An an absorbing, enlightening article which reminds us that humans of all flavors — colors, origins, beliefs, traditions — seek the same things: A glimpse of our “homeland” (whether mythical or real), the absence of fear, and a chance to succeed.
2
I fell for the hype. Although I loved the costumes and appreciated the beauty of the actors, the film itself was standard comic book and best left that way.
So disappointing that despite the noisiness of the soundtrack, I nodded out half way through.
3
Awesome reading this before Oakland's Black Joy Parade today! What a wonderful article!
2
"This is how we do with one another. We hold one another as a family because we must be a family in order to survive."
-thank you for this wonderful article, but my deepest felt gratitude if for writing that exact sentence above.
Being of mixed race, with ancestors and families in West Africa and Eastern Europe, having lived in three countries and walking around this earth as David Brooks mentioned in a previous article, "an amphibian"; the glaring and saddening experience I've encountered in the USA is what I would call a "fractured family" in the black community. This uninhibitedly bold and proud support of The Black Panther movie by the black community (online and offline) uplifts my spirits tremendously.
2
The writing is as fanciful as the comic book story it is acclaiming.
1
"...depths of the squads..."?
There have been many fine movies written, directed & starred in by black artists, including Selma, Moonlight, Mudbound & the works of Spike Lee, for example. The wild enthusiasm for this comic book derived bit of fluff from black audiences seems misplaced. Black Panther, Wakanda & its super hero universe was created by & to a large extent for, white people, especially white men. To borrow the words of Barack Obama, 'you didn't build that.' Save your plaudits for your own accomplishments. There are many. Disney & Marvel love its audience's dollars, not necessarily its audience.
1
This beautiful essay made me cry. Human beings have a powerful need to belong, and to belong in ways that sometimes involve powerful re-imaginings of themselves. Although I will never truly know the experience of being black in America, I know enough to understand how important a film like this can be.
Fruitvale Station was already on my list and I will most definitely see Black Panther in the theater. I had no idea they were made by the same director.
3
I loved the Black Panther comic as a kid. He was one of my favorites. It didn't matter to me then or now if he was white, black or green (like the Martian Manhunter, another favorite). I was really looking forward to the movie as the previews looked really good. But, I am hesitating now. I do not like what has happened to the so-called civil rights movement. MLK, Jr's dream has been reversed. It is no longer judging others by the content of their character - in fact, what I read in this article is that people believe we should judge the movie by the character's skin color, rather than his actual character.
It seems today like so many groups desires to be seen as victims and oppressed. I understand that hundreds of years of oppression can leave deep scars in present generations. I just don't think focusing on victimization or ethnicity is the way out, rather than self-improvement and personal qualities. It never has worked and has no off-ramp. I don't need a super-hero to be raised in a Jewish family or to be an atheist just because that describes superficial characteristics of my own. I just want them to be heroic.
I probably will go, but my expectations have unfortunately changed. I hope I like it but I am prepared to be disappointed.
2
There's an awful lot of puffery and grandiloquent pronouncements here ... reminding me of a college roommate after a few beers ... the herald of Afrofuturism? ... black writers will far exceed what white science fiction authors have come up with? ... Wakanda is ours and we do what we please? ... uh, ever heard of cultural appropriation? This is a Marvel comic, OK? ... it's nice that blacks feel good about it, but black teenagers hugging a poster and bemoaning "This is what white folks get to feel like all the time?" Really? Over the top much? Not hardly. White superheroes don't do anything for me. And isn't white America supposed to be guilt-ridden about racism and whatnot? And let's not forget that black slaves were more often than not kidnapped and sold by other blacks, before ending up in America. That doesn't excuse white slave owners but let's keep it real!
6
I rejoice and am in gratitude for this amazing and beautiful film and for Carvell Wallace article.
2
Beautifully written ... In a country which makes you feel invisible, a movie like this is a big deal. It's about identity, being seen, cultural pride, and seeing your likeness being portrayed in a positive and strong light in mass media. I can't wait to see Black Panther.
5
thank you
1
We cannot move past racism when defining things by race. Why does Black Panther have to be identified as a black movie? Why not as a good action movie or as a superhero film? Let's judge a film by merit, not color. Didn't MLK say something like that?
4
I'm an old white guy, and I understand that I'm not involved in the heart of this concept. My perspective is that America is a melting pot, we are all the same, and the idea of biologically different races has always been self-serving baloney. But that's not the real experience of black Americans, is it? Lately I am beginning to get why African Americans may see things differently. This has not been easy for me, and it has not been fun, by the way. This writer's perspective helps things fall into place. I hope this movement can be applied in society as positive political action. Is this possible a route out of the depressing, dysfunctional inner-city culture we all see but can't talk about? Majority America should embrace this from a respectful distance. Nothing but good can come out of this...it actually cheers me up.
3
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at so many comments dismissing or minimizing the power of narrative fiction, given our STEM and MBA dominated education system. All one has to do to dismiss this assumption is think for a moment about the narrative fictions through which we imagine our future individual lives and maybe those of our children, fictions that structure our plans and actions, our imperfect attempts to realize those fictions.
My son and I watch almost every super hero film - most consciously gesture to some kind or moral or political ideal. Some succeed in spite of hackneyed morality or questionable politics, although many do not. Black Panther is among the best I have seen in combining relatively nuanced politics with excellent storytelling and compelling characters. Although as a white man, I can't participate fully in the meanings this article depicts, I am in awe of the movements this film represents and, hopefully, urges forward.
5
Narrative fiction?
It is a ridiculous comic book.
Wake me up when Hollywood makes a movie that does not require suspension of disbelief.
1
This is such an amazing essay. Outstanding. The Times has covered this film extensively in the past days with several articles; this is by far the best one. Thank you.
3
LONG LIVE WAKANDA and all its attributes. I have waited far too long as a white elder, just turned 84 today , as a matter of fact, to see such a marvel on the big screen in Oakland, Blessed be , GRAND LAKE theater and its owner, Alan, who belongs to us all in the bay area of California. I feels good to be alive today.
4
Everyone realizes Africa's great potential. Now that we know the continent's present failure to thrive is caused by nothing more than a shortage of the rare-earth element vibranium, it is incumbent on the international community to share our stocks with the nations of Africa. To do anything less would be a blatant demonstration of racism and selfishness, and indeed an unpardonable crime against our common humanity.
2
It was a good movie for sure. It wasn't better than Captain America, certainly not better than Deadpool.
I can appreciate that there is a sjw sentiment towards the movie but so much hyperbole surrounds it as "the best movie ever"
I dunno, Citizen Kane, Shawshank Redemption, Forrest Gump, Amistad, The color purple, 12 years a slave...
pandering.
1
Thank you for this eloquent article.
3
Beautiful essay.
4
Hate being cynical, but Jeezus! It's just a movie, and a fantasy movie at that! Enjoy it and be entertained by it, but don't make it out to be more than it really is...a movie vehicle to make money for a corporation and its shareholders...the overwhelming majority of which do not look like the cast members of this movie.
6
I hope this movie inspires and elates. I cannot know what it means to be black in America, but I know that whatever lifts the spirits and hopes of my fellow Americans is alright by me.
5
The Black Panther was a great movies. It definitely deserves an Oscar for costume design. The supporting cast was truly superior, and the stars more than competent. The story line was human believable in a super hero movie. The bad guy both believable and understandable. Great movies, but if you really want to look for heroes go back to the civil rights movement and Martin Luther king. I was an achievement of black actors and a black director, not for black America.
3
So beautiful. This piece will stay with me. Thank you.
2
It's a comic book movie.
Nothing more.
It will be forgotten in a month.
1
It will still be in theaters in a month.
1
It is a movie! if a superhero movie is all it takes to reawaken black pride, then black pride is in trouble. It needs to be based on a stronger foundation then this. Look at black history for your heroes and heroines. They are real people. They speak much louder then a mythical figure ever will.
2
The movie should be interpreted as a lesson on many fronts.Black Panther symbolises the hidden power in each one of us.This needs to be realised and used for good of all.The dialogue of T'Challas' father-one has to prepare his own child for handling fathers' death means the present generation has always to keep in mind what it transfers to the next generation.The surrender before the woman general by the warring tribe head signifies women power and common good prevails over individual love.The treatment of the wounded CIA operative signifies helping /medical aid should not stand as a barrier in the present world which is gradually getting self-centred.Killmonger sees sunset before death rather than preferring any technology signifies importance of natural environment.The movie promotes message of love,peace,harmony,progress and development.
3
Looking forward to seeing this movie. Puzzled why Angela Bassett isn’t mentioned and no photos of her which the cast. I fear sexist/ageism is still one of hurdles women in the arts are still dealing with no matter the race. Ageism.
2
I am so happy about this movie as I think the article accurately described. what has been done to afro-americans is truly evil. Finally, hopefully this evil spell can be broken not just for African Americans but for all Americans.
5
Sorry, my previous comment was not intended for you but for Honor Senior.
My family on both sides was largely from Germany. Earliest seem to have come around 1750, and the latest have seen came in 1848. At the beginning they lived in places with German majority communities, but by 1848 they lived in places with few and fewer German names. Our family re-married often with people with German names. parents both grew up in completely Americanized households with little trace that we had a largely German background (my parents would be over 100 years old if they were still living.). The reason I mention this is for our family there is no going home. During a couple of trips t France in the 1990's I noted that I could spot German visitors very easily and they seemed more foreign to me than the French. I suspect that for Black Americans, going back to Africa has been and will remain a fantasy. 2 to 4 hundred years cannot be removed easily as many Blacks like to point out, but it applies equality to Africa. Black Americans are just that, Americans. The cops that some of you claim keep you in continuous fear are on the verge of becoming a majority of non-Whites. Baltimore is probably a black majority force already and that has not seemed to have made a difference to the Black community feelings of security. I read an article in a Baltimore paper by a Black man who wants the police back in his community because now he and his neighbors are suffering from the tyranny of Black gangsters.
6
This brought tears to my eyes, Thank you.
2
I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I was fascinated by the left behind child of a royal family member. He was contaminated, and ultimately twisted by his exposure to American exceptionalism. At the end, he chose the abyss of The Middle Passage.
3
I can name a half dozen or more films made that define Black America in a far more poignant manner than what amounts to be a mediocre superhero film based on a comic book character. The insanely high critical reviews given to this movie calls into question the objectivity and sincerity of film critics and the wider media. Given the insane price of tickets in many theaters today, is it really asking that much for critics to 'have our collective backs' as they did perhaps 20 or 30 years ago?
11
Brave and accurate comment
Same thing happened with Wonder Woman, another decent but generic superhero movie, and with the latest Star Wars, which critics swooned over but that was savaged by audiences. It's payola, period. Even Rotten Tomatoes itself (owned by Comcast, no less) tried to benefit the Justice League movie by delaying the publication of negative critic reviews.
1
This is such a beautiful, inspiring and joyful article. The gratuitous anti-Semitism saddens me greatly. Possibly the Jewish creators of Black Panther should not be represented as "colonizers" but as members of a group whose suffering, which predates the African diaspora by millenia and which was particularly acute post-WWII, gave them the empathy and desire to represent the oppressed. Especially right now, if we don't all hang together, we most certainly will hang separately.
4
In defense of Star Trek- Deep Space 9 had Benjamin Sisco, and his blackness wasn't incidental, it was central to the character.
