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The Summary Report:
King, Volume 1 by writer/illustrator Ho Che Anderson is the first installment of a three-volume comics biopic of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life. Volume 1 covers his life spanning from 1934 to 1963. It touches briefly upon his childhood, but greater attention is given to his courtship of his wife-to-be Coretta Scott and to King’s first major leadership role as a civil rights activist in the boycott of public buses in Montgomery, Alabama, following the historic refusal of Rosa Parks’ to acquiesce to segregated bus seating.

The Demographic Report:
This graphic novel should be read by mature readers. Given the historical subject matter, readers should expect some depictions of violence, adult language (including historically contextualized ethnic slurs), and adult situations. This work is not for anyone seeking a comprehensive biographical account of Martin Luther King’s life but rather for those who would be interested in a dramatized interpretation.

The Minority Report:
Mr. Anderson endeavors to resist mythologizing the historical figure of Martin Luther King, arguably the most prominent figure of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, in favor of depicting King’s gifts as a leader and no less his fallibility as a man living through an extraordinary period of upheaval of black-white relations in U.S. history.

The Review:
In his introduction to King, Volume 1, Ho Che Anderson asserted that his goal was to portray Martin Luther King through “some of the flaws and some of the triumphs,” in order to avoid creating an idealized icon. He also provided the caveat that his work was meant to be an interpretation of the life of Martin Luther King and not a definitive biography. They are candid self-assessments.

The author further admits to taking some dramatic license. Such is the case in the event of King’s stabbing by Izola Ware Curry, which was an actual historical event that had occurred during King’s book signing of Stride Toward Freedom in a Harlem department store in 1958. Mr. Anderson decided to transplant that incident to dramatic effect into King’s arrest in 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama that occurred during a protest of segregation practices by public eating establishments.

Speaking to the interests of both drama and accuracy, reading through the book offers the impression of watching a feverishly kinetic documentary, where the film editor has chosen to depict King’s life through a pastiche of fly-on-the-wall outtakes. It works to create a tone of stark immediacy and authenticity, as if the scenes he had chosen came from actual footage from some heretofore unknown film archive of King’s life (some panels are in fact based on actual historical photographs and film footage). Unfortunately, what Mr. Anderson gains in tone he often loses in narrative clarity.

Does an artistic interpretation of a man’s life require narrative clarity? If there is an expectation to function in a biographical capacity, I would have to say yes. Much of the confusion comes from Mr. Anderson’s technical choices.

His “characters,” for the most part, have a heavily etched appearance, maximizing contrast while foregoing almost all intermediate shading. While this technique is very good for underscoring distinctive features and more intense emotions (as well as possibly playing out the theme of black-white relations with the predominantly black and white color scheme), it also ends up making it difficult to distinguish different characters, sometimes even including between characters who are black and white.

Such confusion is further compounded by the fact that Mr. Anderson’s panel progressions often utilize what Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics would refer to as “aspect-to-aspect,” where eclectic establishing shots are used to create an impression of a whole scene. While this is certainly a viable artistic choice, in Mr. Anderson’s execution, the eye too often becomes unsure of what to focus on in terms of character action and plot development.

As a result of all the aforementioned difficulties, I would have to recommend, strangely enough, that one should familiarize oneself with another Martin Luther biography (or autobiography) beforehand in order to gain a better appreciation of King. If in King we don’t have the biography of choice to become familiar with the start of Martin Luther King’s legacy, we at least have what feels to be a still raw and truthful rendition of the man behind the legacy.

Perhaps a more accurate analogy than the documentary film I mentioned earlier, one might look at Mr. Anderson’s endeavor as one might at a jazz musician’s performance, where the player can avoid paying royalties by improvising on established chord progressions. The resulting tune may not resemble the old standard-bearer much, but the resulting innovation could offer an entirely new artistic experience. And like any bold move from old to new, one can love it, hate it, or acquire a lasting taste for it.

Product Details:

• Title: King, Volume 1
• Author: Ho Che Anderson (writer/illustrator)
• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Fantagraphics Books (June 1993)
• ISBN-10: 1560971126
• ISBN-13: 978-1560971122
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 7.4 x 0.2 inches

Should the above title make you nervously expect a punch line of questionable taste to follow, just bear with me for a wee bit longer and all will be revealed.

If in our working world, there is a green thumb for the kind of money that grows on trees, then my thumb, figuratively speaking, typically stays in the red. That’s not the punch line yet, folks. Contrary to the stereotypes about Asian Americans being good with numbers, my savoir faire falls resoundingly to the side of the Liberal Arts. So why then should I take even the remotest interest in a New York Times article entitled “Is There Room at the Top for Black Executives?” by Ron Stodghill?

