, not badges. Villains had plans—not policies. No one was redlining neighborhoods, enforcing segregation, or sterilizing Indigenous women. The biggest threat was always someone trying to disrupt the natural order—not the order itself. And Superman? He wasn’t just protecting people. He was protecting the lie: that justice was already in place, and all we needed was a good man to maintain it.

That show didn’t just ignore racism, it actively trained audiences to look away from it. To believe that the worst evil was individual and criminal, not systemic and cultural. It taught viewers—especially white ones—that safety was about maintaining control, not changing conditions. It taught them that whiteness, authority, and goodness were the same thing. And it made sure that anyone who didn’t fit the mold—Black, Brown, queer, poor—was either invisible or dangerous.

So, when conversations about race come up now, it’s not sudden. It’s history resurfacing. And still—folks ask, “Why do we keep bringing it up?”

That’s why it sits in our mouths like something we can’t swallow.

Because your heroes never saw us. They were too busy saving the world from us.

That absence wasn’t accidental. Shows like The Adventures of Superman trained generations to believe that racism wasn’t happening—because it wasn’t happening on their screens. And when Obama was elected decades later, that illusion roared back: “See? We did it. Racism is over.” As if one man’s charisma and proximity to power could erase four hundred years of violence, exclusion, and systemic theft. As if representation without redistribution is liberation. As if we should stop screaming just because they finally let one of us walk through the front door.

White culture doesn’t like mirrors. It likes myths. And Superman is one of its favorites.

But the world was changing, whether the myth could keep up or not.

By the late 1970s, America was reeling. Two Kennedys gone, Dr. King gone, Malcolm gone. The Civil Rights Act had passed, but the country hadn’t healed—it had hardened. Loving v. Virginia had just made interracial marriage legal in 1967, and even then, states like Virginia were still clutching their pearls in the back pews of white supremacy. Roe v. Wade had landed in 1973, Title IX was shifting access in education, and something seismic was moving under the surface. The needle was inching toward equality—but like an iceberg, most of it was still submerged. Still dangerous. Still cold.

And that’s when they brought Superman back-not just as a movie, but as a cultural reset button.

Superman: The Movie (1978) came after Watergate, after Vietnam, after all that public blood and unraveling, America needed something simple. Something clean. Christopher Reeve floated down like a dream: gentle, gallant, handsome as hope. He wasn’t angry. He didn’t mourn. He saved people, smiled, and made Lois Lane swoon. This wasn’t justice—it was romance. A white man falling from the sky to remind America what it liked to believe about itself.

Lois Lane has always been written as ambitious—but never truly dangerous to the myth. In the 1950s, she was the feisty reporter who chased stories but still needed saving. By the 1970s, she had sharper bangs and a sharper tongue, but the leash was still there—just prettier. In Superman: The Movie, she becomes a symbol of modern womanhood: career-driven, fast-talking, fearless… but only within limits. That whole undercover moment at Niagara Falls? It looks like empowerment on the surface—a woman determined to uncover the truth. But look again. It’s a setup. A narrative trap. She’s framed as clever, but ultimately punished for being right. She risks everything to prove her suspicion, and when she’s right, she’s punished for it. He kisses her, and literally erases her memory. He doesn’t trust her with the truth. He doesn’t share the power. He resets her like a character in a video game, and she lets it happen—because what other choice does she have?

That wasn’t love. That was control dressed in romance-and women in the audience, especially white women, were expected to see it as a grand gesture. A man keeping her safe by keeping her in the dark.

And what about the rest of us? The ones who never got to be Lois? Who weren’t even invited to the newsroom, let alone the love story? We learned early that curiosity was dangerous, that boldness made you disposable, and that no one was coming to kiss your memory away.

While Clark and Lois were playing out their heterosexual cold war—she suspects, he deflects—something much bigger was happening off-screen. Stonewall had already exploded in 1969. Queer folks were fighting cops, coming out, building community in the cracks of every system that refused to see them. Pride marches were blooming in cities across the country, not as parades but as protests. And yet, the screen stayed silent.

In Superman’s world, queerness didn’t exist. Not openly. Not lovingly. Not at all.

In its place, we got the same story on loop: boy meets girl, boy saves girl, boy lies to girl “for her own good.” That was supposed to be intimacy. That was supposed to be normal. The relationship between Clark and Lois became less about love and more about preserving a particular kind of order—man above woman, truth above transparency, heterosexuality above everything else.