2
I grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, born in 1952. When I was five, we pulled into a White Castle and I said, "Oh look mom, there's Little Black Sambo!" While seeing that the car windows were down, and they heard us, my mom beat me with her purse. I am so pleased to see Black Panther's all black cast and hope I can see a lot more movies and art where they are cast as such.
2
Why do we have to make such a big deal about it being a "black" movie.
It is just a movie, watch it and enjoy. There is absolutely no need to drag a bunch of racial baggage into it.
1
Perhaps this is evidence that America is not so racist after all . . . Americans of all colors like a superhero, regardless of his or her color.
As long as they do not threaten the accumulation of capital they can be any color and reach any heights in fantasy.
1
The accompanying photograph of this article is quite disturbing. It is a subliminal take on the theme of the mutilation of the Black body. It recalls death by lynching and a golden rope to complement the morbid effect.
I loved reading this essay. As a white American, it gave me a much deeper understanding of this movie and why it is so important. You made me feel your vital enthusiasm for a better world and I can't wait to see how the movie portrays Wakanda. You also raise Star Trek at the beginning of your essay and I would be interested in your thoughts on the new Star Trek: Discovery series on CBS, which features an African American woman (Sonequa Martin-Green, aka "Michael Burnham") as the main character and one of the most influential and powerful figures in that universe. This show also features an Asian American woman (Michelle Yeoh, aka "Cpt Philippa Georgiou") as captain and emperor. Is it foolish to think that the times are finally changing?
3
Thank you Carvell Wallace for expressing the heart and soul of what our spiritual unspoken longing is about. I too have have cried in sorrow at the injustices of non-person hood experienced in America. If you never write another article you've captured my thoughts and longings in this one. My pastor as a Valentine gift to our congregation purchased 200 seats in a local theater for the congregation to watch the movie together on Feb 16th. The movie revived in me a longing for home and heaven, but that spiritual euphoria will be realistically expressed by taking my grandchildren and more friends to see #BlackPanther today on Sunday.
3
I believe the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were real defining moments for Black America. A movie is just entertainment; just another way to make money for Hollywood...
3
I'm going to address one thing about the real Africa that keeps coming up in the comments - about the perception that the continent is essentially a ward of Western aid.
Any proper accounting would have Africa as a large net creditor to the rest of the world. Foreign aid coming in to Africa is vastly exceeded by the amount of money funneled out of Africa, by both multinationals extracting its resources and hiding them from taxes using schemes like transfer pricing, and by corrupt African officials doing the same thing in tax havens.
The poverty and corruption of Africa is aided and abetted by Western institutions. The West then turns around and donate a fairly small fraction back as aid. And of course much of this aid is knowingly funneled into corrupt governments rather than distributed directly, and said governments then distribute it to cronies then stash it abroad again.
This is what neocolonialism is. It's not an empty excuse for African underperformance - it's the system of paying corrupt African proxies to continue the same resource extraction scheme that used to be the main reason for colonialism.
7
"And of course much of this aid is knowingly funneled into corrupt governments"
Actually, much of this "aid" goes to non-governmental organizations, to pay their employees' salaries and living expenses - and those employees are primarily from the same countries providing the "aid." Foreign "aid" to the developing world is largely an exotic jobs programs for wealthier nations.
1
For my 5-year old son to be able to see healthy, sophisticated larger-than-life Hero's that make him proud of his strong kinky hair and brown skin tone. Part of America takes this for granted, when no American should have to!
Were all America to see how significant and thankful a moment this is for its darker brown citizenry, this movie could be an even more "defining moment".
7
Black Panther is seen as transformational not just because of a black superhero (there's numerous black heroes), but because it portrays a deeply black successful civilization that's never existed and blacks long to have had. "We seek to make a place where we belong," are wonderful words, but it takes work to actually make that place, to make that peaceful world, to earn the respect desired. To "make" that place takes will and as wonderful and inspiration as a movie may be, that feeling is fleeting, the world you make for yourself is a daily continuous effort on your part, not everyone else's.
1
If T'Challa is the hero, who's the sidekick, K'nisches?
I can't shake the feeling that the two Jewish guys from Brooklyn were having a bit of fun with all this, and somehow it all got lost in translation.
We really do live in two Americas.
1
Weren't the Black Panthers a revolutionary party in the 70's.
1
Duh, yeah! The comic didn't want that association. The difference is that the Black Panthers acted in the real world, were infiltrated (look up 'Cointelpro') and barely lasted a year.
1
I do have an objection to this movie: it's another product coming out of Hollywood representing and promoting violence.
8
Loved it!
2
I appreciate the authors thoughts on the connective power of this film to a history stolen and a potential which has yet to be achieved. Personally, I love seeing beautiful black faces on screen. Even better, that it is not one about slavery or gangsters. Those people (likely not black), who are pining for reality, must enjoy seeing the slave/gangsters because perhaps that is how they like to see us. Let us live and enjoy something.... what is it to you?
9
I'll take "A Raisin in the Sun." Thank you.
2
"When reality is unacceptable, fiction is a refuge." Mario Vargas Llosa
7
I can’t wait to take my kids to see it. We’re a white family totally removed from the black experience, but I see tremendous value in my kids seeing a movie of black empowerment. I want them to see proud, whole black protagonists filling out the tapestry of the human experience. Maybe their generation can do better, hopefully much better.
13
In 1990, I lived with a group of skateboarders in Boston. All white, except two black kids, M and K. We were all age 19-20. M and K had white girlfriends and hung out mostly with white kids and listened to Metallica and had south shore/Cape Cod accents. Anyhow, once, someone casually remarked upon the fact that M is black. He said, "M, Southie is still dangerous for black kids." Another white kid with us said, with surprise, "M is black?". M is very black in skin tone, but had mostly white friends and white girlfriends. We all laughed. The joke was that none of us white kids saw M or K as black. Maybe white girls found them more attractive, because they were black. The rest of us didn't have girlfriends. My point is that they were completely assimilated to the point of not being seen as black, even though they had dreads. They were skaters who liked Metallica who happened to have black skin.
I feel like there was less racial awareness/sensitivity in the 80's and 90's than there is now. I'm almost old enough to recall the ska two-tone movement.
I get that there are a lot of poor people in inner cities, but I sort of feel like blackness has been invented to sell rap albums. Back in the late 80's and the 90's, I knew black kids who grew up poor and seemed entirely indistinguishable from white kids who had grown up poor.
2
Once the popcorn buzz has subsided, will this movie help blacks get better (and in the case of Baltimore, heated) schools? Will it help them create less menacing and more representative Police Departments in their communities? Will it reduce the number of young black males serving time in prison? Will it help undo the cultural of denial regarding inequality which is prevalent in our society?
Disney as a force social change? Yes, but only for their shareholders.
2
"Until recently, most popular speculation on what the future would be like had been provided by white writers and futurists, like Isaac Asimov and Gene Roddenberry.. Not coincidentally, these futures tended to carry the power dynamics of the present into perpetuity." It wasn't that cut and dried. Robert Heinlein's "Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and Ursula LeGuin's "Left Hand of Darkness", written in the same period as "Star Trek", featured black men as their heroes, and LeGuin's character is appointed to be the human ambassador to an alien race. Mr. Wallace is just choosing examples that back up his thesis.
2
I wish I was there at the Grand Lake with Mr. Wallace. I went to an opening night screening in the burbs over the hills, where reclining lounge seats had a fellow moviegoer snoring through a good portion of the movie.
I am not African American, but I undertand how important this movie is. Last year, I found myself, for the first and only time, partaking in one of the stranger activities on the internet: watching reaction videos. I watched, back-to-back, clips of African Americans watching the trailer to the movie. To witness their joy was moving. It may seem patronizing to say that I was happy for African Americans. Fact is: you get older, and the schoolyard racial enmity fades. You see a brother attain and receive something they have waited for, fought for, hoped for, and maybe even lost the hope for. You're just glad to see the thing arrive.
The movie has statements to make. It's significance, however, to culture and mind go much further.
4
One sentence: that black Americans are told they do not belong here, strikes me with such force that as a white American, I must reply. I cannot imagine an America without our black friends and neighbors, without the ones who sat in my classrooms, the ones I worked with, the ones I see every day, and have since the day I was born. Black Americans are as much a part of our nation as white people, and I hope that life will get better for them as time goes on.
This article has brought me to tears. Thank you, Carvell Wallace.
54
I think it is correct to say African Americans are more a part of our nation than most white people in that their roots here are much older. Most African Americans are descendants of enslaved peoples who arrived here before 1850 - many from the 1600 and 1700s - long before the ancestors of most white Americans ever stepped onto a ship.
8
Thank you, Margaret. :)
2
"...that black Americans are told they do not belong here, strikes me with such force that as a white American, I must reply. I cannot imagine an America without our black friends and neighbors..." Really, Margaret McDavid? You're from South Carolina; I'm from Texas. In other words, BOTH of us are from the South, so you can miss me with that 'hideously shocked and appalled" act.
"...cannot imagine an America without the ones who sat in my classrooms, the ones I worked with..."
Since 'separate but equal' was separate and unequal, it took a lot of protests and lawsuits before Black people were allowed in YOUR classrooms.
"...Black Americans are as much a part of our nation as white people, and I hope that life will get better for them as time goes on. This article has brought me to tears".
Save those 'tears' for the survivors of that Dylan Roof slaughter in Charleston, SOUTH Carolina. Quit frontin like you don't know.
1
Just want to say that this is beautifully written and so thoughtful - a great example of why I subscribe to and read the New York Times.
5
Hollywood's propensities for self-congratulation and self importance are boundless. Last year Wonderwoman was touted as a transformative film; this year it's Black Panther. Next year's heavily promoted comic book hero will undoubtedly by gay or trans. With our country utterly transfixed on, and tearing itself apart over, race and gender, Hollywood trots out some recycled comic book characters and then congratulates itself on some monumental achievement in social awareness.
I will offer two points. First, all of this pandering merely covers up the utter lack of creativity in modern Hollywood. The industry lacks the talent to come up with new ideas and story lines, so they just re-package old stuff tied to the social fault lines in today's news. Second, as a real Black person, I am far more interested in the economic progress of real Black people than some star struck fantasy packaged up by white studio executives and PR firms.
I hope that Black Panther is an entertaining film. I can't wait to stream it at home. I won't be taking the bait and buying an over-priced theater ticket.
4
As a white person, I will never fully comprehend the many levels of emotion African-Americans are experiencing as they anticipate and see this film, but I will now experience the movie from an entirely new perspective.
I am not a science-fiction fan and have never had an appreciation for films focused on futurism, but after reading this article, I realize that doesn’t matter; must see this film.
It’s writing like this that makes the New York Times a leader in journalism. Thank you.
7
What a wonderful analysis.
3
Well written and absolutely on point. Thank you. You said so much of what so many of us are feeling.
4
I am not black and I am so happy for this film. The rest of us minorities are watching. Not waiting for our turn, but basking in some of the peripheral light. This is your moment, but you are not the only beneficiaries.
Thank you to the filmmakers and all those involved and thank you for these piece that shows that popular cinema need not be frivolous to be entertaining.
4
Why is everyone acting like this is so new??
I read the comic as a kid, and watched What's Happening and Good Times. There was also Chico and the Man, multiracial Welcome Back Kotter - all much more progressive than the average show now- actually showing poor - or middle class people living in a real way
This is not some special moment
It's just more of the modern day liberals pretending they are making breakthroughs and trying to convince everyone they are victims
It's done no good
When will this paper finally add to every story of a Black Death to police the startling but true fact that more whites are killed by police even accounting for population
There is some weird need to increase the victimhood of people
To me and my inclusive view of the world : no one needs it
Stop segregating people
4
Please. This is comic book, not the Iliad, the Odyssey, or the Aeneid.
