There's a comic that's been making it's ways through my different Facebook circles. Read it right below, then please feel compelled to continue reading as I a blab on about what this might have to do with Spiderman.
So remember the famous tagline that's been made a pop culture saying since the movies came out, "with great power comes great responsibility?" Let's explore a wee bit.
Peter Parker was bit by a radioactive spider, thus privileging him with new abilities and resulting in Spiderman. Some would say he got lucky when given this gift. He at first thought so. Growing up by most accounts American standard poor or barely getting by lower middle class, his first thought was put that power into being a low level pro-wrestler and getting money. Then when he lets a robber get away because the injustice wasn't "his problem," that same robber ends up killing his Uncle Ben. He realizes that anyone's problem is everyone's problem and he must do what he can.
And this is when Spiderman begins to learn that every privilege is not only a gift, but a responsibility. He could have stopped a killer. That would have helped him personally, because his uncle (the breadwinner) would still be present. However, it became realized that this was his duty. His powers meant that he could do things that others couldn't. So he soon realized that meant he had to do whatever he could to help others, just as others had helped him all throughout his life, and would continue to do so.
Yes, there are times when he wonders "why him?" Why did he have the power? Why did he have to help others? Why couldn't he just go on blissfully ignorant and uneffected? And always he returns to the seemingly simple truth that he must. With great power comes great responsibility. Yet despite being a super strong braniac with agility and web powers to boot, he never loses site that Peter Parker is just another person. His life just turned out a little differently. In fact, he pines for the "normal" life but accepts the moral calling to hep others.
And this is one of the many places where I think we can learn from him. He does not deny that his privileges exist. (Yes, he wears a costume when using them, but that's a discussion better left to psychoanalysts.) While he regrets them from time to time, he knows he can't change the past so he puts his energy into making them useful for everyone. What good is a gift if you don't share it with others?
So now how does that translate to white privilege? I don't have an easy answer. But I do have what I've learned. I've learned that life has granted me special skills. By growing up at many times as a member of the majority or the minority, depending on times where I was just another white person, or times where I was the token Jew, I've developed a unique experience that helps me relate empathetically to a wider range of people, helping me as an educator and artist. Or maybe making me into an artist and educator. So what do I do with my strengths? Just try and use them for money such as using my understanding of human motivations and skills as a writer to advertise products made in sweatshops, or instead use those same skills to help others, such as working with youth to use writing as a means to take on the world around them?
Then there's a great moment in Avengers vs. X-Men #9 where Spiderman explains to Hope, the fledgling Avenger (former X-Men), how one part of being an Avenger is knowing that you're not always going to be the most important person to a mission, but one day you will be. And by the end of the issue he is the wisecracking, agile one who causes the success of a rescue mission to free basically all of the Avengers from an overpowered Colossus and Magic. Basically, he distracts the overpowered X-Men, talks a little trash, jumps around, and plays them off of each other while the rest of the Avengers sneak out the back door with their tails between their legs. This is a fable in line with the lion and the mouse about how everyone can be important and one day is. Or on the flipside, never assume you're more important than anyone else, even if you've often been raised to believe that.
Just as nearly all great heroes represent some form of moral or ideal, there is the character who represents the opposite. Batman's careful logic, deduction, and stoic nature juxtaposed by the grandiose insane genius of the Joker, or the power Superman was born into vs. all that Lex Luthor has created through his intellect. One of the other sides of the coin for Spiderman is the Green Goblin. Here is a man who wanted power. Born into a wealthy family, he thought very much that he deserved everything he had. In fact, he felt it wasn't enough. He became the Green Goblin as a result of wanting more and more power. And once the Goblin he drove himself more and more crazy, attempting whatever he could to stop Spiderman and eliminate the one form of checks and balances between him and more power. He is someone blinded by his powers who serves as the antithesis to the proletariat protecting Parker.
So yeah. Go read some comics. You might learn a few things.
Love,
Jason
p.s. Fun comic history fact - Stan Lee was ready to quit Marvel after two decades of feeling he was just doing stupid comics that catered to Westerns, Horror, and other short lived fads. Then his wife, probably the most unsung hero of comics, told him if he was ready to quit, why not just make the comics he wants, and if he gets fired, he got to make the comics he wanted, didn't he? So he made comics, starting with the Fantastic Four, that were grounded in the philosophy of change one or two things about their realities, but then hold everything else extra true to the human experience. And thus birthed the Marvel comics we know and love.
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