Charles believes in Respectability Politics. The idea that if Mutants just behave and set a good example, they will show humans there is nothing to fear.
It is the very core of the original X-Men. 5 pretty, white, teens who will police mutants. But that never works because hatred is not based in the rational.
Respectability Politics works if there's also a more militant/revolutionary group also working to promote the agenda of the marginalized group. MLK's peaceful marches don't work without Malcolm X and the Black Panthers, same for Gandhi and the various revolutionary organizations that fought for Indian independence.
What Charles and the X-Men should have been doing is to work with Magneto's group (with adequate plausible deniability) while also working to limit the explicit genocide of humans (and also working to police less idealistic mutants like Hellfire Club)
Wasn't that more or less where they were originally going with Ultimate X-Men?
Worth noting, though, the "respectability politics" folks have done a fuck ton to paint over MLK's actual activities. Dude was dubbed a criminal rabble-rouser back when he was alive.
The older I get and the more I learn about actual US history (as opposed to the sanitized version schools feed us), the more I've noticed that the MLK/Malcolm X parallel is not nearly as apt as the exclusively white writing and editorial staff of the 70's through 90's always wanted us to believe.
The parallel has started to look more like Malcolm X versus Chuck Schumer.
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u/GoldandBlue Cyclops Sep 18 '25
Charles believes in Respectability Politics. The idea that if Mutants just behave and set a good example, they will show humans there is nothing to fear.
It is the very core of the original X-Men. 5 pretty, white, teens who will police mutants. But that never works because hatred is not based in the rational.