7
Dave from Baltimore posted that the Jeffersons was a defining moment, the Cosby Show was a defining moment as well as Oprah yet questioned why this movie was. There were were a few others that felt the same way..I will do my best to break down why it is ...
In 2016, The children’s book publishing industry generated over $2.4 billion dollars, but only 12% of those books were about African-Americans. There are more children books written about animals!! According to the National Women’s Law Center Black girls are 5.5 times more likely to be suspended than white girls. Researchers placed the bulk of the blame on racist and sexist stereotypes. There are girls wanting to bleach their skin! So here you have a movie where black women are great at tech and great warriors. Then you have black men who maybe flawed but still dispel many stereotypes. It’s time that there are more images in the media that reflect who we are in a positive way. Folks are showing up to movie theaters leaving happy and feeling proud.. that’s significant.. so what’s the problem??
40
If African Americans are 12% of the population, why should they be the protagonists of 50% of kids' books or 50% of television shows and movies? I admit I don't know about representation in children's literature, but am pretty sure that African Americans are approaching 50% on television. The US Latino population is greater than the African American population, but there are fewer Latinos/Latinas on television than African Americans. There are also almost NO senior characters in tv shows now, although I believe seniors are at least the same percentage of the population as African Americans.
You have brought light to a dark place inside me. Thank You.
3
I am getting really tired of overly sensitive-- ever so fragile -- men -- even tho in the end that seems to be the true nature of that "half" of the species.. How interesting that Black Panther and the Black Panthers - a armed group that patrolled neighborhoods -- were created the same year.
So interesting that we do not demand that the police be degunned as we ask for gun control.. where are the tasers? supposed effective??
Why don't we step back and ask both about what and when is guilt??? and when is paranoia?? Obvoiusly way too many black boys and men have been unjustifiably shot by the police.. (trigger happy we called it)
Frankly, I am terrified of American cops and I am an OLD white woman. (they get shot by police too when they are attacking them with the butter knife or possibly a butcher knife... put down that knife lady (deaf) -- bam!
BTW it's definitely time for imprisonment or loss of pension for cops who kill unarmed or insane people. Who is on these juries?? that acquit them and frankly, if the police are a quasi-military force-- then there should be the equivalent of the court-martial and a strict code.
Of we can continue to think a movie is going to change things.
My own black friends and aquaintances are quite secure in their skin tone... and frankly black women are much more secure as adults than are most white women. My educated white friends (in their 70s) remain girls at heart.
4
Why not Aftrofuturism? If not equality or domination, maybe it'll at least lead to a safe place where there is no more Oscar Grant. The Jews did it, after all. They now have a place armed with nukes where no Nazis will ever touch them.
It should evolve into something more tangible that can produce realistic results, though. Else it'll end up as another Sun Dance religion in the Native American internment camp.
A beautifully written piece, btw.
3
Seems to me that the author is somewhat dismissive of Kirby and Lee and the depth of their feelings, as Jews, about the need for black heroes. I wouldn't have expected WASPs to develop a black panther character.
I’ve noticed a (sometimes not very) subtle thread running through the reactions to Black Panther and Wakanda specifically—along the lines of “that’s what Africa would be like without colonialism!”
Sure, setting aside the magic fictional metal that makes their fantasy country go, it’s exactly like Africa.
Why is the media propping this delusion up?
1
"Roots" and "Amistad" still hold sway here.
Don't generally like the superhero comic book movies. Notice that as US power/influence declines, our blockbuster films focus on magical power? Had to see this one, though. This white woman is so tired of white guy films, black bad boys, irrelevant women. This film fulfills many long ignored perspectives. Think only the the Nazi boys could fail to find a snippet of new thrill. Really, really appreciated the twisting of old cliches into new material.
4
Just saw this article that Serena Williams sponsored a movie screening for Black Girls Code students- how inspiring:
http://people.com/movies/serena-williams-surprises-black-girls-code-blac...
3
There is always a story within a story, a tale within a tale. Our identity as a people or as individuals arises from memory and myth. New generations are allowed and encouraged to write and create the story of their lives at many levels. Transformation happens, and this film is transformational at the deepest levels of the human psyche. What is offers will have a profound impact on how a new generation of humanity sees its role in a diverse and pluralist society that is arising now. Our oldest and best stories, our mythologies, transform humanity and human history. These stories provide a literary framework for the next paradigm shift, they open us up to unlimited possibilities.
2
How sad that a person would think that a fictional movie about fictional characters and a fictional place is a defining moment. In my opinion it is better to find defining moments in reality, not in a made-up story.
7
At first Ava duVernay's "Wrinkle in Time" with a black Meg put me out, because I grew up wanting to be Meg. Grrr. But then I got over that because it really means that there was this whole audience of black girls that I never knew about who were enjoying the same book I loved. That's pretty powerful. It's an affirmation of the idea that girls and tesseracts go together.
2
I am loving the well written viewpoints in this article! The intelligence level of the majority of the comments made on it, with regards to the visualization of an African heritage that young African Americans can look up to is profound. Your article has opened up a new dialogue filled with pride of heritage like none I have ever read. Well done!
2
I am a white woman in my mid-50s. I yearn to better understand and embrace how black people in this country feel and how I can contribute to a just and equitable society for all. This article was insightful and helpful for me, thank you. As we look to the future, I hope that well-spoken authors like Wallace will - sooner rather than later - feel encouraged and compelled to write presumptively to project a positive Afrofuturistic impact that a major pop culture event like Black Panther CAN have, WILL have and MUST have. Yes, history has shown that we have missed past opportunities to learn and change but perhaps the time is right that if we build it AND will it, change will come. The futuristic film genre is far from my favorite - regardless of the cast - but I think I’ll have to make an exception for Black Panther.
1
This is a beautiful and enlightening essay about this film and about black culture in America. I’m looking forward to seeing the film, and hope to read more from Wallace as well.
2
Excellent essay - thank you ! The film is excellent and this helps to focus the conversation about why / how it can lift all of us up. Viewers - watch thru to full end of the film's credits - !
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Mr. Wallace, so much thanks for this heartfelt piece. Most of us have not lived your history and will never live your particular experiences. The constant burden of toxic ideology is discouraging and draining. Nevertheless you/we persist.
I too have experienced Oakland’s sense of community in tragic & triumphant moments. How lovely to read about it (and the beloved Grand Lake Theater) in my favorite newspaper.
I appreciate the chance to better understand this cultural moment, its meaning, and potential for beneficial change. You also allow us to share your hard-won relief & joy. This is a remarkable act of generosity that brought tears to my eyes. I’ve bookmarked it so that it will inspire me to be a thoughtful ally & take meaningful action. Thank you.
3
What an exquisitely written article. I am so moved by your essay Thank you for offering insight into how this movie is bringing pride and joy into the African American community and I am sorry it took so long to have this. I will work to change things in this country every day in any way I can.
1
African americans have a lot of superheroes to admire, in real life. This is probably a great film if it lives up to the trailer. But it's clear here that like the l
Lion King version of Africa, Africa the continent with a population of 1 billion people in 40 odd nations with completely different histories won't be well represented in it. It doesn't have to be, for this to be a good entertainment product, but the problem is two fold. On the one hand this like much entertainment is escapism. Being proud of the fantasy Africa that never was robbs you of a chance to root your pride deeper in the real, more complex and morally challenging history of Africa. In short pitching this escapist drama as pride in being black is a barrier to experiencing real pride in real blackness. African-american students, as well as students of all races in america have been denied the rewarding challenges and intellectual and moral growth of studying the history of Africa and it's peoples. Offering up this great piece of entertainment as a reality is worse than inaccurate, it's a barrier to further study. Much of the dislike of real Africa in america comes from the belief that poverty is a deserved punishment, christian societies are superior to non-christian and low technology societies have no valuable art or wisdom for others. In short by favoring a shiny urban technologically advanced Africa that never was, this hollywood film leaves in place all the prejudice that it could have jettisoned.
1
Playing mobile games is the most enjoyble activity for kids and adults. The technological superiority battle between smartphones and tablets continues in the mobile gaming industry. It is unfair not to include friv 2 if the best games list is made regardless of which operating system friv is operating. Whether on a mobile phone or on a smart phone, play subway surfers adventures continue without interruption. In this game you are addicted when you play, your hero runs away from the station attendant every time. In order not to get caught, it is necessary to jump over the trains, run on the rails and pass under the other obstacles.
Afrocentrism has been with us for a while. It's understandable that a down-trodden people might want to imagine a glorious past, even if it has to be manufactured out of whole cloth and in complete denial of the historical record. It would be lovely if a fictional movie about a high-achieving African state were somehow to help African-Americans lift themselves up, do better in school, leave behind the hip-hop world of bad grammar and bad attitude in a quest for real success. Let's hope it can, but whether or not the movie helps, at the end of the day there is hard work involved and nothing will take its place.
This article makes me wish I'd worked harder on my writing. What an excellent piece.
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It’s all about one thing: being a warrior—or being the warrior your ancestors weren’t: why they did not fight. How did “it” happen?
Why do you think they didn’t fight? I believe that they did, but failed against overwhelming odds. There’s no shame in failing. Even after we got here we still fought, there were hundreds of rebellions by enslaved persons. These incidents were kept quiet so as not to encourage more.
1
I enjoyed the article. I want to answer the question of resistance. Many slaves were prisoners of war. Africa was composed of competing kingdoms that had occasional wars, where prisoners were enslaved. Then, the colonization of the Americas led to an increase in slavery and wars as colonizers in the Americas sought sources of labor to make profits from cultivating sugar and cotton, extracting silver, and other endeavors. Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World; Tutino, Founding Capitalism in the Bajio and Spanish North America.
This is one of the best movie I’ve seen from Marvel
3
What a beautifully written and moving piece of writing. Thank you for making me cry, Carvell Wallace.
14
Mysteries of blood and soil for me, but not for thee.
Not hating on the idea of a positive image film, but am way past over Comic Book, Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Politically Correct Remakes (Little Orphan Angie and Ghostbusters come to mind).
How about some regular drama, comedy, whatever set without the need for suspension of disbelief?
To see this much money and talent wasted on a Comic Book movie is kind of depressing.
Hope everybody enjoys the $5 candy bars, $5 Cokes and $5 Popcorn after getting hit for $15 a pop for a kiddie story done up on a big budget. I’ll pass.
10
Cool. We'll just be over here, enjoying life and being happy. Have a lovely time tweeting bike into the void.
Don’t let the trappings fool you. Black Panther has an intelligent storyline, real people (not costumed characters), emotional weight, and a serious message. Don’t be a snob about it.
2
Yes you did hate on the image of a positive film, and missed the point of the movie and this beautifully written piece. Why would you go to any movie, as you recount the money “wasted”, just Netflix and chill friend.
1
As a school librarian with a predominantly AA student population, it's taken me months to put my new book list together this year. I only have $3,750 to spend and every dollar counts. I want to provide variety, quality and books that make my students feel good about themselves. I told a colleague, "Imagine your child coming home with library books and there are never kids/characters that look like them in the story?" That's what it's like for AA kids. While there are more titles now, it was almost non-existence 10+ years ago. I just added every Black Panther book to my book list. I can't wait for my kids to read them.
