This went under my radar until a friend informed me earlier today. Peter David’s comments here at a panel meant to celebrate diversity are inexcusable and he should never be allowed to write a book like the X-Men again.
Oh my God. This is just so scary…His voice…His ignorance… I feel sick…
Okay, some more detail on the “Peter David is super racist thing”:
First off, this wasn’t an official Marvel panel. It was being held by the New York Times. The panelists were Peter David, Chris Claremont, Max Wittert (who does that Jean and Scott webcomic), and Marvel editor Daniel Ketchum. The focus was on the history of gay X-Men characters and mutants as a queer metaphor, although it didn’t really end up focusing on that very much. Wittert and Ketchum, who are gay, did most of the talking about LGBT issues while Claremont and David were just playing the part of lovable crotchety comic uncles. Everything was fine until the Q&A. The second person up introduced himself as a Romani activist, and launched into what wasn’t so much a question as a long plea for writers to stop using the g-slur and for his people to get better representation. He ended by lobbing a super-softball “do you guys agree” question at the panel.
At that point, before anyone else could speak, David glared at the man and said something along the lines of “do you really want to ask me that question.” The room went dead silent. He then launched into a diatribe about having been in Romania “for the movies” (not really sure what that meant) and seeing a child pulling “itself” along behind its mother because both of its legs were broken. His guide then told him that “g*****s do that to their own children to make people want to give them money” (paraphrasing). David concluded by telling the man (again, paraphrasing) “I saw those broken children, so don’t complain to me about the suffering of the Romani people”. When the man tried to respond from the back of the room, David shouted “I don’t care” over and over, eventually driving the man out of the room. People were fucking shocked. A lot of people in the audience were muttering “no dude” and “stop” while he was getting into it, and everyone was clearly uncomfortable, but the Q&A kept going for a few more minutes. As the panel ended and everyone was walking out, David leaned in to the microphone and apologized, saying that “the Romani situation is a very sensitive subject” to him.
It was weird, it was frightening, and it was super, SUPER uncomfortable, and I get wanting to believe it didn’t happen, but it did. And I don’t understand how the only reference I’ve seen to it so far is “Peter David shared some negative opinions about Romani portrayal”.
[Image: A gorgeous digital art piece of Angela and Sera from marvel comics dancing together, Angela has her hair down and it is laced with beads, she has a long white dress and gold armbands. She is smiling fondly down at Sera.
Sera is smiling with her eyes closed, her hair is braided on one side and she is wearing a blue dress with a flower patterned lace shoulder and back section. The scene is romantic and serene.]
I’m crying so much thank you for this, your art is so beautiful and so are these ladies <3
what I love about tumblr astrology as opposed to like newspaper astrology is that it’s so weirdly specific and particular like I myself don’t especially care what the stars think is in store for my future and would probably just feel rebellious if informed but I’m absolutely in favor of a stranger on the internet telling me what kind of onion I am
