Get Me Out of Wakanda!
Wakanda, the fictional African nation that is home to Black Panther.
(FilmSelect Trailer / YouTube)
This article first ran on Black Agenda Report on Feb. 22.
#EnemyPropaganda
I finally got around to seeing the "Black Panther" movie Tuesday. I've been
black nearly seven decades. My blackness does not require affirmation from
the Disney/Marvel Comics Universe, where Tony Stark is a greedy Pentagon
contractor, where Captain America is a genetically modified organism, where
the Wakandan king and the wannabe king both work with/for the CIA, and where
Daredevil's pals (season 1 episode 4) note that investigative reporting on
"teachers union scandals" is as personally perilous as crossing the Mafia.
For those of us aiming to build a better world, this movie is nothing short
of enemy propaganda.
#GetMeTheHellOutaWakanda
In the "Black Panther" movie, all the Wakandan players are royalty, their
counselors, their advisers or their rivals. All the strikingly beautiful and
capable Wakandan women take orders from men. The only unambiguous good guy
is the Frodo-looking CIA agent. The homicidal Killmonger character is
calculated to sully the very notion of black rebellion against unjust
authority, while Pan Africanism and humanism are defecated upon from
multiple angles. Cinematic bar fights, car chases and battle scenes are a
dime a dozen, and worst of all, Wakanda isn't even rendered in any visually
inspiring way.
#TheThirstIsReal
The movie disrespects its audience and is a standing insult to science
fiction and afro-futurism. As Dr. Jared Ball points out, we can't just go
make and market another movie to compete with this one. Disney/Marvel
Studios put tens of millions into the promotion of this thing alone, and for
now, millions of people are buying their message. That's called cultural
hegemony.
Those who would drink from this nasty water for "affirmation" and "black
joy" must be deeply, desperately thirsty. And evidently, thirst confuses
before it kills.
The only good thing I got from this movie was the motivation to look for and
find some real, respectful, challenging and innovative science fiction and
afro-futurism, preferably written by some black women to wash the rancid
taste of Marvel's superhero-industrial complex from the inside of my head.
#EmailISDarkSocialMedia
I wasn't going to record this commentary for Black Agenda Radio. Originally
it was a Facebook post, but it generated such a response that it deserved a
life outside of corporate social media.
Because Black Agenda Report is equally critical of Republicans and
Democrats, because as black leftists we consistently oppose capital,
patriarchy, empire, the black political class and the bipartisan war machine
we are the only black-oriented media outfit alleged by The Washington Post
and Prop Or Not to be under the evil influence of the Russians. Google and
other corporate social media have targeted Black Agenda Report in order to
restrict your access to our content. If I, Glen Ford or Margaret Kimberley
or Ajamu Baraka or Black Agenda Report was temporarily or permanently banned
from Facebook, all our posts and their comments would disappear. Facebook
claims all posts as its private property. And even if they don't ban us, it
can be extremely difficult to find a Facebook post or a tweet more than a
day or two old.
So I'm posting this at BlackAgendaReport.Com and at Black Agenda Radio
Commentaries on SoundCloud where you can easily find it from now on. Please
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media because Google, Facebook, Twitter cannot track or block it.
Special thanks to Dr. Johanna Fernandez for the title #GetMeOutaWakanda.
Bruce A. Dixon is the managing editor of Black Agenda Report.