Hate, the Oldest Commodity, in “Superman Smashes the Klan”

Hate sells, and it’s profitable as hell. This isn’t anything new or revelatory, I know. Lillian Smith pointed it out in Killers of the Dream when she talked about wealthy whites, in order to maintain their power, enlisted poor whites in hate against African Americans and others following Reconstruction and into the Jim Crow era and beyond, flattening whiteness. Martin Luther King, Jr. pointed it out countlessly as well, notably in “The Drum Major Instinct” where he spoke about talking to one of the white wardens and, upon learning how much the warden made, asked him why he wasn’t protesting alongside of King and others. King told the warden, “You ought to be marching with us. You’re just as poor as Negroes. . . .You are put in the position of supporting the oppressor. Because through prejudice and blindness, you fail to see the same forces that oppress Negroes in American society oppress poor white people.”

Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru’s Superman Smashes the Klan points out the pyramid scheme of hate where those at the top benefit profusely from pitting those beneath them against one another. Matt Griggs, the Grand Scorpion of the local chapter of the Klan of the Firecy Kross, takes some members and attacks the Daily Planet. Superman arrests them, but within hours Matt gets released and goes to see the Grand Imperial Mogul of the Klan. Matt…