I think one of the most unfortunate results of excessive ethnocentrism is the view that falling into one particular minority demographic would preclude one from taking an interest in other minority demographics. In mainstream media, there seems to be this obsessive bipolar lock on how we discuss ethnicity, usually with the white majority as the go-to dance partner while the other minority groups each wait their turn on the floor.

The Punch Line

So here’s the punch line: in a truly ethnically enlightened society, an African-American CEO and an Asian-American Blogger occurring in the same sentence really shouldn’t have to seem like part of a punch line. In other words, the real joke is that a dialogue about members of two different minority groups (without the white majority) sadly seems more likely to occur within the context of vulgar ethnic humor.

So let’s make the title work and address the question I asked earlier, “Why should I, as an Korean-American with no direct background in business, take the remotest interest in a New York Times article about the state of black American corporate executives?” Well, for one thing, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that what has bearing on one minority group has bearing on others as well.

If there is a dearth of black executives in the corporate world, particularly given that blacks are one of our longest standing minority groups in U.S. history, then it stands to reason that other minorities may suffer a similar lack of representation. Of course there are experiences and conditions unique to each ethnic group, but looking at the plight of one minority group can serve as a bellwether for other groups.

But beyond the motive of self-interest by proxy, I believe that regardless of what demographic one belongs to, accepting a state of ignorance about other cultural groups with which we share this country invariably leads to the toxic by-product of bigotry, both overt and covert, both conscious and unconscious.

Can’t See Forest for the Trees

What struck me most about the article was that several of the black executives interviewed expressly stated wanting to be treated on the basis of their performance, whether good or poor, as individuals before the labeling of their black identity (if at all in the case of the latter).

The fact that they even need to provide the disclaimer, almost as if in some reflexive defense mechanism, is symptomatic of the problems that all ethnic minorities face in a dominant white society—the difficulty of seeing the individual before seeing the perceived attributions of the individual’s ethnic group. I discussed this issue in my earlier posting entitled, “Don’t Doubt the Benefit of the Doubt.”

But therein lies the pointed irony, despite claims of our living in a color-blind society, you can’t get to the individual without first properly understanding your own conceptualization of said individual’s identity—a process that is not always so easy to do.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly problematic comments of a few weeks back provide an excellent case example. Several weeks ago, he had made headlines for certain statements he had made on his radio show while recounting his dinner with Reverend Al Sharpton at Sylvia’s, a black-owned restaurant in Harlem.

On his radio show, he was discussing interethnic relations with Fox News analyst Juan Williams, specifically between blacks and whites. He cited his experience at Sylvia’s as a sign of social progress for blacks in America.

In the course of his dialogue with Mr. Williams, Mr. O’Reilly indicated surprise by stating he “couldn’t get over the fact” that there was no difference between black-owned Sylvia’s and other restaurants.

“It was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun,” he said. “And there wasn’t any kind of craziness at all.”

In general, I am not a fan of Mr. O’Reilly’s role in mainstream media (similar to that of his counterparts like Lou Dobbs or Glenn Beck) in which he blurs his role as a demagogic pundit with declarations of being the American everyman, or in Mr. O’Reilly’s specific case, sometimes even with protestations of being the maligned “outsider” to mainstream media which he imbues with an overall liberal bias.

My honest belief is that Mr. O’Reilly meant to express relatively progressive views on the topic of interethnic relations, but his comments demonstrated perfectly the kind of bigotry that is in some ways more difficult to guard against or argue against than overt racism, because the initial intention was so well-meaning. He exhibited the classic soft bigotry of low expectations, or to put it more colloquially, he paid a back-handed compliment to Sylvia’s, and by problematic proxy, the black community.

For those who still believe his comments to be innocuous and the rest of us are being too critical or over-reactive, I find that role-reversal sometimes helps to point out the inherent myopia of a given perspective, and the blogger “Black Sentinel” effectively illustrates this in “Restaurant Review Bill O’Reilly Style,” a biting parody in which she as a black customer reviews a fictional white-owned restaurant.

Free Your Mind, The Rest Will Follow

Being a nationally recognized media figure, it’s too easy to pick on Mr. O’Reilly’s foibles to feel better about ourselves in our ostensibly superior social sensitivity, but at least he has engaged and continues to engage members of another ethnic demographic (in this case the black community) in dialogue. We as individuals would do better to carefully examine how we might also embody bigotries hidden even to ourselves that foster through a lack of engagement with worlds beyond our everyday familiarity.

This could entail a Korean-American blogger reading about black corporate executives in the New York Times or a white news pundit sharing a meal with Reverend Al Sharpton in a black-owned restaurant in Harlem—small steps towards greater understanding. The learning curve exists for every single one of us.