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I have another book for you Lizzie & McKenzie’s Fabulous Adventures it’s about two 8-year old best friends who are enlisted by a princess to go on a quest around the world in a race against an evil villainess to prevent all the little girls of the world from losing their individual identities forever. Along the way they meet new friends, learn about other cultures, appreciate differences, and uncover life lessons. It’s not from Marvel but you can find and celebrates diversity and all that we are!
1
What a wonderfully written essay--thanks so much for creating a window so I can see how much the film will mean to you and many others besides just as another Marvel blockbuster.
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Black Americans are culturally the daughter of two fathers, one black the other white.
It is a necessary self examination to wish it were not so.
Black Panther is that self examination onscreen; discussing true feelings of estrangement, true issues of separation and integration, important questions about responsibility to the past of both those fathers.
The movie is neither trite nor rote in its answers to some of these questions. African Americans will smile at questions whose considerations are absent the same immediacy in other genre or art.
It can be nice to have a spotlight.
8
Black Panthers were and are needed as exemplars for black American youth. But I have been perplexed by the seeming invisibility of black American among volunteers serving in Africa: The majority addressing the continent's needs on news programs and in documentary films are not black. There is the NPR journalist who reported from Africa for some years and returned to U.S. recently. I believe it was a conscious assignment by her. Good! But is she an exception?
3
For some, Black Panther is another marvel film from a fan favorite, for others it’s an empowering film to inspire young black girls and boys. Introduced in 1966 by marvel creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, that for once in the marvel universe gives “black readers a character to identify with” (Wallace). Directory Ryan Coogler who previously directed the Independent Spirit Awarded film Fruitvale Station, which follows the story of 22-year-old Oscar Grant. Also, director of Creed the follow up film of the critically acclaimed Rocky films. Expectations are set high to say the least and couldn’t be at a more perfect time in America to be released.
What’s important for viewers to understand from this film is the character that is Black Panther. A young King who takes throne after his father is assassinated. In an African nation called Wakanda where they own the same alien material vibranium that Captain Americas shield is made of. The rare material allows the nation of Wakanda to be technologically advance, and that in its entirety is a universe young black girls and boys dream of. To bring that to the big screen will do so much for young people. Inspiring the next generation, sparking the next creators, etc.
Films are essentially, an art form and observered differently in the way of the consumer. It’s important for everyone to get out and see the film, for the artwork that will be on display will be one for the books.
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Beautifully said.
And I also meant to say, _thank you_ Carvell Wallace, for this lovely writing and thinking. Thank you.
6
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Since Africans are people, just as much as any other people, the reasonable presumption is that what would have happened is the same general mix of horrible, wonderful, and everything in between that all people, whatever their identities, have effected en masse. That it would have been “one’s own” is true, and it should have been, no doubt. That it would have been in some sense “better” than what all other concatenations of people have achieved, generally speaking, for good and ill, is misguided.
I see this in my fellow American Jews a lot: a reaction against prejudice (mostly) past and (to a far lesser extent) present taking the form of a kind of cultural narcissism. Unsurprising, but can easily get out of control—and fuel the kind of beliefs, blindness, and even crimes (via blind Israel-support) you’d expect from overdone ethnonarcissism.
Now, that aside, for actual children, I see no innate problem with superhero-identification. For adults? Yes, I do—power fantasies, if not kept in their ironic box, are never healthy. Not to make too much of this, to be sure, but it’s worth pointing out, as is the point that this much emotional connection to a fantasy is itself evidence of the problems with reality, as Wallace notes. Let’s change reality.
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The Jeffersons sitcom was a defining moment. Cosby was a defining moment. Oprah’s rise was a defining moment. Did a twentysomething write this?
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Of course they did
Maybe so, because each generation has its own “defining moment.”
Remember "black exploitation films" of the 70"s. Capitalism is always looking for a new market to pan out. "Blackula" is still being shown on late night cable to those interested.
Marvel Comics is just another pander indicating the obvious lack of creativity.
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Did you see the movie??
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“Love for black people isn’t just saying Oscar Grant should not be dead. Love for black people is Oscar Grant not being dead in the first place.”
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Wow
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If Tiger Woods was not a Super Hero that would change the world, I doubt Mr Panther will do so.
A super hero created by two white Jewish guys. It's a movie people.
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Except, it’s clearly not just that to the millions of people who have been excited about this movie for months. Why damper or deny their celebration? Dictating what is acceptable for black people to think is just another example of the problem the author describes.
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Where is Spawn (1997) in your list of comic book black superheroes that got made into movies?
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“Steel” was also left out. So what? It’s not like this essay was meant to be a list of movies featuring black comic book characters.
I tried to comment yesterday that I could not understand how a movie about a fictional character & place invented by 2 old white guys which was produced by a studio owned & run by white men, & financed by banks owned & run by white men is empowering to blacks. In the same way, I could not understand how the scantily clad dominatrix of Wonder Woman empowered women. In fact popularity of the whole Marvel universe of muscle-bound, heavily armed super heroes seems to be a comment on the powerlessness the movie audience feels, & its need to vicariously experience brute domination. Is it any wonder that we so often see evidence of poor mental health like we saw in Florida yesterday? It is sad that a comic book story, comic book! is considered some sort of major cultural event in our dumbed down society. We'll see if the NYTimes censors let this comment stand.
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Go and read some Greek classical literature; you will find many of the origins of super hero stories there. And the lessons--and in may African, Irish, Middle Eastern, European, and indigenous cultures' oral traditions. Myths connect us, are central to the ways in which people learn, grow, imagine, and connect. Superman is Jewish; Stan Lee is the Man; Wonder Woman has been one of my icons since childhood. Black Panther was terrific!! You curmudgeons can't take the bliss out of this cultural moment.
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Sadly a lot of brilliance has gone over your head. Guardians of the galaxy part two was a masterpiece.
As a child, I did read some Greek classical literature, not in the original archaic Greek, but in the Edith Hamilton translations which were popular at the time. If medmec is a classics scholar, I'm sure that he, or she. will agree that the Greek classics were less about messianic super heroes ( like Black Panther, or Iron Man, etc.) & more about the capriciousness of the gods or fate, & the tragic end we all ultimately face. I am well aware that just about every cultural group on earth, literate or illiterate, has its founding mythologies. They, in their turn, are all fascinating, & as seminal cultural artifacts are probably more valuable than movies derived from comic books, which in my day, were intended for those who were either too lazy, or unable, to read actual books.
I feel like Luke Cage was overlooked.
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Perhaps this "Black Panther" metaphor will work out better than the one that roamed the streets in San Francisco and New York City back in the day.
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movie wasn't that great. Django unchained would have been a better movie to talk about black people
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I think that you are missing the point that it's practically revolutionary to have a story that centers around Africans and/or African-Americans that isn't about misery, being the victims of structural or physical violence, etc.. Yeah, Django Unchained is great, but can't black people have a story that isn't about slavery, misery, death, etc?
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Ok, this sounds like a fun movie, especially if I were 10 years old & black, which I'm not, but what I can't get my head around is how on earth a movie made by a studio which is owned & run by white men, financed by banks owned & run by white men, about a fictional place & character that were the creation of two old white guys, can in any way be empowering to blacks? How on earth does that work? It sounds like a fantasy of racial paternalism. 'The Man' has thrown another bauble to his underlings, while sowing the resentments of identity politics at the same time. He's taking your ticket dollars while stoking your resentment of your white brethren. Not that excited about this flick.
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"If I were black, which I'm not."
So maybe you should have a whole stadium full of seats, and read this momentous essay again, and again, until you learn.
2
Even the most casual reader of the New York Times is well aware of the litany of grievances listed by the author of this article. So no, I won't need any movie seats to be well aware of them. I just don't understand why black folks are giving such props to the imagination & work of white men.
I know the scientific FACT that the origin of mankind originated in Africa. We all have traces of who we are that go back to Africa. "Whiteness" is an absence of Melanin. People should study melanin. What happens when one or the other of us has a need to be "superior" to some other of us is destructive to humanity. What we "take" from one another rather than to have the respect that we are all human first. It's a deficit mentality.
As an African-American whose many decades of living in American and studying who we are as a people in a country that from the start viewed Africans and African Americans as a commodity, this statement strikes me most from the article:
"This is how we do with one another. We hold one another as a family because we must be a family in order to survive. Our individual successes and failures belong, in a perfectly real sense, to all of us. That can be for good or ill. But when it is good, it is very good." And "we seek to make a place where we belong."
America acts as if it has a hatred for African-Americans because we are no longer the commodity, we are the competition. We are the people who will not die, did not die through all of the horrors of slavery, reconstruction, civil rights, imprisonment and the current era of the rise of white nationalism in this nation. This is not new. We know what we see. None of this conflicts with who we are and where we acknowledge we come from. Africa. Our Mother Land, Africa. We are as strong as its roots.
15
If only the real Africa as we know it today would live up to one-tenth of this fantasy world. I just got back from a visiti to Port Harcourt last month. Port Harcourt qualifies as a paradigmatic Nigerian city and Nigeria is emblematic of the finest dreams and the worst nightmares of African nationhood. Rather than blaming Africa’s failing states on a cocktail of racism, imperialism and neocolonialism, we Africans must ask ourselves : who have been brutalizing Africans since independence? My Igbo culture says that if you insult Mama’s cooking, terrible though Mama’s cooking may be, you’re done ! I get that. But that same Igbo culture admonishes that success is the best revenge. Rather than agonize over Trump’s taunt, Africans must organize for a finer future. We must demand an end to this apotheosis of graft that torpedoes Africa’s economies; we must insist on accountability of our governments. Then we can demand that foreign governments repatriate the illicit financial flows deposited in their banks and then we wouldn’t need their foreign aid—nor deserve the Donald’s derision." ---Excerpt from my recent article rejected by NYTimes.
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Gorgeous writing.
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And that is absolutely OK that they cash in and do something to dispel the truth that movies have been White-centric.
It's pretty sad when African Americans have to identify with a mythical African country whose rulers possess magic minerals and super powers. Indeed, most Americans of any color know little or nothing about Africa and believe that it is a country, not a continent.
Most African nations have been independent--governed by Africans--since the 1960s, yet they are still mired in poverty and corruption despite billions in foreign aid from the US and other countries. These cold, hard facts are hardly the basis for an inspirational movie, much less one that is supposed to draw record crowds.
However, there is one African country, Ethiopia, which has always been independent (ruled by Africans) except for a brief period during occupation by the Italians during WW II. Its Emperor, Haile Selassie, ruled for decades and did much to modernize his country and improve the lives of his people. While the Emperor was an autocrat and, like all absolute rulers had his share of bad points, why not a fact-based based book and movie about a real African country and a real African ruler? Selassie's long life and rule spanned provide enough fodder for even a TV series.
I recognize that fantasy has a role in people's lives, but how much more satisfying it must be to develop a sense of identity based on fact and reality rather than pure fiction. I find a bit condescending that the NYT and other mass media are promulgating Black Panther as a vehicle for developing--or restoring--black pride.
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@Paul King - "Any people are allowed to stand for themselves, to protect themselves, to care for and lookout for the general welfare and well being of the group. That's a basic right. "
When whites do that, it's called White Supremacy.,
4
Many people, armed with statistics, would say that whites are already doing that through the dominant social and political constructs of our country. Whites brought blacks here against their will, disrupting their culture, which they are still trying to rebuild. Do you forget that blacks were relegated to the back of the bus just 50 years ago? That dynamic doesn’t just suddenly go away because laws are changed. Whenever minority groups organize and advocate for themselves, white people get scared and angry. God forbid blacks find a voice in a white culture that they didn’t want to be part of in the first place.
