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‘Dragonball Z’ Taught Me That Race Is a Social Construct
Turning lemons into unapologetically Black cartoon characters
Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.
Anyone who watches Dragon Ball Z knows that Piccolo is Black. Yes, he’s green. Yes, he was born from an egg. And yes, I know that technically he comes from Planet Namek. But to me, and to millions of other Black viewers, Piccolo is Black.
It’s not just Piccolo. It’s Raven from Teen Titans. Knuckles from Sonic the Hedgehog. Skeeter from Doug. Whenever there isn’t a Black character on a beloved animated show, Black people say to hell with it and just create our own.
Why is that? Well, first of all, representation matters. For children, in particular, not seeing themselves on-screen can lead to negative psychological outcomes, namely low self-esteem. Unfortunately, even though the data is clear that children benefit from seeing depictions of themselves on-screen, for many of us of a certain age, those portrayals just weren’t there in the pop culture phenomena of our youth. If I wanted to escape reality in the worlds of my favorite anime or action cartoons, I had to indulge in some race-bending.
