Black Panther Pride!

The first time I saw Black Panther, my eyes stretched wide like paper plates and my heart pounded within my chest to the intricate African beats in the movie. I thought to myself, “What took so long?” I have been craving to see such black beauty on the silver screen my entire life. To see black images portrayed as powerful figures: kings and queens, technologically advanced maintainers of a utopian civilization, and superheroes, made my insides flutter. It portrayed an image that I had known in my heart from my conception despite media images of degenerate, unintelligent, criminal, oversexed, violent, buffoonish, second class characters. Black Panther showed that there was more to black people than slavery and victims of colonization; hut dwelling and primitive people who do not have the mental capacity for technological advancement. The movie showed equally powerful men and women working together for a greater good.

Black Panther displayed complex characters that grappled with the social struggles of black people throughout the world. It displayed a King who wished to protect his own by keeping all Wakanda’s technology hidden from the world, and it showed his antithesis (Killmonger) who wished to take that technology and deal the same evil hand to the oppressors that they have dealt to people of color for centuries. They are two sides of the same coin. With help from the ancestors, good prevailed over misguided anger. The character’s complexities have spawned debates everywhere which is a sign of a phenomenal movie. Not only did the movie shatter notions about black movies not being able to make large amounts of money with its near billion-dollar earnings, it highlighted the talent and excellence of black director Ryan Coogler and incredible black actors and actresses like Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o, and Danai Gurira.

Although a fiction created in the mind of comic book creator Stan Lee, Black Panther showed what many historians know as truth about African people. The black African kingdoms from Egypt to Mali from Ethiopia to Timbuktu have always been mighty, advanced, and great. Sadly, many African Americans and the world in general because of racial brainwashing, know very little of the home of our ancestors; therefore, Wakanda tugs at the internal whisperings of ancestors unknown and long forgotten. Wakanda whispers of a home so familiar but never seen. It was like Deja vu.

Now that we have been given a glimpse of what we were and what we can be, it is time to become.  

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