Black Panther: Capitalism’s Hero
“A holiday for Dr. King is just another instance — like integration — that black folks work for and white folks grant when they realize — long before we do — that it is a symbol that won’t cost them much and will keep us blacks pacified…they were symbols of the white man’s power”
— Derrick Bell Faces at the Bottom of the Well
Yesterday, I went to see The Black Panther. I’m not much of a movie goer, but we don’t get very many Black superheroes, so I figured it was worth seeing.
Let me start with the positives…
- The characters seemed to be written with respect to Black culture. I didn’t notice very many stereotypes or white washing. African culture was something beautiful and elegant and respectable.
- The relationships between men and women were far more egalitarian than I’ve seen in many superhero movies. Women were strong warriors, brilliant scientists, and strong and caring mothers. There wasn’t much by way of objectification or degradation of the female body.
- The movie raised important issues of social justice and social responsibility. When N’Jobu tries to explain why he has helped steal Vibranium from his home, he highlights the difficult realities of the Black community: it is flooded with drugs, the people are over-policed as well as disproportionately incarcerated. That Wakanda’s weapons might be used to even the playing field made me want to stand and applaud…about damn time. Killmonger echoes his father when he confronts the Wakandan counsel, saying every time Black people tried to make a revolution, they didn’t have the weapons… what an opportunity to turn that around!!
****SPOILER ALERT****
But the problem was…
As much as the movie addresses very important issues of racial injustice, the only character that advocates that all the oppressed, and particularly the Black working class, actively fight back against their oppression is the villain, Eric Killmonger (played brilliantly by Michael B. Jordan).
Cliff Notes…
The King of Wakanda has just been murdered, and his son is ready to take leadership. The former king is an isolationist (and maybe a pacifist). This has caused tension between himself and his subjects, including his brother who planned to share Wakanda’s weapons and wealth to help Black Americans even the playing field. (It turns out sharing Wakandan wealth and helping Black Americans was such a threat, the King kills his brother and abandons his nephew- which we don’t learn until the second half of the movie). When the new King, T’Challa, assumes the throne, everyone is waiting with bated breath to see which direction he will take. It seems the new king may be willing to make conservative changes to his father’s methods as evidenced by his mission to capture Klaue, an arms dealer who has stolen from Wakana. But he isn’t willing to do anything that extends beyond Wakanda’s benefit. His love interest, Nakia (played by Lupita Nyong’o), struggles with him over this, trying to convince him to offer refuge and aid.
Enter the “villain”, Killmonger (the nephew of the late king) who plots his return to Wakanda in order to take the throne and launch an armed insurrection by the oppressed against their oppressors (Again, I wanted to stand in the theater and shout “Hell ya!”).
A look at the “villains”… talk about conflict!
Both Killmonger and his late father bring to light important contradictions.
How can T’Challa “play nice” with the U.S and other imperial powers who deliberately subjugate people of color?
How can Wakandans enjoy their wealth and prosperity in good conscience when across the world anti-black racism has allowed for police terror and mass incarceration to continue with impunity?
King T’Challa has to take a side. American capitalism and the Black worker (in fact, workers in general) are always on opposite sides of the battle field. The truth is not only is racism woven into the very fabric of our society and institutions, but their very survival depends on its maintenance. The bosses make their fortunes on the super exploitation of the Black worker. They’re not going to give that up without a fight.
The End…
In the end, T’Challa defeats Killmonger, and in an act of “mercy” offers to use Wakanda’s technology to heal the fatal wound. Killmonger’s response is chilling. “Bury me in the ocean, with my ancestors that jumped from the ships, because they knew death was better than bondage.” I almost cried. How many generations afterward, even in the world of fantasy, we still cannot imagine the liberation of the Black working class…
We need a bigger imagination.
In the end, when T’Challa is delivering his speech to the UN, promising to share Wakanda’s wealth, all I could see was that technology being used by imperialist superpowers to protect capitalism and further subjugate the working class.
Even that would have been a better ending, so that the audience has no illusion that a few high tech community centers will ever make a difference for the bulk of Black workers. (Let’s remember Bill Gates, here.)
