Wednesday, March 14, 2018

The Illusion of Freedom: Why Wakanda Matters

Preface:  THIS IS NOT A MOVIE REVIEW. REPEAT AFTER ME:  THIS IS NOT A MOVIE REVIEW.

I finally saw Black Panther three weeks after most of you viewed the Marvel film on Opening Night.


It has replaced Iron Man as my favorite Marvel character – and that was no small feat.

Freedom - (noun) 1) the quality or state of being free; independence 2) exemption; release 3) ease; facility 4) frankness 5) unrestricted use 6) a political right; also see franchise or privilege

But neither of the two sentences you just read matter as much in the grand scheme of things as the illusion of freedom that Wakanda symbolizes versus our very own dark American history and its mirage of nirvana since we all know the American Dream is truthfully a pipe dream for the select few, the privileged, and the occasional model minority who inevitably is placed upon an ivory tower of a pedestal only to be assaulted to the point of self-destruction as the proverbial paper king propped up by outside forces far greater than he or to live an isolated existence not unlike the Wakandans.

Who wants the illusion of freedom Wakanda affords? All of us, especially black people. Africa has long been the incubator of most of what the world has learned over the centuries:  without her human capital and vast assets, the world would be a vastly different place. King T’Challa does everything in his power to protect his nation from allowing vibranium to fall into the wrong hands yet he ultimately fails in obtaining it. He also had to deal with imposter syndrome as he learned how to serve the nation as king only after the death of his father T’Chaka; certainly, there are moments which we all doubt our qualifications in fulfilling a new role.

What is the illusion of freedom pertaining to Wakanda? Is it a truly black ethnostate which citizenship is granted or denied by a litmus test of sufficient blackness with Popeyes chicken, Lexus dealerships, no more credit reports and student loan payments, and Baptist churches rocking on every other corner each Sunday morning around 11 am? In the movie, we learn that Wakanda is perceived by the UN as a third-world country rife with goat herders and farmers until their way-too-advanced-for-the-stereotype is unveiled as a model society of futurism: Note Shuri’s lab as proof. Alongside the multiple Black Panther outfits designed to absorb blows and regenerate with vibranium, it was a virtual time machine proving the genius of Black women in STEM disciplines, aka #blackgirlmagic. Unfortunately, those same illusions of freedom we perceive in Wakanda mirror the dreadful conditions the rest of us have had to survive in. Like children who have spent too many years in the foster care system seeking a permanent place to call home, we were abandoned by those who were supposed to love us unconditionally and forced to overcome a world that considers us disposable with nothing but sheer determination.


Why does the illusion of Wakanda matter? It’s because we are compulsive believers, plain and simple. We want to believe in someone or something so badly that we tend to jump from one temporary idea or trend to the next hoping that it does not disappoint us along the way. I see no issue in being a dreamer; however, a compulsive believer inevitably looks gullible due to the fact he or she is following every fleeting wind and every pretty little lie than confronting the ugly truth which greatly terrifies them. It is reflexively traveling through life as lemmings that the illusion of Wakanda reigns so prominently this season; in about six months or sometime after the Black Panther DVD lands in stores, it may or may not matter but for a few weeks. Besides, the bootleg copies have been on Fire Stick for quite some time. For example, one layer of how white supremacy is indoctrinated into our young people is through the media and our schools. Case in point:  how schools teach black history. Instead of including it as a 24/7/365 standard, students end up only hearing about Martin and Rosa with some bits of Barack, Michael, and Beyoncé among others in a period of nineteen days. If that isn’t enough, think about how we find ourselves indoctrinated by the Democrats and Republicans; both parties are filled with liars, yet we tend to lean toward one or the other based on the sweet sound of fables to our ears. Given the facts, the independent class of voters should be vastly more numerous to the tune of holding all candidates’ feet to the fire instead of only the ones we do not support.

Erik Killmonger’s plan to help black people globally falls flat not because it was so farfetched as much as it fails as an indirect result of using the colonizers’ strategies against them. Was he a bit too woke for the moment? Not necessarily; some of us who have always been able to eat at the kitchen table only know that existence relative to the very real and somewhat literal struggle we all have endured in the Western world daily as we fight to overcome white supremacy and simultaneously maintain the few traditions our ancestors could keep as their own. Consider this:  When the slaves who survived the Middle Passage only to spend the remainder of their lives in bondage lost everything, why were they given Christianity – and only the small bits contextualized to break their spirits from certain royals to emotional children incapable of growth and maturity beyond their physical appearances? The movie does not answer this in a concrete fashion since it follows the story within a story of an angry Killmonger avenging his father’s death in the Oakland high-rise apartment only to learn his blind ambition is his downfall.



How does the illusion of freedom in Wakanda affect us today? We have never not been accused of “being extra”. Just as cosplay actors show up in full attire for Star Wars movies, some of us purchased if not borrowed African regalia (I’m looking at the guy who showed up dressed as Prince Akeem of Zamunda from Coming to America, among others) for a MCU film that the profits would more than likely not make it to our communities. Wakanda gives us the opportunities to dream and see ourselves as kings and queens as well as the colonizers whom we have studied and now emulate. In addition, when N’Jobu – Killmonger’s father – is awakened to the harsh reality of being black in America, he is led to search for a solution that has escaped us for multiple generations. Those generational curses continue looping themselves until we finally confront them not by marching, singing, and praying alone but through forceful changes that often are quite uncomfortable to the powers that be. As a result, T’Challa’s elitist view ends up limiting Wakandan influence throughout the world – a consequence of “Father knows best” not being the best policy. Just as we are the seed capitalists who birth, raise, nurture, prune, and mature our blackness in its most organic form only for the colonizers to rape, pillage, and otherwise appropriate the hell out of our greatness as their seasonal entertainment, we sometimes maintain our originality to our own detriment losing our very identities! Does anyone remember the Whole Foods craze a few years ago when some trendy gentrifiers identified collard greens as the next great super food?

Instead of placing ebenezers at every possible location by throwing large sums of money around in lieu of facing our issues, we can break yet another generational curse by creating a real sense of community. It may sound a bit Pollyannish because having a specific building means squat if it is only there as a backhanded token for a lifetime of bad behavior- in America, this happens far too often. Corporations join the communities we live in after being wooed with low taxes and an overly willing workforce, raid the talent pool, promote ideologies contrary to our own, and at the first sign of trouble, pack up and escape like nothing ever happened but they left us this shiny new building or a five-figure check that was more that likely written off as a gift for tax purposes without any way to converting it into a living endowment. This illusion of freedom of Big Brother being benevolent toward us pacifies us into remaining complicit of the world surrounding us by handing us smartphones to watch WSHH fights and doing it for the ‘gram; did you know Israel is expelling its African population as MAGA-types are pressuring 45 to open the American borders to white South Africans soon to be displaced from lands stolen centuries ago as doors are being slammed shut in front of black and brown people from Mexico, Haiti, Cuba, and Namibia, among other so-called shithole nations?

We all know Wakanda is not a real place except in our imaginations and for one weekend, the airport in Atlanta – and this is what Stan Lee intended when he created Black Panther along with the rest of the Avengers. With his way-too-progressive-for-the-era comics, America was not ready for a majority-black nation particularly one that regenerated its energies from our own melanin which some considered toxic.

Some objects are not what they seem to be.

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