I first noticed racism in comics while reading Winsor MacCay’s Little Nemo.  The black characters in his comics were overly stereotyped, with lips that covered half their face and heavy use of Ebonics.  While reading some of the more modern comics, such as Mama’s Boyz by Jerry Craft, you can see that much of the stereotyping in comics has been done away with.  Characters are represented more realistically with less exaggerated features. Some television shows, such as animated series like The Boondocks and Black Dynamite use stereotypes and overly exaggerates them, leading the shows to be more satirical and humorous.  I don’t think that stereotyping is a necessary strategy to represent characters.  I think that comics shouldn’t have to use stereotypes, but in the case with The Boondocks, the use of stereotypes makes it much more hilarious.

I remember in middle school I was stereotyped, a pretty bad stereotype too.  I was the quiet guy who didn’t talk to anyone and sat in the back corner of the class drawing and not paying attention.  Everyone thought I was going to bring a gun into school and shoot everyone. Some people joked about it, and some people just ignored me, I tried not to pay attention. It probably didn’t help my image that most of my drawings were of swords and other weapons, sometimes chopping people in half. I also shouldn’t have drawn a guy getting shot in the face with a machine gun on the back of a test. I remember being called to the principal’s office and him telling me that I should try drawing flowers and cars instead.  Eighth grade wasn’t too fun…