I find this line the most revealing, though ere are many examples like the horrifically Whitewash Jones picture from the early 1940s where they packed all racist tropes in one frame. The idea that he had a college degree and spoke fluent German, yet still couldn’t get a promotion even in 2011. From a horrible depiction of “c**n” to a man who can’t a promotion despite education and skills in 2011 is not very far. The idea of the all white major cities in the comics shows the comic book creators still felt exclusive of that “their country” was white. It’s a feeling level programmed into them, whether they intentionally or unintentionally meant to depict major cities like that. It might even be worse if they did not mean it, as the idea of America as only white was programmed into to them by the 1940s and 50s very deeply that even cities like New York, where comics were drawn and black Americans were on the streets, visual present, were left out when it came time to depict the city in the comics for the writers, editors, and artists. It’s often the mental space that is hardest to correct.
It’s interesting the the modern Luke Cage program puts in Harlem, fighting for “his” people, and T’Challa places him that they main here in “his” country for “his people.” They are allowed to fight alongside the main heroes, so long as the whites know that the characters have a ‘base’ with “their” people. It’s still a form of mental segregation of who they are ‘allowed’ to fight for. The advent of the new film where Captain America is black in 2025 will be the first time a black man is leading to save America itself and leading others instead of following, not part of the group. That’s just my two cents of course, a reflexive response from seeing types of segregation still happening.