Black pain is a money maker. It makes activists rich. It makes comic book companies salivate. Burned bodies like Spawn atest to this fact. While I am a fan of the comic book, I am not lost on the fact that Spawn is the victim of a hate crime. Yes, he was killed by a close friend. Who clearly hated himself and sold his soul to the highest bidder.
Yet, that is not what this blog post is about. Instead, it is about why Black people's pain continues to be a source of income for any and everyone. I have watched videos and read comments on the first teaser trailer for the Black Panther Wakanda Forever, and I cannot help but be saddened by the whole thing. It seems to me Marvel is content with loading theaters up with young and old comic book and casual fans for a tear fest. I have tears of my own but it wont be for a MCU movie. I have tears for Chadwick's family and I have tears for Black boys who are casualties of war. They heard that their hero, Black Panther died.
Here is the truth, many of us can't separate the actor from the role. After all, the child in all of us can't. No matter how you slice it, the king of Wakanda is dead. Black boys do not have a A-list superhero character to see and identify with. As a Black man who spent much of his childhood reading and looking at comic books and not seeing myself a great deal in the books Marvel and DC comics published; I can tell you that Black Panther, when it came to the big screen provided a lift in the hearts of comic book fans like myself. Yet, I am under no illusion that we live in a whole world dedicated to white survivalism which is commonly referred to as white supremacy. Black Panther touched not only Black fans but white kids too. They wanted to be Black Panther at halloween. That was massive. People didn't have to look like us to see our humanity and even desire to identify with it! It was a beautiful thing. However, when Chadwick Boseman passed. All the excitement of the future sat in limbo. My brother and I would argue about "recast T'Challa". I, the optimist hoped that they would. Even though they, Marvel on record said they would not recast in the 616 universe of the MCU. My brother lamented and said they were not and were going to do something more horrific than that. They were going to kill him in the story. I did not want to hear it. I'm not biggest Black Panther fan, but I am a fan and I have hundreds of Black Panther books and others with him in other comics to attest to that fact. So when the new trailer dropped and we saw what appeared to be Wakanda in mourning and Tems singing "No Woman, No Cry" it pulled hard at the heartstrings. It made me sad and then mad. I couldn't help but see the capitalization of another Black man's death.
We see it and have seen it in real life, Tamir Rice, Travon Martin, Philando Castile, Mike Brown all who were murdered yes, but all whose deaths benefited people and organizations monetarily while families continue to suffer. The family of Chadwick Boseman said they were in favor of recasting. That should have been the move but instead Marvel decided to treat this misfortune to make a fortune. When Samira Rice spazzed on organizers over her son, people chalked it up to her just being hurt over her son passing. Yet, when cracks began to form and celebrities and organizations were slowly but surely being exposed. It was the Black community that experienced another level of Black pain. You see our pain runs deep in this world. It is a currency that has made nations fortunes literally. Black folks who are for reparations tend to focus solely on the US and the Carribean, however an eye cannot wink at the culprits in Africa. They moreso than any need to reconcile and recompense those children of the ancestors who were captured and sold into bondage in the transatlantic slave trade. The Dahomey tribe from which the mythos of the Dora Milaje are inspired from helped commit such acts.
While people are and will fawn over the "The Woman King" which will be in theaters in September, it behooves those to know the "truth". Zora Neale Hurston talked to the last "Black Cargo" to be shipped to America by way of the slave ship and the actions of the Dahomey. So while I love Viola Davis, I cannot blink at the truth. Inspiration has it place but in the face of truth, it dies. So for me, I have no interest in going to a movie and watch Black people cry in their 20 dollar buckets of popcorn and using napkins to blow their noses in a crowded theater. Yes, please wear a mask. It is what it is. Perhaps I am heartbroken over the image of a Black superhero being exploited for gain. Perhaps I am overthinking this thing. Perhaps I'm just tired of watching capitalists make money hand of fist on the currency of Black pain. -Richard J Wright
