The Tendrils of Racism in David F. Walker’s “Nighthawk”

A couple of years ago, I read David F. Walker’s Nighthawk series “Hate Makes Hate.” This was the first time I had heard of Nighthawk (Raymond Kane), so I didn’t know much about his backstory except what I looked up online. Even without that knowledge, Walker’s series can stand on its own because it focuses on current issues that plague our nation today: police brutality, the rise of white nationalism, class divisions, gentrification, and countless other issues. I do not want to delve into each of these topics today; instead, I want to look at a couple of aspects from the first few issues of the six-issue series that really stuck out to me. Ultimately, I do not want to give away the ending of the series because the ending, and the lead up to it, presents readers with very important questions about morality in the face of social injustice. The series never really answers these questions, and for me, that is a strength because it causes readers to decide what kind of superhero Nighthawk really is, which, in turn, makes readers question what kind of people they really are.

Nighthawk takes place in Chicago in the aftermath of a trial where a jury failed to convict a police officer who murdered an unarmed Black teen. Amidst this moment, a white nationalist group is bringing in illegal weapons and distributing meth, a wealthy, white businessman is working to take over the city and increase gentrification, and a serial killer is executing powerful white individuals in the city who suppress minority communities. As you can see, there is a lot going on, and Walker shows the ways that these various threads join together to highlight the problems facing our nation today are not easily fixable. They are so interconnected that fixing one problem does not necessarily solve everything. If we make education funding equitable across the board, that does not solve the problem of unemployment. If we increase the availability of affordable housing, that does not solve the problems of police profiling. As Walker notes, “There’re so many different factors, and when one thing falls apart it can lead to another thing falling apart, which can lead to another thing, which can lead to a domino effect.” These interconnections, essentially, are something we see in Nighthawk especially with the relationship between Dan Hanrahan and the leader of the New…