It might not have been any more satisfying, but the idea that there can be change without a systemic structural changes (revolution) has to be dispelled.
Why it matters…
I’m a high school teacher working at a Title I school in Hammond, IN. The experience has been beautiful and heartbreaking in equal measure. The students are incredible young people — friendly, curious, welcoming and kind. The teachers inspire me with how hard they work and how much they love their students. The administration treat students fairly and with respect.
Still… we don’t have enough text books to send home with each student. The district designates “E-learning” days and my kids don’t get laptops to take home. Since we’ve been back at school after the winter break, over a week of instruction has been sacrificed to NWEA testing. So far in February, we’ve had ISTEP infrastructure testing, ISTEP practice testing, make-up ISTEP practice testing, and soon it will be time for the actual ISTEP test. That will be about 3 weeks of instruction time gone since January.
We’re also in the middle of a four day weekend.
My kids aren’t slipping through the cracks. They’re being pushed through them.
I’ve gotten frustrated with all the talk about the education system failing, and all these trendy fixes that only set our kids further behind. We know what works, and that model of education is only being delivered to certain students. We can talk about property tax delegation or citizens voting on referendums, but the real problem is racism. Redlining and redistricting has carefully maintained segregation in schools. The Color of Law is a newer book that explores how deliberately de jure segregation has been maintained into present day. The Chicago Teacher’s Union published a well researched piece, “The Black and White of Education” outlining how that impacts students of color.
The truth is capitalists work really hard to align public education with the needs of their system. Service sector jobs account for 80% of the U.S. economy. Most of these jobs require no higher than an 8th grade education. Why should the state invest in quality education if they need kids of color to fill these low wage unskilled jobs, keep the economy stable, and fatten the pockets of the bosses?
If we don’t accept that kids of color are deliberately being funneled into the service sector, the military, or prison on purpose then we might believe that a high tech community center, or STEM in public schools might change the condition of working class students of color. We’ll spin our wheels and wonder what we’re doing wrong. Eventually we’ll throw our hands in the air and just give up.
I’m in the process of getting my Master’s Degree in English and the question of racism in education has always interested me. In preparation for thesis, I’ve been reading a lot about Critical Race Theory (CRT). I think in many ways, it’s spot on. Racism is woven into the basic fabric of all our institutions. The engineers of these institutions and their successors have benefit greatly from this racism, they’re not willingly going to surrender their strongest weapon. My issue with CRT is that it views racism as permanent. No conditions, no exceptions… just permanent.
I’ve been grappling with this for weeks — how can we just accept there is no getting rid of racism?
It’s the same old song…
Oddly enough, the answer to this question is the same reason Black Panther ended the way it did. We cannot imagine a world outside of American capitalism.
As a result, people feeling empowered by the images of Black beauty and power turn to the only methods of “change” they know. And predictably, the methods offered by capitalism do very little to offer any real change. The bosses played this hand masterfully…
Opening weekend, the bosses pounced on the opportunity to win formerly cynical, disinterested, or disillusioned people of color to the ballot box. History has shown us that real change happens when workers use their disruptive power, not their vote. But the bosses are expert at taking the collective energy and misdirecting it (For a great read on this, check out Frances Fox Piven). My Facebook feed is full of this image…
A bit depressing for anyone who knows we’ve been voting for generations and very little has changed…
Critical race theorists are almost right. There is no getting rid of racism under capitalism. Racial equality can only exist in a completely different world. One which, unfortunately, mainstream Hollywood fails to deliver.
Interestingly enough, this criticism of contemporary science fiction is gaining traction. Ramon Saldivar has coined the word “speculative realism” to describe the work of newer authors who dare to imagine the only world where the working class gets justice — a world outside of capitalism.
Teachers, activists, artists and scholars need to follow their lead. We need to stop hoping for an end we don’t get even on the silver screen.
It comes full circle…
We need to imagine something completely different.
In the words of Audre Lorde “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”
The heroes they give us will always be their champion.
It’s time the working class is its own hero.
