I settled on a rock in Central Park, the New York skyline behind me. A glassy new skyscraper neared completion in its stretch toward the skies. I was striking a few poses in my superhero costume when a young boy perched higher on a rock chimed in.
“Captain America does not have a turban and beard,” he said. He had a child’s curious tone. No malevolence.
“Why not?” I asked him. “I was born here. We could have a new Captain America who is Sikh or black or Hispanic.”
He thought about this. Finally, he conceded that yes, maybe a black or Hispanic Captain America would be OK. But his brain couldn’t make sense of it: Captain America in a turban? Captain America in a beard? He’d never conceived of such a thing before.
That’s exactly what brought me to this park on a beautiful summer day. To make fresh neural connections in our collective consciousness. To leave a new image on the hard drive of that boy’s mind.
– “Captain America in a Turban,” Vishavjit Singh