I'll happily educate the kids at Gymboree, too.

I would absolutely do stuff like this. I once made my niece and nephew into zombies with exposed intestines for Halloween.

That's the spirit, America!

Chadwick Boseman is too good for this movie

https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/28/1706 ... ck-panther

"because they want to share it and extend its freedoms to other people of color around the globe, instead of hiding the country’s prosperity from the world."

Would say that's an accurate reading? Or was he really trying to arm revolutionaries?

It's problematic that people see it that way. Because Killmonger's way will only lead to terrorism and death, not to freedom.

Stip, your response?

The movie has the right answer itself, since it ends with a good message.

seeing this again Sunday with the Mrs. Looking forward to really watching for the themes and ideas

I think armed revolution has to be the option of last resort, and within the world of the film Killmonger's way isn't necessary because Wakanda becomes willing to take on a leadership role in emancipating the oppressed.

The experience of oppression is complex and multi-faceted. To reduce it to rage is to reduce and reify a people to nothing but their anger and justify their oppression as an act of self defense (recall the fear in the US that once we elected a black president he would seek vengence on white america). But to deny that oppression and the feelings it engenders is to whitewash history and to absolve both the oppressor, the collaborator, and the bystander (in this case Wakanda) of their ownership of that oppression.

This film does a really nice job of capturing that dynamic, both by making Killmonger a reckoning Wakanda has to confront and reconcile, and by coming down against Killmongers methods without (and this is important) ever denying the legitimacy of his central claim.

The message of the movie isn't that rage isn't justifiable. It's a call to be better than that rage. And that's pretty powerful

This implies that for the people of Oakland armed revolution is an option.

and this quote from the verge article



is a mischaracterization of what Boseman actually says in that article. It's not that liberation is a dream - it's that liberation is possible without violence if that community takes responsibility for itself and those with privilege recognize that privilege and recognizes the responsibilities and obligations that privilege entails. By centering this on Wakanda you are able to fuse these messages, since it represents both privilege and the community seeking to emancipate itself.

There is an integrationist message to the film, in part because there would have to be (it's a mass market blockbuster) but also because we live in an integrated world. There are many tools you can use to arm yourself against your oppressors, but if you have to actually live with these people aftewards violence isn't an answer.

that's why rape, mutilation, and torture are such common tools in civil wars among separatist forces. The strategic goal is to create so much hatred that the two sides are forced to seperate and cannot possibly live together. But the people Killmonger is largely trying to arm don't actually live seperate from each other. What does a civil war in Oakland actually accomplish. His methods would be better if the goal was to create an actual Wakanda - a clearly demarcated space that existed only for blacks.

Having said that, if his goal was to give third world countries the tools to actually defend themselves against external colonization you'd have a much more defensible viewpoint. But the movie collapses all these circumstances together, and while their origins are the same, the contexts are different enough that the same approach won't work in both cases.

I think I kind of addressed that in the post I was writing as this was going up. It's not, not really, which is why Killmonger is ultimatley the villian and not the hero. Having said that, the DESIRE for revolution is understandable and not illegitimate, which again is how the movie treats it (iirc). It's not a perfect fit, but within a classical American context you can imagine the two as MLK and Malcom X with two differing visions for America. And what Malcom X proposes in the Ballot or the Bullet (the bullet part of that essay) probably wouldn't accomplish much beyond revenge, as a strategic choice. But morally it's hard to dismiss him completely.

This gets a bit too nuanced for this kind of movie, and Killmonger is just out for revenge (with a legitimate claim), but what is missed is the way in which the possession of Wakandan technology and the threat of violence increases the political power of that armed minority population.

My kids are running around the house yelling "For Wakanda!" with fake African accents? Are they racist?

what does a fake African accent sound like

It sounds fake, obviously.

British

Actually the more they do it the better it gets those little crackers have some talent.

the opposite