13
Sorry Jakrintean, it's not the same given the history of the US. If this movie is important to the African American population here, have at it. However, Daniela, history is strewn with grisly, awful treatment of one group toward others, irrespective of color. You understand, I hope, that many millions of the slaves brutally transported across the Atlantic (the vast majority of whom were delivered to Central and South America http://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/h... were delivered to the coast by other Africans with the goal of earning money. It was an evil conspiracy that cannot solely be laid at the feet of just White Americans.
Personally, beyond my grandparents I know nothing of my ancestors and I devote no time to dwelling about the details of those in my distant, unknowable past. I am who I am and stand on my own two feet for better or worse.
This opinion piece continues the myth that black people are the most oppressed people in the US all the while Latino groups are protesting outside Oscars luncheon because for the 6th years in a row no Latino was nominated for Oscars. Asian on the other hand don't dare to protest for fear of being told to check their privilege or go back to China.
Only two Asians have speaking role in the entire Marvel Universe; Benedict Wong as Doctor Strange's sidekick and Claudia Kim as Helen Cho in Age of Ultron.
Hollywood apparently thinks blacks are more diverse than Asian and Latinos and a couple of black actors satisfies diversity requirements that dozens of Asian and Latinos couldn't.
Black Panther is set in Africa so most actors are black but Doctor Strange which is set in Asia are mostly white with Chiwetel Ejiofor added to add diversity. Strange logic.
6
You moniker is well chosen.
Slavery built America.
White identity is fundamentally about its discussion with the other. And the other was built on slavery.
Listening to privilege talk about this movie is like listening to fish talk about bicycles.
Go see a different movie.
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"Identity" is what makes a person unique, not what group he or she belongs to. "White identity" is an oxymoron. Pundits invented "identity politics" just to have something impressive-sounding to talk about. It used to be called "stereotyping".
And here I thought it was just a great Marvel movie. Funny how most of us don't even think about race until the left pours it down our throats. Can you people on the left ever get past the color of people's skin and maybe... Oh I don't know, judge people by the content of their character? If anyone is watching movies with white people in them and relishing in the idea that the hero is white, that would be sick and I would feel equally repulsed and sorry for them. I feel the same when I read this stuff. I dream that one day we can just be people and get away from this obsession with skin pigmentation and national origin. It is truly a sickness.
7
Thank you for being a wonderful illustration of the problem.
4
You know what’s Bliss? Wow. What an understatement I must add.
So my disdain for divisiveness represents the problem in this country? I’m sorry my friend but I think maybe it’s time you took a good long look in the mirror.
When we agree about our hallucinations, we call it “reality.” Notions like “self-realization” and a “free self” are both Western hallucinations. We live with a false sense of separation and dream up individual identities and identify with certain groups, when we’re all part of the continuous flow of existence.
I loved reading this. Thank you for sharing your poignant and moving perspective. The closing line "We seek to make a place where we belong." resonates with me.
I remember being glued to the TV screen in 1977 watching each night of Alex Haley's ROOTS as a 10 year old white Mormon girl living in Utah. It profoundly moved me, and made a difference in my personal world view. From that time on, I've held a profound respect for black Americans, and for all people of African heritage. I look forward to seeing the movie BLACK PANTHER, and I hope it can have a profound impact on our citizens and our younger generation.
"We seek to make a place where we belong." was an anthem for my Mormon pioneer ancestors who were demonized and driven from America. I know that it is not the same as the black American experience, but it provides me a place to stand in greater empathy and solidarity. I pray for change in our nation, for a day where all people of all colors, creeds, sexual orientation, gender, and heritage can live in harmony and together we can honor and celebrate each other's unique experiences and gifts. We all need each other.
8
Wow! This essay resonated with me on so many levels, so powerfully and beautifully written -- it captured so much of what I'm feeling about this film. Thank you.
10
Oh, are we back to worshipping Hollywood again? Enough with the condemnation of its culture of exploitation and bullying, its pyramid schemes, its pathos of power and money, its narcissistic players. Off to the movies!
6
Very nice article. I learned a lot by reading it. You make what is everyday and intuitive for you, accessible and understandable for someone like me (I'm a white man). This makes for the kind of (real) dialogue that makes ALL of us better people for participating. Thank you.
9
A beautiful article, heartfelt and moving. I am not African-American, but I am very heartened that African-American people are being gifted with something so meaningful.
A note: the word "Wakanda," accented on the last syllable, means "the Great Spirit" in some Siouan languages (eg, Omaha). It is cognate to the Lakota word "Wakan Tanka."
5
This is an exceptional piece. It left me in awe and reflection. Bravo!
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As I read this article I kept think "When is Octavia Butler going to be mentioned?"
To the Hollywood studios, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and others: please read her book and work on developing series from her work.
It will require deft writing and direction, as she is one of the few authors who can take you into the worldview that is "alien" and at the same times familiar.
15
Another post just to say, plainly, how brilliant and moving this writing is.
It's a miracle.
Any people are allowed to stand for themselves, to protect themselves, to care for and lookout for the general welfare and well being of the group. That's a basic right.
And, to do so with love for themselves and regard and love for the other as well. This is where movements can fail.
I'm not an African-American.
I can only read and learn and relate and socialize and try to use my human powers to understand another's reality.
This article is revelatory.
I'll say it plain.
I delight that my fellow Americans, African-Americans, those whose ancestors planted the foundations of our nation firmly in the ground, whose shoulders and sweat and toil built so much - our African founders who did that - I'm uplifted that you, my fellow Americans exalt in the power and grace and majesty of your history and…
That you firmly reject anyone, any puny soul who would dissuade or detract from grasping that history and power. They are nothing.
That you, with all respect and dignity, even a God-like love, turn from such demonic souls and with pride and confidence move into a progressive future that you build no matter what.
I suggest we all study the grace and dignity of the non-violent civil rights movement. It was the greatest display of personal discipline, power, effectiveness and redemptive love ever in this country.
It was a miracle and it should be hallowed history.
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Maybe you should thank the Native American who were the first enslaved more.
3
To all the naysayers and snark peddlers.
You count for nothing.
It is for our African-American countrymen and countrywomen to be true to their emotions and their bonds with each other and a proud history. Both in Africa and in this land, built on THEIR ancestors' toil. Not yours or mine who are Johnny come latelies to America.
Again, for your nastiness, you are nothing.
Have the decency to say "thank you" to those whose foreparents laid the foundations of this nation.
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Hmm, people that disagrees with you count for nothing? Doesn't this sounds a lot like whites count blacks as 3/5 of a person for census purpose but nothing when it comes to representation?
I got a feeling you were quote emotional when you wrote your comment
3
I'm Jewish, the son of a Holocaust survivor.
I live part time in Oakland, I frequent the Grand Lake theater. This has a resonance of place for me.
It also resonates, in powerful ways, on an experience level. The author portrays the reality of African-Americans in such a compelling way. I am grateful and humbled.
Like all Jewish parents, mine had "the Holocaust conversation" with my brother and me and an age-appropriate time. All Jewish kids will, at about age 10, learn that in the recent past millions who worship or just identity as Jewish like them were systematically killed as policy by a modern mid 20th century state. This learning carries with it a range of emotions, questions, fears.
Kid questions.
Why did they do this to us?
What did WE do that caused them to do this?
Can this happen again? Am I safe?
In my case, my father and one other of six siblings survived. All, even his beloved mother, brutally killed.
Humans learn insecurity, profound self-doubt, even self-recrimination when exposed to the cruelty and put-downs of others. It weaves into your soul, a cancer.
It's reinforced in cultural stereotypes.
It's enforced by institutions or laws or lending regulations that keep the thumb on one's head. Jim Crow…
My white face and conventional dress get me anywhere I want, or need, to be.
This writing hit me deeply.
How dare we judge by race or religion.
How dare we ruin lives.
Make kids strong, to love themselves.
Damn anyone who gets in the way.
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@ Paul King
I agree with all three comments I saw that you wrote. Beautifully written, sir.
If a mere action movie showing more than one or two black and brown faces immersed unapologetically together in a social construct that challenges the superiority of colonialism gets this much fear, anger, and push back, it becomes a revolutionary act just to go see it. Wasn't planning on it, but what angers the white supremacists, works for me!
7
Thank you for understanding what it's like to be oppressed. I've typed some snippy letters today (LOL)!
"it’s in the special alloy Captain America’s shield is made of"
If that isn't the richest, truest metaphor in American culture.
87
This is an awesome comment. I hadn't thought of it but it is very correct.
4
After reading this love song of truth I had to print it and email it to everyone in my circle, Black or not.
This moment is more than about a comic book character in a fictitious country. It's a response to a longing in our hearts.
This article crystalized what I could not communicate to my non Black friends about this movie. This is a historical event for us. A coming together. A challenge to an assigned inferiority complex. A reminder to the world that we know how great we are; the rest of you need to catch up.
This is Obama's Inauguration. This is MLK's Speech in DC. This is Roots first airing. This is speaking to people who refuse to accept that they are lesser; especially when they know they can be greater than most could conceive.
As a result, we will naturally bond, blend and embrace one another in this mutual recognition of what we so desire, what we lack and what we hope to be. And no one, not even Trump himself, can stop the jubilation.
“This is what white people get to feel all the time?” Yes, I assume it is and they take it for granted. The infrequency of the experience for us creates euphoria of apocalyptic proportions. I’m so Blackity Black right now nothing can kill my swag.
I probably won’t sleep on Valentine’s night. Not for the sensual expectations. I’m going the very next evening to see Black Panther in preview with my own king in full regalia. And as Black twitter has quipped “I wonder if the theater will let me bring my spear?”
48
Are you really comparing MLK's Speech to Obama's Inauguration to Roots to a cheap movie?
1
A beautiful response.....THANK YOU for sharing it!
2
"Superheroes are powerful and beloved, held in high esteem????" No, they are generally objects of ridicule, as far as I have ever seen or heard. At best, jokes. And this is leading where?
15
Superheroes are modern myths. If all you ever hear about them is ridicule and scorn you need to get out more and widen your circle of friends.
2
Or, much more likely, Marvel saw an opportunity to cash in and dispel that its movies are white centric, and to draw in additional fans to its universe.
18
And that's quite OK, too.
18
Recognizing that there is a wider audience that could be drawn in is also a bonus.
They also didn't have to give the movie to a Black director and allow him to write the script. They could have made another Blade-type movie. Black superhero, white supporting cast.
This is a win for everyone, any way you look at it, and that's all anybody ever wanted.
4
Great article for a film I'm anxious to see.
On a somewhat lighter note, I'm neither black nor male, but I chuckled a bit about the watermelon. My father is from the South and I have all my life associated this love of watermelon with the South. My father's side of the family is rabid for it. A few years back I decided I would never eat watermelon again because I didn't want anyone to associate me with the South.
That and the fact I don't much care for it.
6
I had a job assignment in the South for a company in Albany, NY. I travelled everywhere you could think of, long stays, lots of networking. One thing I learned is that the South is not what people say about it. I met and worked with a diverse mix of people. It's no different than the Northeast as far as any society goes. I think your statement about not wanting to be "associated with the South" is disgusting and prejudice. It says a lot about you. You should embrace your heritage, but instead you pull a David Cross and try to demean and devalue it.
