Jay & Nia: Colonization and Queerness
I would like to start his by prefacing a few things.
1.Intersectionality is a thing
People conceive of marginalized identities as separate from one another. Disability, Trans rights, Gay rights, Women's rights, Racial Equality are all viewed as different issues to cover with varying levels of priority. Those who are interested in discussing these topics quickly become aware of "intersectionality", where we view privilege and discrimination through multiple identities rather than one.
But, the effect of these combinations of identities on people's experiences have been simplified. As Kimberlé Crenshaw has said using the example of the experiences of black women, misogyny and racism don't simply come together, they create something entirely new.
2. Every form of oppression has different frameworks and approaches
Intersectionality shows how living with different identities can lead to newly formed methods of social oppression, the new thing is formed because all the identities mentioned above need varying approaches.
Decolonization is Not A Metaphor by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang explains how colonialism impacts different groups differently. The settler-native-slave triad model to understand North American colonialism is used to explain this.
If you haven't read it(I read it like, 2 hours ago, thank you @chanth-thara for the recommendation, it really helped!!!), it talks about how the strategies taken to eradicate indigenous people and the strategies taken to suppress and use black people are different with varying end goals, and the liberation of one group of people cannot be achieved using the same methods as the other. Indigenous folks want their land back. Black liberation, struggle and freedom often involved the acquisition of land which ultimately contributes to Indigenous colonization. To liberate both demographics would require an acknowledgement of people's role in colonialism.
Similarly, the queer struggle and the colonial struggle while occurring due to imperialism, each require different approaches. They can't be lumped in together.
Unfortunately, the Jay-Nia-Jon story does treat oppression due to Nia's trans identity, and Jay's subjugation at the hands of U.S's colonization as comparable, which leads to the story undermining the impact of colonization.
Media likes to keep marginalized stories separate. If it's a queer story it's gotta be queer, not about racism, or vice versa, if it's about disability it can't be about caste or class, etc.
DC Pride, AAPI Month specials, BHM specials etc. These offerings for diversity demand the creatives to tell stories confined to these identities, which is attempted, leading to a lot of DC Pride specials ringing hollow. We deviated from this pattern of queer characters showing up only for Pride with Nia, Jay and Jon's story
The three met each other for the common cause of saving Gamorra. The foundation of Superman: Son of Kal-El is anarchist rebellion and going against status quo to liberate a colonized country. While they were queer, they had another cause to fight for.
Gamorra then became the center of conflict for a DC Event. Sara Nakamura, President of Gamorra was assassinated to create political chaos in an already unstable Gamorra allowing the United States to move in to colonize the country. Jay was then shot and taken as political prisoner. Later, we find out that the plans extended to Jay's assassination as well at the hand of the U.S., along with a plan for a genocide of Gamorran citizens.
Nia, was complicit in all this, forced as it was. As Absolute Power and Secret Six went on though, the above events slowly started fading to the background, often spoke in vague terms. Jay and Sara's names weren't even spoken, and neither had appearances. Jay was labelled a terrorist, dangerous enough to raise the Justice League's hackles. He lost his family, his love, his friend, and his country.
Meanwhile, we were seeing more stories and insights on Nia in the aftermath of Absolute Power. We see her guilt, her exclusion from the Justice League, her subsequently missing her gender reassignment surgery, and her heartbreak/sadness over her conflicting romantic feelings for Jon. We see her willingness to risk her life, saving Clark and the Justice League at the expense of her family, and losing her life saving Jon, and her suicidality.
Secret Six showed the fracturing romance between Jon and Jay.
We're not talking about Gamorra anymore. Gamorra was already set dressing when SOKE was happening, though it was much better at centering the voice of the oppressed through Jay. As the story went on, Gamorra's safety & the impact of the colonization faded to the background and it became battle grounds for generating plot lines and angst for American heroes. Jay was written out of Absolute Power, with great emphasis placed on Nia's guilt and self-sacrifice.
Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang write about 'move to innocence' where people part of a colonial project, out of the guilt, try to justify their actions.
Later, we see Jay's anger, and Nia reaching out. While the story is clear that what happened in Gamorra was unjust, Jay's reaction is....not received well. Jon and Jay often argue, Lori mocks Sara's death. While Jon did say something hurtful to Nia, he was empathetic to her the rest of the run. The same goes for Lori.
