The colour of green

The fifth earthling to be inducted into the Green lantern Corps made his appearance in Green Lantern number Zero, November issue. Like the four green lanterns before him he is human and male, but this new lantern is an Arab-American Muslim, John Stewart being the other lantern from a racialized group, he being African-American. I believe that Geoff Johns the writer of the Green Lantern has done a good job of writing this new green lantern. Unlike many writers who insert racialized characters into their books and write them as having no history, Johns has written Simon Baz the new green lantern, as a character with a past and how this past helps to make Baz into the character that he has become. Howard Winant talks about colourblindness or colourblind racism, and we can see the idea of colourblindness in much of the right wing policy in the United States and Canada. This stemming from the belief in a neoliberial post racial socity where everyone has the same opportunities, Charles Mills counters neoliberalism this with the concept of racial liberalism, which
points to the fact that by ignoring the injustices of the past their is truly no equality. With Green Lantern issue zero Johns has written an interesting tale about the struggles Baz has had to go through in his life, starting with the events of 911 as a young Baz and his family sit around the television clearly in distress, followed by attacks the following day, and later systematic discrimination as shown by experiences at an airport where he is selected for "random search."

Despite all of this Baz achieved a mechanical engineering degree and worked at a automobile plant in Dearborn Michigan (second green lantern from Michigan, must be something in the water), which ending up getting shut down. Johns did write Baz as a criminal, he took to stealing cars in order to support his sister and her child, some may see this as the racialization of crime, we'll have to see how the story progresses on whether this is racially motivated or commentary on the state of the US economy. Baz finds himself in trouble with the law when, and here I had to question the story, he steals a van that has a bomb in it. When he eventually drives the van to the site of his former employment because he knew it would be empty and a safe place for the bomb to explode, he is arrested... as a terror suspect. Linking Arab-Americans to terrorism may not have been the best way engage with the character, or reinforce the fact that he is Muslim, terrorism might not ever have to be mentioned. The richness of the early story building, the experiences of oppression (Islamophobia) coupled with his experience as an American (street racing, love of automobiles), is darkened a bit by the two dimensional over lay of the terrorist suspect template. Over all I feel the book has potential and once the story arch of, the "misunderstanding" of suspected terrorism is over we'll really see this new green lantern shine.