1
This was beautifully written. Thank you.
23
So a corporate multination founded by a vicious racist sells a squishy fantasy of empowerment to a specified target group to reap profits wthin a system that will guarantee poverty and exclusion for millions of poor black (and white and brown and red) people. Remember what the real Black Panthers said?
"“The cultural nationalists say that a Black man cannot be the enemy of the Black people, while the Panthers believe that Black capitalists are exploiters and oppressors. Although the Black Panther Party believes in Black nationalism and Black culture, it does not believe that either will lead to Black liberation or the overthrow of the capitalist system, and are therefore ineffective.”
Capitalism loves diversity, diversity means multiplication of markets and commodified culture. As Walter Benn Michaels argued in 2008s The Trouble with Diversity, identity politics seems to settle for the goal of making 13.5% of the 1% black, never mind the rest. Movies like this are just modern-day Horatio Alger stories aimed a keeping the herd from thinking things through...
19
I would recommend seeing the movie. I understand it addresses colonialism, separatism, nationalism, and even capitalism and the like as the main conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist - who is not necessarily the 'villain.'
Once I see it, I'll be able to better measure how clearly they address those issues.
Not everything is a zero-sum, all-or-nothing fight to the death between competing ideologies. Having cultural icons who look like us is important.
Some people like to sneer at this idea and make very loud and confident noises about how it's "just" culture, or we shouldn't be so "sensitive". But, in my experience, these people did not in fact grow up in marginalized communities. Rather, they're articulating pure theoretical criticisms from a background of sheer comfort and ease.
70
Thank you for this comment. I've been trying to explain this to people and it's falling on deaf ears.
1
What a beautiful piece, thank you!
10
It’s pitiful that a comic book movie could be considered a “defining moment” for anyone.
34
And do you propose that "defining moments" occur where? In other, more "elevated" movies, in the theatre, in sports, in Music, in Visual Art. Where? Or perhaps you mean a defining moment in the hard (NOT the soft, of course) sciences? In Politics? In a personally important moment? Where, pray tell Rico Suave, is that "defining moment" for you?
12
Please reread this essay; it contains many defining moments and images--and powerfully so.
11
That would be the moment that a peddling a victim mentality is not the primary currency of the retrograde leadership of the black community (case in point, the NAACP attempting to turn the term 'Anglo-American law', grounded in the reality of legal system's origin, into a quasi-racial smear to score cheap political points.) It would be the point where black leaders emerge who, with confidence, don't demand equality - because they believe it is their birthright, no more subject to discussion or demand then the fact of gravity. In short, the defining moment is the point at which the black community emulates the Asian American community, assumes equality is their birthright, and acts accordingly...not out of anger, or fear, or pride - but as a simple fact. And, while bigotry would still endure, because man is fallen, that defining moment would end racism as an operational force holding down the black community.
4
There was a time when black Americans took inspiration and hope from the likes of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Frederick Douglass, Thurgood Marshall, Marcus Garvey, Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, and W.E.B. Du Bois.
Now it seeks them in profiteering Hollywood comic-book movies.
How times have (sadly) changed.
32
Good point. Maybe someone can translate Malcolm X, MLK and Du Bois into 140-charactors long tweets for the short attention crowd.
1
We still “take inspiration,” as you call it, from Malcolm, Martin, Frederick, Thurgood, Marcus, Rosa, Fannie Lou, W.E.B, and countless others. We are not monolithic. We are able to embrace and be inspired by others who know our journey because they, too, are—or have been—part of it.
We have history and have bore witness to the atrocities of our experiences and are strong because of those experiences.
If we are able to be inspired by “comic book” heroes and she-roes, that is our prerogative. We take our heroes & she-roes in the manner & moment in which they enter our lives, whether by comic book or via some other means. We’ve taken so much else, I do believe there’s more than enough room for one—or a few—more takings. It is, after all, “gmgwat,” ours for the taking—not yours.
10
I mean, it's better than Lil Yachty and Nikki Minaj I suppose... but not by much. Particularly because, as this article acknowledges, this entire movie is based on the vision of two white men - no problem for me - but I don't subscribe to this sort of racial nonsense despite the fact that I'm a woman of color myself.
2
I am so distressed to read this. I thought the movie world truly be about the Black Panthers, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale et al. Instead, it's about an exploitative cartoon character. I suppose that was naive of me ?
13
Funny enough this "exploitative cartoon character" is how the "Black Panthers, Huey Newton, Bobby seale et al." got their name. The Black Panther Party was founded in October 1966; the comic came out in July 1966. Call it exploitative if you want but there is a transcendental and transformative idea here that captured imaginations and energy in 1966 and is doing the same now.
2
More like "faux naïf", a simulacrum of a sincere error.
Is it possible to find Black Panther enjoyable and meaningful AND to be genuinely interested in the Black Panthers? Or does political purity preclude popular pleasures?
3
I do very much like this article. The author refers to "Paul Cuffee’s attempts in 1811 to repatriate blacks to Sierra Leone and Marcus Garvey’s back-to-Africa Black Star shipping line to the Afrocentric movements of the ’60s and ’70s", however no mention is made of Liberia, a state re-founded by freed slaves from the US, who led a checkered early history of Liberia.
8
Superheroes are just silly and pathetic. Including 'Black Panther.'
For starters, Africa is an entire continent of culturally diverse peoples and cultures.
Second, while "greatness" and "wholeness" and "self-realization" (aka selfishness) has had their moments on the African continent, these are all just phase we go through.
The first humans came from Africa.
The last great human hero (Mandela) was a "African."
But by and large, movies simply sell a fantasy to their audiences to make money.
Period.
28
Jay David
Is that right? Tell me, what are the figures of Greek, Roman, Nordic and all mythology, but superheroes? What are the prophets of Jewish and Christian scripture, but superheroes? What are the figures of national histories but superheroes?
You're "technically" correct, but miss the point of myth entirely. Human beings navigate this existence with maps, and myths and superheroes figure into that navigation.
When we watch Olympians throw themselves off a mountain in a Downhill event, or across the ice, or on cross country skis, we're watching superheroes. We don't know these people. We don't know the truth about them anymore than we know "the truth" of who Christ was and what he really did say and do. We make it all up in our minds, which is where we manufacture our ability to navigate our own existence. And they inspire us to reach for goals that might exceed our grasp but that raise us up just for the fact of unfailing effort.
A Black superhero has as much value, more at this point in time in the U.S., as did Ulysses for the Greeks, Hector for the Trojans, Superman during the Depression, and on and on and on.
126
Thank you for explaining the importance of storytelling to human existence. It baffles me that some take such a limited view of the importance of stories to human development. In our daily lives we tell ourselves stories about our own personal existence, what myths and legends do is help us by crystallizing the human experience in a positive way so that we can navigate a way upwards and onwards.
7
@ John F McBride
Please realize Greek, Roman, Nordic are all real people and real places. Olympians on TV are real too with lives and dreams outside their competition. Ulysses, Hector and Jesus were all real even if their story were embellished by later generations.
Black Panther and Wakanda aren't real. They are one dimensional charactors based on eurocentric history and created for consumerism. I don't know how many people patterns their life after Ulysses, Hector or superman but it will be very sad day when children live their life according to a comic book.
2
I’m a little amazed by the number of people commenting to the effect that passively watching a big budget Hollywood movie is an unproductive waste of time in the fight for race equality.
These must be the same people who would listen to Dr. King’s “I have a dream” speech and say “Why is everyone standing around blabbing, and not DOING something?”
There is more than just inspirational power in words, stories, and imagery. A movie, just like a speech, is a moment but not the movement itself.
99
Ever since Disney bought Marvel Comics and the Star Wars franchise, I've decided to personally boycott any and all products they produce. I personally do not understand the cultural significance of the comic book films Disney produces. The story lines are for youngsters. They feature nearly indestructible individual superheroes and teams of superheroes going against equally powerful villains. The superheroes go through trials and tribulations, but they always win in the end. I would like to see more serious cinema. Why not biopics of unsung civil rights leaders, poets, authors, political leaders, military heroes, etc? Here is a possible film: Reconstruction. That is a topic few Americans know.
There is a dearth of films about the significant contributions African Americans, especially those who recently left human bondage, played in the American Civil War. I can only think of one: Glory. A mountain of material is available to make films for people who want to understand the Black American Experience. Just think of all the Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin novels which have not been made into important cinema.
I hope, with the success of this film, there is an entry into making other films which tell important stories, not just Disney produced Black Panther 1-8. Stories, where groups of individuals struggle against injudicious and criminal institutions, making everyone freer - and there is no superhero to save them.
14
Please write Disney and express your ideas.
5
I think you're missing out. Often, these movies can be used to explore greater themes. The main theme I took away away from Captain America is the question around how many of your civil liberties are you willing to give up in the name of safety? If you have great strength, are you willing to put your power in the hands of others, trusting that they'll use it (or not) wisely or do you keep it to yourself and trust yourself to do what's right? Do you obligate yourself to others who may have ulterior motives?
It's an allegory couched in the form loud brash superhero movie, and allegories been used since time immemorial to make us think about ourselves, our decisions, our world, and how we want our society to be.
27
So beautifully written and such a pleasure to read this from an Oakland writer
42
I agree. Thank you for the thought provoking article.
1
I admit I was at first very much dismayed that our black superhero would be portrayed as an animal, something that I think deeply struck my overall sense of injustice surrounding so many things. Why must we be relegated to something that will be seen as less than? I was wrong. I didn't understand really what this means. I do now. This article literally brought tears to my eyes. It may be the single most relatable piece I have ever read. The words were quite literally taken out of my mouth, things I have not even been able to discuss but with but a few close friends. Thank you for saying what we all understand and feel about this experience.
59
The point was not verisimilitude or a precise accounting of Africa’s reality. It was the envisioning of a free self."
Are you saying that black people should fabricate an ideal Africa as a way to give identity and erase trauma? I am not sure what you're saying. Are you suggesting that people should falsify history or falsify reality? Isn't that like the 16th C British and the myth of King Arthur and Camelot?
8
I'm not sure where you get the question of whether this piece is saying that people should falsify anything. There is simply nothing written here that even comes near that subject. Nor is does it proffer to falsify (I'd say alter) reality. It fact in both cases the author very clearly lays out both the historical and current existence of Black America. What do you think he was talking about when he mentioned Cuffee or Oscar Grant? Also, I don't know what your question about the British and King Arthur is meant to say. Are you saying that the 16th C British used the Arthurian myth as a substitute for actual history? If so then I think you might not understand both the myth or people (not just even British people). I'm pretty sure even then they knew the difference between what happened and what didn't. Today and now, I'm certain that everyone knows 'Black Panther' is just a character and not a documentary.
2
what can black people gain from embracing Africa or romanticizing Africa? People under about 50 seem obsessed with identity. I trade stocks. I am obsessed with wealth and also with skiing. I see myself as a high-earning skier. I see myself as a skier and not as a Jewish person. I am a skier who happens to be Jewish.
I don't understand why identity matters. I don't understand how identity figures into a post-racial, post-modern society. Shouldn't we shed identity? I see the world as broken down into 3 groups: Skiers, snowboarders, people who neither ski nor snowboard. When I was a literature professor, it was two groups: Readers and non-readers. As a gym rat, I see gym rats and non-gym rats.
Isn't identity a millstone around the neck?
Beautifully written. Touched me, a white male, deeply.
