the fact that the main plot thread of a big gangbuster movie like this was about an afrofuturistic society that managed to be untouched by colonialization and imperialist conquest, and the incredibly complex question of WHAT their responsibility is to the global african diaspora is never going to cease to awe me.
what the entire cast created is something that has resonated with black communities across the world and united them in a shared sense of pride and eagerness to go out and create what we want to.
killmonger was wrong because he was an imperialist, but there is no denying the power behind his condemnations of the wakandan elite and the enormity of pain doubling him over, that he ultimately resigns himself to pouring that very pain over the world.
his pre-release poster labeled him as having "his people's rage." i've seen people say that his motivations were undercooked or never really delved into, and i completely disagree with that. his motivations are what motivated black activists of past and present.
colonization. slavery. jim crow. civil rights. COINTELPRO. the compton riots. stonewall. apartheid. ruby bridges. trayvon martin. sandra bland. voter suppression. the school to prison pipeline. the libyan slave trade. the girls and women that suffered at the hands of boko haram.
the burden of knowing that while other people can know trace their family members back 20 generations to some small village in europe, you will inevitably hit a hard road block, staring at the name of an unfamiliar white man on a plantation that had ownership over your family.
the pain that generations of black people have felt/are feeling, what pushed them to stand against an unjust system time and time again only to be either demonized (the black panthers) or ultimately sanitized (mlk jr) by those who write history, is what pushes killmonger too.
micheal b jordan's performance is nothing short of *incredible*, and the scene in which he reunites with his dead father, in the spiritual plane. where he's come into wakanda and taken ownership of his birthright and his homeland.
that even after ALL THAT, he's *still* trapped in that small oakland apartment, still that child who cradled his dead father and left abandoned by the world. that he can be in wakanda and see it's spiritual plane *right there* and yet he CAN'T go out into it or ever be apart of it.
i saw the film a month ago, and i still think about this scene and feel it just hit me in a place that, maybe i've had passing thoughts about, but never really *thought* about it to make it salient. the place that knows that even though my ancestors came from somewhere in africa, i'll never know where, and i'll never be part of that. and that just guts you.
i've seen thinkpieces latch onto chadwick boseman saying t'challa could be argued as being a villain at some point in the course of the movie, but i think that's settling for a surface read of what boseman may actually be saying.
that t'challa, in his deference to tradition and his father, didn't see the necessity of wakanda reaching out to the african diaspora, and in that sense, he is an antagonistic force to the ultimate point of the movie. that wakanda does have a responsibility and is a positive force on the world stage. that they can help the disenfranchised diaspora.
similarly to killmonger, t'challa also meets with the spirit of his father, and while he ultimately denounces his father's (and ancestors') rigidity and mistakes, one of the first things t'challa says to his father cut me just as deep as killomger's spiritual scene: "i don't know if i can go on without you."
in a world where black men are routinely torn away from their families, through jail sentences that never match their white contemporaries' for the same crime, or where they're killed for having a toy, skittles, cigarettes, a legal firearm, a mental illness, or just existing, that sentence hits you like a wave and never lets up.
even with that, the black women are the real heroes. it is their talents and desires, their varied personalities, their wants, their needs, their ties to t'challa and more importantly each other and their home, that saves the day.
the fact it took marvel this long to have a movie do women of color right is embarrassing as hell, and you better damn well believe i will hold this as the bar for them in the future.
there is *so* much more that could be said, but in sum, black panther is incredible and i cannot believe that everything it poses to its audience is real and getting discussed. ain't no more excuses for not having directors, casts, and crews of color anymore, and this movie, along with moonlight, get out, a wrinkle in time, and so many in the past and yet to come, are proof of that fact.
black people, and other people of color and other underserved groups of people, all have stories and talents and so much more we bring to the world. and those who say we don't better get ready to step the fuck aside.
Comments on Profile Post by Plums