And for queer viewers? It was a double disappearance. Not only were we left out—we were written over. Every cape, every kiss, every secret identity was a reminder that the only love worth saving was the kind that could pass.

But here’s the thing: when women push toward freedom, systems push back-on screen and in real life.

While Lois was chasing stories and being gaslit with a kiss, real women were navigating a landscape of resentment and retaliation. The 1970s weren’t just about progress—they were about resistance to that progress. Domestic violence reports were rising, not because women were suddenly in more danger, but because they were finally naming it. Naming him. Naming the violence behind the front door. Shelters were being built from scratch because the courts didn’t care. Police didn’t listen. Abuse was still considered a private matter, not a crime.

And at the same time, women were fighting for financial autonomy—for the right to open bank accounts, rent apartments, and access credit without a husband’s signature. The very idea that a woman could live fully without a man—pay her bills, raise her children, make her own damn choices—was seen as radical. Dangerous, even. Laws had to be overturned for women to have that most basic power: independence.

And what did Superman offer during that time-while women were fighting for their lives, their names, their autonomy? A fantasy of strength restrained. A man who could destroy everything but chose instead to save it—on his terms. Lois could have a voice, as long as she didn’t ask for too much. She could have questions, as long as she didn’t get answers.

It was a soft-gloved version of the very control women were bleeding to escape. And I grew up in the middle of it.

I was a child of the late ’70s and early ’80s, so my Superman didn’t just wear a cape—he lived in Saturday morning cartoons and shiny technicolor reruns. I knew Christopher Reeve’s version, of course: the upstanding, high-chested white man with the little curl on his forehead, always poised to save the day with a smile. But my Superman was also animated—Justice League, Super Friends, all those bright, booming theme songs and simple plots. He was kind of like a polite alien Captain America—an outsider with the right kind of inside.

And I’ll be honest, as a kid, I liked him. He always knew what to do. He always saw the good.

But what I didn’t know yet—what I couldn’t name—was who he didn’t see. Who didn’t even exist in those worlds.

No one who looked like me got saved. No one who looked like my family worked at the Daily Planet. There were no little Black girls on the playgrounds of Metropolis, and if they were there, the camera never panned that far down. Even Wonder Woman, as groundbreaking as she was, lived in a kind of fantasy feminism—beautiful, powerful, and still perfectly palatable. And as the years rolled on, the story adapted just enough to keep itself intact.

By the 1990s, Superman got serialized again—Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. Dean Cain was impossibly charming, and I remember thinking he was fine, but also… untouchable. Lois, played by Teri Hatcher, was brilliant and assertive, but still somehow floating above reality. It was like they had all the right ingredients for something radical—strong woman, ethical man, partnership—and still baked it into the same old pie.

No race. No class. No queerness. No truth.

Just power with a wink-and me, still watching, still wondering where I fit.

Looking back, I realize Superman was never just a superhero—he was propaganda. A walking billboard for assimilation. A symbol of everything people were supposed to strive for when they came to this country: speak the language, follow the rules, shed your past, blend in, be good. Be palatable. Superman wasn’t just a hero—he was a reward for compliance. A fantasy that if you played by the rules hard enough, you could fly too.

But somewhere along the line, the myth started to crack for me.

I started noticing that no one in that world looked like me. No one moved like me, or talked like me, or lived in the kind of homes I knew. I kept watching these characters—these heroes I was supposed to want to emulate—but couldn’t find myself in any of them. I couldn’t see myself emulating a white man. I definitely couldn’t see myself emulating Lois Lane, even if I had the same drive, the same ambition.

If anyone came close, it was Wonder Woman—strong, stubborn, outspoken. But even she was more statue than story. In the Justice League and Super Friends cartoons, she was always there, but barely. Seen, but not really seen. A side character with good hair and gold accessories. And yeah, we can talk about Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman—but honestly? Fighting in a bustier and a unitard? That’s not liberation, that’s a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen. What if your boob pops out mid-battle? Where’s the armor? Where’s the realism? It was all form, no function—just another woman written to be admired, not understood.

That’s when I understood: even the women who were allowed to be strong were still being dressed for someone else’s gaze.

