Joe Hallen Applies for a job

Joe Hallen Applies for a job

Vietnam Comics, Black Comics

Here Joe Hallen is trying to apply for a job, but is rebuffed when he expresses that he does not see himself making a career out of managing a fast food restaurant.

After Hallen’s asserts that he is qualified for a more skilled position than managing a local fast food restaurant, the white restaurant owner expels Hallen from his office and accuses him of looking for a job handout. It is true that many African American men found it harder to find skilled work positions after serving tours of duty overseas in comparison to the white servicemen who looked for jobs after their tours (Graham 30). The other black men Hallen encounters interpret his confidence in attaining higher-level job as arrogance. His community members view Hallen as a self-righteous black man who is willing to fight “the white man’s war.” Black community leaders and civil rights activists in the late sixties and early seventies consistently opposed black casualties in the war effort because of the lack of freedom blacks had in the US (Graham 21). Hallen’s rejection of those community ideals makes him an outsider in his community as shown in the third panel with the two black men condemning him for willingly becoming a soldier and being a “traitor to the cause.” Here, Hallen is treated as an Uncle Tom in the eyes of his black community members.      

Marvel Comics

1991