In
one fell swoop, Black
Panther
gives us a glimpse of both that history and that future. It invites us to think
about the possibilities of creating a Wakanda-like existence for ourselves and
our children.
The
movie creates a beautiful world for Black people to inhabit—a world that helps
us imagine what our lives as Africans could have been had it not been for the
great European disruption of nearly 600 years ago. Black
Panther makes
us long for that world and may, in so doing, encourage us to do the long-overdue
work necessary to empower us to create that world.
Garvey
said that in order to create the beautiful future that is our destiny, we must
“emancipate ourselves from mental slavery.” We must free ourselves from the
poisonous lie that Whiteness is superior to Blackness.
The
urgent question implicit in Black
Panther
is this: Why is it that the fictional world of Wakanda stands alone as a symbol
of Black preeminence, and why is it that in this real world that we live in
today, there is no Black country like Wakanda?
This
is no accident. For nearly 600 years, we Black people have been living our lives
according to a narrative written for us by Europeans to serve their economic
interests. In their narrative, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, everything
Black is “ugly and evil,” and everything White is “pure, high and clean.” This
narrative is grounded in the lies of White superiority and Black inferiority and
was created to justify the enslavement of African people and the economic
exploitation of Africa, the richest continent on the face of the earth.
The
European narrative created a hierarchy of humanity with White people at the top
and Black people at the bottom and sometimes even outside of the circle of
humanity. These lies convinced the world that nothing good comes out of Africa
and that Black people are not as beautiful, intelligent, lovable, capable,
worthy or valuable as White people. These lies objectified, commodified, and
dehumanized people of African ancestry.
As
a result, for almost a millennium, all over the world, the advantages conferred
by “Whiteness” and the disadvantages imposed by “Blackness” have been
multiplying. This is why, all around the world, Black communities are
under-developed and Black lives do not matter as much as White lives.
Once
we see how this narrative, grounded in lies, has been shaping our lives, we can
begin the intentional and systematic work of rejecting it, in favor a narrative
that we write for ourselves—a narrative grounded in the truth of our dignity and
humanity as people of African ancestry.
Racism
against Black people stands on a foundation built by the lies of White
superiority and Black inferiority. The characters in Black
Panther
evince no sense of being inferior to anyone. That is a big part of what makes it
such a beautiful movie.
It
is also what could make it a great impetus for what the global Black community
needs most right now: a movement for emotional emancipation, a movement to free
all people of African ancestry from the lies –once and for all.
Join
Community Healing Network in creating a Wakanda-like world in which Black people
are free not only in body, but also in mind and spirit-- a world in which Black
people everywhere have moved beyond surviving to flourishing.
Let
us know what you think! Tune
in every tuesday for Let’s
Talk Tuesdays.
-Enola G. Aird, Founder and
President