And then came Superman Returns (2006)—which says a lot. I think I went because there were free tickets, and it was a hot summer night with no air conditioning. That’s it. That’s the memory. Not the film, not the plot—just the sweat and the theater seats in a cold dark room. Maybe that’s fitting, because that version of Superman felt like climate control too: bland, mechanical, designed to make people comfortable, not curious.

But underneath the soft visuals and recycled romance, something else was happening: The Pentagon was consulted on the film.

And just like that, Superman wasn’t just a symbol of strength—he became a stand-in for state-sanctioned force.

Power was no longer about doing good. It was about keeping control. The cape was still there-but the mission had shifted. The messaging was subtle but clear: even your favorite alien answers to a chain of command. And that chain is red, white, and blue.

It’s a quiet kind of propaganda—the kind that doesn’t need to shout because it’s wrapped in a cape and childhood nostalgia. The kind that says violence is necessary, as long as it’s coming from the right people. That militaristic intervention is safety. That silence is noble. That men with the ability to destroy the world deserve our trust because they’re polite about it.

And that’s exactly how you soften an empire:

You give it cheekbones.

You cast it as moral.

You teach it to smile before it strikes.

And now, presenting: Superman 2025.

He crashes into Earth—again—only this time a Black man helps him up out of the crater he made. He’s fighting kaiju now, apparently. And he has a dog. Because if there’s anything America loves more than a white man with power, it’s making sure he looks relatable while wielding it.

Come on, man.

And sure- Wendell Pierce is playing Perry White now. And I love Wendell Pierce. I’ve seen him give depth and dignity to roles that didn’t deserve his nuance. But let’s not pretend that dropping a Black man into a historically white newsroom changes the narrative. If Superman’s world still centers whiteness, still operates within the same power structures, still recycles the same myths- then this isn’t inclusion. It’s tokenism with a paycheck. It’s adding color to the margins and calling the whole thing diverse. And I refuse to cheer just because they threw us a desk and called it progress.

This isn’t reinvention. This is redecoration - melanin in the margins and calling it progress.

This is adding a dog and a Black extra like we’re supposed to forget what the cape has always stood for. Like we won’t notice that the story’s still the same. Superman still centers whiteness. Still operates alone. Still carries all the power but none of the accountability. Because in this myth, he doesn’t need to change—he just needs to be packaged differently.

That’s the trick: Make him smile more. Give him a dog. Let a Black man dust him off and hand him back his dignity. And that is called progress.

And if you think this is new, think again. This trope of archaic DEI was attempted in 1983, when Superman III dropped Richard Pryor into the franchise like a comic grenade. Pryor, one of the most fearless truth-tellers of his time, got cast as Gus Gorman— an awkward hacker with a knack for code and confusion. A comedic sidekick, written to fumble and wisecrack his way through scenes that barely deserved his presence. He wasn’t there to challenge Superman—he was there to buffer him. To inject a dose of relevance without risking the myth. They gave Pryor just enough screen time to make it look like inclusion, but not enough depth to disrupt the narrative. He was popular, palatable, and just subversive enough to be funny—so long as he didn’t get too real.

Superman keeps being rebooted and revised to be more “human,” but never more honest.

But we are smarter than this.

We’ve built entire worlds from scratch, mapped galaxies with machines no bigger than a lunchbox, kept ancient languages alive in our mouths, in our drums, in our breath. We’ve made beauty from rubble. We’ve braided resistance into lullabies. We are not dumb. We are not blind.

So why do we keep telling this same story?

Why do we keep rebooting a savior in spandex instead of facing the truth?

That the real sickness isn’t the villain of the week—it’s the system.

That the fantasy isn’t flying—it’s pretending we’re innocent.

White supremacy didn’t come here by accident. It wasn’t smuggled in.

It was invited, fed, promoted. -and maybe it didn’t come alone.

Maybe it rode in holding hands with heteronormativity, with patriarchy, with control dressed up as love.

Maybe they arrived like a wedding party—smiling, matching, unchallenged.

But that doesn’t mean we have to keep dancing to the same damn song. We know better now, we are capable of more. Of nuance. Of accountability. Of telling stories that don’t erase, flatten, or perform.

We are capable of truth. And if we’re lucky, of building something better from it.

So no—I won’t be watching the next Superman movie.

Not because I hate heroes.

But because I believe in us too much- our stories, our depth, our truths-to settle for the ones we keep getting handed.