Here’s my white, 40-year-old male reading of Black Panther.
First, a side note: This reading does not refer to the very existence of the movie, which in and of itself is a highly political act (even though it shouldn’t have to be); the budget provided to this movie and its phenomenal box office gross are direct challenges to the existing white power structure. I couldn’t be happier about its challenges to white hegemony, but this reading doesn’t focus on that; instead, it focuses on the way the movie challenges the black community to enter into a dialogue with itself.
In 2018, in the United States of America, African-American men and women have more opportunities than ever — this is not to say that they have an equal number of opportunities as Caucasians, nor is it to say that they’re even close to approaching parity, but it is to say that this is among the best years to be an African-American since the first slave ship arrived in Virginia 399 years ago.
Because of that, there are more wealthy African-Americans than ever before (for comparison, 1 in 7 white families are worth more than a million dollars, while just 1 in 50 black families are). At the same, half of all African-Americans hold less than $1,700 in wealth (the median white family, for comparison, holds $116,800 of wealth). While there are more black millionaires than ever, there are still millions upon millions of African-Americans living below the poverty line.
The basic conceit of Black Panther is the existence of Wakanda, a utopic African country that escaped the brutal history of the wider continent. European slavers and Western colonizers never found Wakanda thanks to technological advances made possible by the country’s exclusive access to a unique natural resource. That same resource made the country wealthy enough to avoid the kinds of internal conflicts experienced by neighboring countries. Its people did not experience extreme poverty, nor did they fall victim to plagues of Ebola, AIDs, and cholera, nor did they suffer from rampant political and foreign corruption, religious intolerance and violence, or a near-constant wave of military coups. As a country, Wakanda is wealthier and more technologically developed than virtually any other country on Earth.
But it is also, comparatively speaking, small. Its population seems to be as small as, say, the number of African-American millionaires when compared against the number of African-American poor.
The plot of the movie hinges around two cousins. The first, T’Challa, recently became King of Wakanda following the death of his father; the second, Killmonger, has lived in exile in Oakland, California, as a fatherless black male, the death of his father coming at the hands of T’Challa’s father in a case of black-on-black and brother-on-brother crime. T’Challa’s father murdered Killmonger’s father because the latter smuggled elements of Wakanda’s unique natural resource onto the black market in a bid to help African-Americans fight their white oppressors. When he departs for Wakanda, T’Challa’s father leaves the now-orphaned Killmonger behind.
Killmonger grows up to become a very angry man who glorifies in violence and death, and he directs that anger at T’Challa.
But Killmonger’s anger manifests in more than just a desire to destroy T’Challa and capture the throne of Wakanda. He wants to use the power behind that throne to support his fellow Africans in the ongoing race war…you know, the one that has been raging on in the real world for over 399 years.
T’Challa, for his part, is dead set against that. He’s a hero, and heroes don’t seek out wars (they might engage in them, but they don’t seek them out). Instead of joining the race war, T’Challa opts to provide financial and technical support to African-American youth (how great is it that an African country is forced to send foreign aid to America in order to support American schoolchildren?).
It’s easy to get caught up in the race-war aspects of the plot, the whole black power against white power thing, but doing so misses the film’s challenge to black power itself.
Power is defined as the ability to enact change. A rock is powerful. The ocean is more powerful. The imagination is even more powerful still.
Black Panther asks black power: where should you concentrate your power? how should you use it to enact change? And the film answers, “On building your community.”
Killmonger, who grew up in the United States, wants to direct black power against white power, but Wakanda, through T’Challa and the women who influence him, wants to channel black power back into the black community. Because Wakanda has never faced a real external threat, it has been able to focus all of its power on internal growth. It did not seek to grow in numbers; it sought growth in culture. Using its vast network of intelligence officers, Wakanda was able to stay informed about the development of the outside world, capturing what was important and adapting it for internal use (as a monarchic system controlled by, literally, the nation’s strongest man, Wakanda’s power structure, apparently, did not think democracy would be useful).
Safe from external threats, Wakandians seem to live in a land of true privilege. And at the end of Black Panther, they realize that their privilege morally obligates them to help the global community.
It’s true what you’ve heard: Black Panther challenges the existing power structure. But perhaps it’s more true that it challenges existing structures of black power.
It challenges black millionaires and billionaires to invest in their communities. It asks the Oprahs and the Beyonces, but it also asks the Aliko Dangotes and the Isabel Dos Santoses: are you doing enough to help black communities? Are you building schools, hospitals, and tech centers? Are you educating doctors, engineers, and scientists? Are you supporting poets, painters, and musicians? Are you creating solutions for childcare, hunger, and addiction? Are you channeling other entrepreneurial spirits to re-invest in communities? Are you growing the ranks of carpenters, plumbers, and electricians? Do you fund the research and development of inventors? Are you doing enough?
The internal structure of Black Panther has nothing to do with, and nothing to say to, white power. What makes it so incredible is that, for the first time in a long time, the black community is talking to itself on the same economic scale as the white community usually uses to talk to itself.
It’s a black film made for a black audience, and with its blockbuster status, its asks itself, “How are you going to use your newfound power? Are you going to fight or are you going to help?”