The Politics of Wealth and Power
Celebrated author of the graphic novel Maus, Art Spiegelman, and former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick may seem to have little in common except for their respective fame and success in their fields.
But Spiegelman’s recent experience with Marvel Entertainment has exposed a much more significant parallel, as Spiegelman concludes about having his work excluded by the company for being too political:
A revealing story serendipitously showed up in my news feed this week. I learned that the billionaire chairman and former CEO of Marvel Entertainment, Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter, is a longtime friend of Donald Trump’s, an unofficial and influential adviser and a member of the president’s elite Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. And Perlmutter and his wife have each recently donated $360,000 (the maximum allowed) to the Orange Skull’s “Trump Victory Joint Fundraising Committee” for 2020. I’ve also had to learn, yet again, that everything is political… just like Captain America socking Hitler on the jaw.
This moment of being policed for being too political experienced by Spiegelman has been Kaepernick’s life outside of the playing field for the past three years.
Kaepernick’s NFL sin leading to his being banished from the Gridiron of Eden that is professional football was protesting during the National Anthem—an act often cast as protesting about the National Anthem and thus rejecting the good ol’ U.S. of A.
Despite their fame and success, Spiegelman and Kaepernick are CONTINUE READING: The Politics of Wealth and Power | radical eyes for equity