23
You're a very nice man. Sadly though, it may not even matter what you think or say because you're a white man. Nobody should have to experience something to have compassion, sympathy and understanding for someone's pain or mistreatment and a whole race shouldn't be blamed for the actions of some.
3
This is how the article's author described Black Panther's originators:
"Marvel Comics’s Black Panther was originally conceived in 1966 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, two Jewish New Yorkers, as a bid to offer black readers a character to identify with." How is that negative? Seemed very respectful to me.
25
Not sure Jews like to be called out at every chance they are Jews. How does these phrase sounds: "This is my Jewish friend...", "My Chinese American dentist...", "My kid's black muslim classmate"?
1
The fact that, in this case, a black superhero who has spurred such excitement was created by white, Jewish males is an important bit of context.
1
Black and white are western social constructs that have political value in the west. However black does not describe the vast richness of ethnicities and cultures in Africa. The Black Panther isn't black. He is Wakandan. Black is a skin color designation given to a people who were stripped of their heritage and culture in the new world. To look at Black Panther as black is to view the character and story through the lens of eurocentrism and white supremacy.
The descendants of African slaves in America are called blacks for a reason of convenience. People in Africa aren't black. They are Nigerians and Kenyans and Malians etc...and fictionally, Wakandans. Those are specific ethnic groups. Its not that they aren't just black they aren't black at all. That esignation has very specific meaning in western culture that just does not apply to them. Anymore than white has meaning in Europe. If anyone talked about Italians and Germans and Swedes as if they are all interchangeable they would be looked at as if they were crazy. To call people in Africa black is to homogenize them and gives the impression they are all interchangeable. Its one of the major reasons why many people refer to the continent of Africa like its a country.
Black americans gravitate to Black Panther because its great for us to see someone who looks like us doing great and fantastic things. But we really need to move past these skin color designations to fully appreciate the richness of the people's story.
34
I know Africa is a continent and not a country. I never heard, though, about people talking about Italians and Germans and Swedes as if they're all interchangeable and then being looked at as if they're crazy. It shouldn't matter at all what skin color someone has and it shouldn't be a big deal, either, but what I think IS crazy is it always seems like the people who supposedly don't want it to be a big deal ARE the people who are making it a big deal.
6
Beautifully explained.
Black in America is more than a skin color designation, it's the American version of a cultural designation for the descendants of formerly enslaved Africans. We have no cultural history with which to identify. Black is an an American thing because in America there was a concerted effort to ensure that enslaved people could not pass on the culture and heritage of their forefathers. Children were sold from their parents, tribal and cultural elements, such as song, dance, language, and especially religion, were all strictly forbidden, and it was impossible to pass them from one generation to the next.
If you think that Black in the United States is only a skin color, then you are missing the point. Black in the US is a specifically American subculture, that originated and grew specifically from a people who had to start from scratch.
5
Note to NYT editorial team: Save this one for submission in the various end-of-year writing awards as a contending article of 2018.
120
Ryan Coogler is a brilliant director, and I can't wait to see Black Panther. I couldn't imagine what seeing it would be like for a black audience, but now I know. Thank you for such an eloquent article.
78
This article gives me more hope than anything I have read in a while. It explains things that I have observed and educates me as a white man in a way that helps me to understand, and it makes perfect sense. I thank the author for taking on fraught topics with such clarity and magnanimity.
160
This article gave me goosebumps. The rebirth of pride, solidarity and self-love within the African-American community—not as a measure of acclimation to a mainstream American culture, but rather a more true and honest acceptance/celebration of what makes them truly unique—is something that will benefit not only those of black heritage, but humanity as a whole.
72
Didn't Obama do that or is he no match for a fictional superhero?
1
Props to Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose recent beautiful BLACK PANTHER comix for Marvel have been splendid. You don't have to be black to love Coates
great soulful saga of history and empowerment in Wakanda.
35
May I say this? The release of Black Panther is a joy and a relief for white people too. This one anyway. How wonderful to be at this moment. Finally.
My two African-born children have no frame of reference for the African-American world in which they are growing up. Now, increasingly, they may not need it. (Well, less.). They can just be who they are. Free from fear. Free.
Or closer, anyway, in the darkness of our local movie theater, where dreams become real.
51
Wonderful to read that you, as a White person also experience joy and relief at the release of this movie.
1
I'm troubled how the author of this article tried to discount the two men who created this character, just because they were white. As for me, I am looking forward to seeing this film, which reminds me how so many women rejoiced about bring Wonder Woman to the big screen last year.
12
How did he "discount" them? I did not feel that at all. He mentioned the fact of them being "Jewish New Yorkers" trying to create something that would appeal to a black audience. Nothing wrong with that, and I don't believe the author meant to imply there was; any "discounting" is just what you are reading into it.
12
Sasha, I'm inclined to agree with Jesse. It didn't feel to me like a slight against those men in the least. In fact, I felt that he was giving them props for thinking to do at least THAT for their Black readers.
3
Yeah, I don't get the discounting thing either.
“In a video posted to Twitter in December, which has since gone viral, three young men are seen fawning over the ‘Black Panther’ poster at a movie theater. One jokingly embraces the poster while another asks, rhetorically: ‘This is what white people get to feel all the time?’”
As a young boy I used to study the covers of video tapes and movie posters in much the same way. Of Chris Reeve and of Michael Keaton. Of towering heroes who looked like me. Though I didn’t see it through that lens of race and sex, it is a mark of my own privilege that I didn’t have to.
Stories like Black Panther and Wonder Woman represent welcome steps toward a future of equal representation in the arts, just one critical component of an equal future together.
133
THANK YOU!
2
I am on the left and sympathetic to both causes, but, thus far, super hero movies have been just bad, including Wonder Woman. I fear seeing Black Panther and feeling the same way.
When I was a kid, Wonder Woman was a popular TV show. How and why is the recent movie more feminist or progressive? Why is the new film so much more revolutionary? There was the Bionic woman too. Amd Sarah Connor. I feel like there's a 21st C solipsism/myopia that simply ignores the past. People act like the recent Wonder Woman film was the first time Wonder Woman appeared on screen. The Wonder Woman TV show was massively popular.
1
Great article—still disheartening that the African American, Christopher Priest, is not attributed credit of any kind for re-envisioning and fully empowering the Black Panther story. http://www.vulture.com/2018/01/christopher-priest-made-black-panther-coo...
14
Thanks for the posting. The info on Priest is very informative. Glad to know he is back on the main stage of comics!
p
7
Wonderful uplifting article! Mandela, King, Malcolm X, Obama and now the Black Panther! I'm lighting up some Kiva Cannabais and running out to the next showing!
7
The more that we see these characters in literature, t.v. and film as natural leaders and full participants in society that just so happen to have darker skin ( or are just different\from other places ), the more that these people will be in positions of power to be represented in those arts.
Which came first ; the idea that this part of society could be more, or that they actually were all along ?
The answer is obvious to some, but still oblivious to many still.
21
Thank you, in order for anything to "be" it usually has to be "imagined".
2
Good writing about a world that is not one's own, helps the reader to better understand that world. Great writing helps the reader to better understand oneself. I was looking forward to the movie for the expected superficial reasons, thank you for showing me a deeper meaning and provoking unexpected personal reflections about the worlds that could have been, that with different details many of us long for for similar reasons.
101
I'm white, so I can't possibly understand this at the deepest level. Still, some words can touch us all, and this article brought me to a place in my heart I have not exactly been before. Wonderful.
195
And you touch hearts too friend.
2
Yes you can understand while white at a meaningful human level.
There is only one multicolored biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit human race species that began in Africa 300,000+ years ago.
Color is not race. Color is an adaptation to sunlight at varying altitudes and latitudes related to Vitamin D production and protecting genes from damaging mutations. Color as race is a socioeconomic political educational white supremacist historical American myth malignly meant to legally and morally justify black African enslavement and separate and unequal while black in America.
Humble humane empathy is the key to understanding any human being. Condescending paternalistic pity and sympathy is not.
3
I worry about the impact on people who mix reality with fantasy to secure a sense of legitimacy or even accomplishment. Hopefully it is good and harmless fun, rather than a misplaced view of history or culture.
13
You are way too late. Check out Rastafarians' interpretation of The Twelve Tribes of Israel
Hey! Rastafarians created their own ‘Wakanda’ interpretation of the Bible thru their own experience. Imagine living in a tiny island where despite being 80% black - all of the institutions, money and power are controlled by people of lighter skin, priviledged (Western) education and foreign (Syrian, Chinese, Indian) connections. Being powerless to change it, I would naturally out of anger create an imaginary world too where black people were the true ‘Jews’ as a paasive coping mechanism. Especially when my thinking was aided by my tribal medicine. Yet most of the messages in Reggae songs are positive - peace, love, solidarity. Just reading history is not enough, you probably need a visit to Africa or Jamaica, where as a minority you will actually get to experience some of the emotions people are describing in this thread.
This piece captures something deeply essential for white America to know about black America. While some might question the mere existence of two separate worlds, any decent historian would both confirm and extend this learning. And until we get equivalent reportage from white essayists about this moment, we can only assume that our country will create more Oscar Grant stories without remorse.
I’m going because there is a future I want to visit. I hope envisioning it gets us all closer to the day when it’s real.
25
Its going to be a defining moment for Marvel and Disney bank accounts as well. But that never came up at the meeting.
24
But that's part of what is powerful. If we can show that movies driven by strong blacks are profitable, more will be made. If more are made the image of a black person in a role like this will become less jarring. If it becomes less jarring, maybe the barriers in the real world drop a little.
As a woman, it was music to my ears to learn that women lead movies gross more than male lead movies. And lo! They are no longer a shocking thing.
48
I hesitate to equate science fiction with the real world, and the impact of one upon the other. It is the ultimate escapism. It is a product. Female-geared retail hugely surpasses male-geared retail, but that does not make the world a better place. It may just produce more landfill.
5
Except we have real world examples of science fiction impacting reality. From 'Star Trek' to 'Wonder Woman', many have drawn both inspiration which produced tangible rewards (think smart phones) and inspiration (think Ms. magazine, 1st issue on the cover featured Wonder Woman). Art, even commercial art, always has the potential to make a difference and become reality.
2
This is terrific, and I look forward to a rare visit to a movie theatre to see these fine actors performing.
However, I also look forward to the day when there are so many movies starring African Americans, written by African Americans and directed by African Americans that an article like this is no longer necessary.
That will be progress.
83
One of the NY Times interviews with the actors recently published was just stunning. So refreshing to read the thoughts of these talented, funny and excited actors and to see their beautiful faces.
4
Its Hollywood make believe. It might be feel good but anyone who uses make believe to define their culture is missing something that fiction will not supply.
33
Sorry, but that is the opposite of true. The story of the Garden of Eden didn't affect a culture? The tale of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt had no impact on later generations? I think even just *having* stories, regardless of their content, is a foundational aspect of any culture. This sounds like it will be an excellent addition to the black cannon.
54
Might as well use that thinking to talk about our American history. The ideas of 'Freedom', 'Brotherhood', ' Equality'. These are concepts we use as the foundation of our collective American culture. How much of that make-believe have we used to define our culture when you compare it to the realities our history?
32
Colin, Moses was a real person as were the Israelites, Egyptian and Pharaoh. Even Adam and Eve were real if you view them as early human tribes. Black Panther and Wakanda are not. If would be funny and sad if some religion starts worshiping Black Panther and ancient Wakanda.
