I remember reading Superman comics where he would find himself trapped on Bizarro World, a place where a chalky white Superman wore a backwards S and put on glasses to go fight crime.  Bizarro Superman spoke like Frankenstein and did everything backward, as did everyone on his planet, so naturally Bizarro World was completely screwed up. 

Recently, I’ve felt trapped in Bizarro World. 

 Since the Reverend Wright controversy, I have heard a lot of people blasting Barack Obama for being secretly angry and hateful toward whites and even America in general.  I think that only in Bizarro World could a display of tolerance and openness to other people’s feelings be considered a sign of a candidate’s secret intolerance. 

As a man looking at raising a child of color, I appreciated Senator Obama’s speech on race.  As a half-Chinese/half-Hoosier wandering goof, I appreciated his reference to his grandmother and the complicated ties that bind us all together.  I think that most of the people who are reacting badly to him either a) have not read or heard what he said, or b) live in segregated communities (or families). 

My other Superman memory involves a “Superman vs. Muhammad Ali” comic I had.  The story involved the two most famous people on earth being forced to box to see which one would face the gladiator sent by an invading army from another galaxy. 

I remember –and I still love this moment—that Ali and Superman enter the ring (under a red sun, where Superman would have no powers) and Superman is allowed to keep his costume and cape because “otherwise, many of the spectators from other planets would have too much trouble telling the two apart.”