On text, these characters often tell Jay (or to each other) he is in the right but when interacting with him or when Jay takes initiative regarding what to do about Waller or Gamorra, he is rejected, often with a level of hostility.
Lori tells Nia Jay is right, but she continues to mock him despite playing a role in the fall of Gamorra. Nia doesn't trust Jay and turns hostile when he states Waller is not responsible, the country is. Jon tells Jay off when he wants to fight the U.S.
All of these characters, while acknowledging Nia(and Lori's) part in colonization, ultimately begrudge Jay for not forgiving them because of their moves to innocence. In a Doylist sense, the story has provided these American characters, involved in colonialism, the perfect excuse to be absolved of their guilt. Nia's trans and was forced to do it, lori had a bomb in her head. "I had no power, I couldn't do anything".
Sympatheis were starting off low and continue to dwindle for Jay. Nia, while ostracized and definitely in trouble, gets empathy from Taylor, Oliver Queen(also responsible for Gamorra, moreso than Nia), Jon. They all know to varying extents she contributed to something horrible but are ultimately reaching out to her.
Jay's objectively in the right for being angry, for killing the soldiers who were involved in the plans to colonize his country, for not being forgiving or even receptive to Nia. The narrative says it, but emotionally speaking he is policed and pushed away.
Are we seeing the problem?
Nia's struggle as a trans woman in modern times has been set to the backdrop of colonization. While Nia is trans, she is also a white American who passes well and was directly responsible for colonization. No amount of claims to innocence is going to negate that. Blood is on her hands. The narrative wants us to see Nia as powerful, narration and exploration of her powers emphasize this, even if she is inexperienced. She repeatedly immobilizes Jay with minimal effort.
Jay is a gay refugee, and his struggles are centered entirely on his identity as a freedom fighter and victim of colonization. While Nia has played a direct role in Jay's oppression, Jay has nothing to do with Nia's oppression. And as established before, Jay is meant to be seen as weaker than Nia. I don't want to stretch it and this is more, an inkling of doubt than anything else, but positioning Nia as a potential love interest specifically with the context of the colonization story also undermines his character in an effort to elevate Nia.
The way Jay is queer is not the same as the way Nia is queer, and it's not just because gay and trans. It's because Nia is white, powerful, and an oppressor while Jay is a brown asian guy who has zero support systems and is oppressed. The colonization makes the manifestation of his intersectionality too different from Nia's.
Look everyone online is pissed off about Dream Girls #2 rn. People have been pissed since Absolute Power: Super Son. After about a year, the DC fandom has reached a boiling point.
People in the DC fandom are not nice about Jay. Racism, colorism, queerphobia, lookism, hang-ups about a decade old decision regarding volcanoes and time jumps. Most people are lukewarm, or hostile about Jay and Jon being in a relationship. But tides have turned. As off the end of Secret Six, people still don't want Jay and Jon to be together but because JAY is clearly in the right.
This shithole of a fandom where any character that doesn't have black hair, blue eyes and skin as white as paper with a possible relation to Gotham is ripped to shreds, people are going "hey that's fucked up what's happening to Jay".
It's hard to articulate why, because the Jay-Nia dynamic is a mess of intersectional identities and fandoms haven't much experience dealing with that. I actually had a positive reaction to DG #2 but as I sat with it, it went from nice, to uncomfortable, to "oh god no". People have had BIG reactions to it.
This is my attempt at articulating why.
It's probably childish to expect a comic company in America to acknowledge its role in colonization to an extent where some reparations are offered even in fiction. But, Pandora's Box on this plotline has been opened. There's no imperative to address it, but if we want Nia to be a hero again, Gamorra and Jay must be written about directly, and extensively to the same extent Nia and Jon's stories have been told.
The romantic conflict is out of most everyone's minds. The pertinent story to be told here, is that of colonization. As my friend @faemorrigan put it, yeah Nia missed her bottom surgery but there's trans people in Gamorra who can't get access to any form of gender affirming care because of her involvement.
The consequences of these actions which have been shoved to the very back so no one; not the writers, readers or these American characters- have to think about what colonization really means.
It means theft, millions dead, forests razed, resources stolen, famine, starvation, assault, and decades if not centuries of damage.
[Thanks to everyone at the JayJon server for helping me with this! Specoal shootout to @gossamerblue who also heloed me articulate.
Like I know we weren't talking specifically for this but it helped me get my thoughts in order]
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