I have to admit, I’m a big fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, ever since the debut of “Iron Man” some ten years ago. I’ve cherished these films not for their realism, but for their idealism in showing us that in our worst moments, humanity can rally and create something better for the common good. “Black Panther,” extends this vision of us coming together regardless of our race, creed, or color. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby developed a black superhero in the 1960s to speak to the issues of race and social justice of the day. “Black Panther” finally shares that idealism on the big screen. Wakanda may not exist on a map in the real world, but can exist in our hearts and minds as an ideal in which the world does not fear a strong black man, but instead honors and respects his strength and heritage. “Black Panther” can inspire us to cherish African-Americans for their greatness. American popular culture has far too long trodden on the black man and demonized him, going all the way back to D. W. Griffiths’ “Birth of a Nation.” “Black Panther” can help us readjust our footing as a nation as we continue to grapple with race and justice in America and help us understand that we are nothing in America without the strength of African Americans to help lead the way.
28
Fantastic article. Years ago, I remember Michelle Obama was chastised by white Americans by saying something like "for the first time in my life, I am proud of my country." I remember my rage at the reaction of white Americans; did these people know nothing of the history of African Americans? Why any African American feels any pride in the US is beyond me; or, at least, it is easy for me to understand the people who reject a country that has systematically abused and rejected them. When I teach a course on international relations and human rights, the US history of abuse comes up because of its impact on US attitudes to international treaties. I cover the case of Jesse Washington in Waco in 1917. There is still no memorial to Washington in Waco; think about what that says about the white desire to forget and paper over atrocity. On a final personal note: I am not of African background, but I am non-white and a lifelong fan of Marvel comics. When I was a child, the only superhero I could picture myself being was T'Challa, because he was the only one who came anywhere close to looking like me. The reality of seeing yourself represented, especially for children, really does affect what you can imagine yourself being. When the Black Panther debuts in a few days, I plan to be there, happily joining the trip to Wakanda.
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It's pretty sad when African Americans have to identify with a mythical African country whose rulers possess magic minerals and super powers. Indeed, most Americans of any color know little or nothing about Africa and believe that it is a country, not a continent.
Most African nations have been independent--governed by Africans--since the 1960s, yet they are still mired in poverty and corruption despite billions in foreign aid from the US and other countries. These cold, hard facts are hardly the basis for an inspirational movie, much less one that is supposed to draw record crowds.
However, there is one African country, Ethiopia, which has always been independent (ruled by Africans) except for a brief period during occupation by the Italians during WW II. Its Emperor, Haile Selassie, ruled for decades and did much to modernize his country and improve the lives of his people. While the Emperor was an autocrat and, like all absolute rulers had his share of bad points, why not a fact-based based book and movie about a real African country and a real African ruler? Selassie's long life and rule spanned provide enough fodder for even a TV series.
I recognize that fantasy has a role in people's lives, but how much more satisfying it must be to develop a sense of identity based on fact and reality rather than pure fiction. I find a bit condescending that the NYT and other mass media are promulgating Black Panther as a vehicle for developing--or restoring--black pride.
2
Thank you for your opinion.
Bill Clinton was not the first black President of the United States. Donald Trump will not be the last white President of the United States whose ancestors had the belated powerful privilege to immigrate to America while white.
My two black grandsons and their white peers accept and expect that the President of the United States and First Lady of the United States look like Barack and Michelle Obama.
3
“Until recently, most popular speculation on what the future would be like had been provided by white writers and futurists.... [T]hese futures tended to carry the power dynamics of the present into perpetuity. Think of the original ‘Star Trek,’ with its peaceful, international crew, still under the charge of a white man from Iowa.”
There is so much insight in this piece, but I ran into something like a wall with the bit quoted above. “Still?” I may well be misinterpreting, but does the author mean to suggest that a white leader in the future represents racism? Does any/every white leader represent oppression? Must all the leaders be Black for there to be equality? (The piece is about an entirely Black nation, so my question isn’t for nothing.)
When it’s all identity-political narratives all the time, the narratives in which we find ourselves ensconced become extremely impoverished; they can eclipse progress that’s been gained. It’s very important to remember the history of a people. But living in that history carries a danger: namely, living with the baggage of the past forever, living with the bitterness of centuries in perpetuity. Too much for mortal shoulders to carry. I think there has to be a way to remember history with heart of forgiveness and humility, lest we remain tethered to misery that is no longer mine/yours/ours.
I have to wonder if the author isn’t viewing the world through such misery.
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No, all leaders don't have to be Black for there to be equality in the present and future. But seeing more Black people and other POC, women, people with physical disabilities, etc. in roles of leadership, exudes a solidarity in thinking that there is some level of equality continuing to be strived for in our culture. Doesn't mean that they'd be hired purely for these aspects of their being. But it shows that those attributes are not considered as a detriment in the way they have been in the past and are, to a certain extent, now.
In 2018, the fact that an all Black cast is still considered cutting edge while an all-white cast is still "the norm" or "standard", is striking food for thought.
No doubt there'll be a Conservative Blacklash of smug fear and finger-pointing claiming how "Anti-American", "racist", and "race-baiting" Black Panther is. I will expect no less from Trump's America.
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I went to a women's college and it was amazing. Throughout high school the smartest person in the room was often a woman. But so rarely was the loudest person a woman. In college you got to play with all the roles, see women in all of them. That obviously doesn't translate into the real world which we must share with men - and want to. But the lessons remain, and have helped me question things I thought were just reality, to the benefit of my career and earning potential.
Plenty men have been threatened by that, but pish posh, I'm not gonna get my sense of agency an worth only in ways approved by white men.
20
Interesting, I don't see quite where there is a view of society through misery. If anything I think his pt. is that this film offers a chance to get past that. In terms of 'Star Trek' and many other stories, I think that it would be more accurate to say that we are often stuck in this narrative where the leader or person who saves the day is often white guy (presumably able bodied and heterosexual). 'Black Panther' and 'Wonder Woman' are hopefully the beginning of a move away greenlighting films from only that paradigm. Of course, I thought that when other films that were commercially successful and offered diverse main characters (and their world) in the past would lead to more films, instead they were seen as flukes and nothing changed. My hope is that this is what will change for the better.
3
A beautifully written article and one that America should read. Now, go watch the movie.
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Um, it’s a Marvel comix movie. It will be forgotten tomorrow. Plaease just stop.
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You'll forget it, as you forgot "Coming to America". Black people will not, at least not until it becomes commonplace.
And with any luck, Marvel & Disney will not forget the box office sales, and will make more of the same until it IS commonplace!
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No it won't be forgotten tomorrow any more than superman or batman is forgotten. These characters aren't just cartoon entertainment. They can be used to inspire and ignite imagination. Do you know why you have a smart phone today..because some nerdy kid saw capt kirk with a communicator and said I have to make that!
Why are you so offended by an african superhero?
1
Sometimes a superhero film is just a superhero film. Black America is pinning its hopes and aspirations on...a Hollywood fantasy? Really?
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Well, it can't hurt, right? But I get your point. And I wonder what kinds of portrayals actually make a difference to the way kids perceive themselves.
A little girl would be more substantially inspired by Kamala Harris or Gloria Allred than Wonder Woman, right?
7
Not just Black America -- I and millions of others are ready for a great film with beauty, inspiration, imagination and exciting bigger-than-life characters and a kick-a** plot populated with African Americans.
12
Not pinning hope on a film.
The film inspires and depicts powerful symbols and models.
That's what film can do.
Let those who take something deep and valuable from art of any kind do so without any judgement from others.
Try that.
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One can understand children being infatuated with this kind of movies. But that a sizable number of grown up people, no matter color, see these movies as anything more than a two hour long money grab, shows how infantile the present culture is.
34
Mohammed, you're in Norway. Black people in this country rarely get to see themselves as heroes, as smart, as successful and as an unconquered people.
We are bombarded with the negative about our culture, our lives, our standards, our morals - even our very existence.
Though you may think its juvenile, you need to look at the broader historical context here. ANYTHING that can have our children feel they can be the hero in a story instead of the usually criminal will catch out attention. And we will wholeheartedly support it.
Obama's 2 terms didn't end the problem, it's much deeper than that.
18
This article exemplifies how I feel when I saw the trailer. A black superhero in the vain of Batman and Superman. I can't wait until it premieres on Friday. It is a movie that every one of color should be proud of. Its about accomplishment rather than failure. I also want to shout out the black writers of Black Panther that made this possible, Christopher Priest foremost, Reginald Hudlin and Mr. Coates respectively.
20
Two Asian actors without name nor dialog and not a single Latino. Proud day indeed
4
Vein, mon cher, vein. Not vain.
Sounds like a Blaxploitation redux for the 21st Century that’s hiding under a thin veneer of racial extremism.
That’s exactly what we need right now. Something else to stratify and divide society along ethnic identity.
Bravo.. I’ll bet it will win an Oscar!
47
Just like Wonder Woman? Remember how that film "empowered" women and showed us all how fierce they were? Before it failed to secure a single Oscar nomination? Black Panther looks like this year's Wonder Woman in both lavish praise and social-media shaming.
14
I agree with you. I see this as racial extremism, too, and not a women with power issue. And when I was a little girl my superhero was my mother, not Wonder Woman. As a matter of fact, I found the Wonder Woman TV series to be silly. I was born in 1960, so little girls probably wanted more to be beautiful and with a perfect body than a powerful woman. But that was back in the 70's and that caused another problem lol. My superhero was my late mother, she was all I needed.
5
Actually 'Wonder Woman' did get some Oscar nods, mostly in technical stuff I believe. That's just about what usually happens with superhero (and science fiction films). It was praise worthy, I don't know about the social media shaming, this is the first I've heard of it.
Bad movies are still bad, even when they cater to a target audience, say in Wonder Woman, or African American, in Black Panther. You don't boost self esteem of your audience, if that happens to be your goal, or identity politics, by churning out out drivel. Bad direction and acting. count, so these movies wont.
21
You can not like the films, that's a matter of taste I suppose but 'Black Panther' hasn't been released to the general public yet so did you have a special critics' viewing? If not then you are showing that you have an axe to grind when it comes to movies that show empowered woman and Black folks in a heroic light not against "bad movies". For you these movies won't count, no way they could given your obvious preconceptions. However, you don't speak for the rest of the potential audience so how can you know whether these films will count or not (whatever you mean by "count").
1
The African Wakanda is no more fictional than the American West that Hollywood has been dishing out since “The Great Train Robbery.” Fiction can be truer than fact. We are what we believe.
139
John Wayne dodged the military draft during World War II. Wayne played brave honorable patriotic military Americans like George McGovern in movies. Trump dodged the military draft during Vietnam. Facts can be worthless when fiction becomes conflated and confused with facts.
3
It saddens me immensely that racism is alive and well in this review and in audiences for this film. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby did not create Black Panther to pander, but to show what the world could be like without racism. There is still hope. But, it is often hard to see.
55
I think you've misunderstood the nuances of the essay. Wallace isn't arguing for a somehow anti-white, anti-European reading of history as reflected in this film/cultural phenomenon. He's talking about the redemptive power of collective historical re-imagining for a population that hasn't always been able to readily do that in mainstream cultural spaces.
226
Exactly!
5
Wow this comment is incomprehensible to me. I see no racism in the article and you’d have to have super powers to see into the hearts of the viewers of a film that hasn’t even open yet. By the same token however I am bemused to see so much ink spilled on a comic book character and his portrayal in a movie. For me barrack obama is a superhero and I’d like to see movies about how he saved the world for 8 years
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