Umoja: The Principle of Unity

Habari gani? How's it going? Or like we say in Houston, "Whut it do?" Either way, it is day one of Kwanzaa. Umoja, the principle means to strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race. Needless to say, Umoja in the Black community today is a tall order. However, it is supposed to be because all the other principles of Kwanzaa are not meaningful, much less obtainable without unity. The standard is set with the whole of the people in mind. This Kwanzaa, I am not going write about the wrongs or warts in the Black community. Instead, I will simply reference comicbooks by which the blog is intended to be about. Unity is an interesting thing in that, often times people come together as a result of war, not peace. In otherwords, folks like to fight before they unite. Whatever gets them to the table and talk I guess. Black Panther written by John Ridley comes to mind. This comic is not my favorite comic book at all. However, I do like Ridley's writings in other books like I am Batman, and GCPD The Blue Wall.

However, Ridley's writing of Black Panther has been very questionable. Now, I am not here to dis or whine about how bad it is, and it is. (LOL) Yet, I want write about an interesting turn of events that took place in issue 12 of the run. It seems as though T'Challa the Black Panther has been brooding about the meaning of life. He is depressed. He was in mourning until he wasn't. He almost took a nihilist mindset. He is lost. We have seen him descend into a deep abyss of self pity. There is an interesting thought when it comes to people regarding hitting rock bottom. When you see people going down, you can try to talk them out of it or shake them out of it. However, they cannot hear you or anything until they reached the bottom. It is when they hit the bottom that rescue and redemption can take place. T'Challa has finally hit rock bottom. What got him there? Seeing his best friend who he thought was dead, alive. Yeah,that might shake a boot up. In the midst of this run, T'Challa has made his share of enemies and alienated others.

So, now that he is alone. He is destined, forced, compelled or what ever adjective you want to assign to this dumpster fire; to seek out those who he had conflict with to stop his best friend from doing the very thing that he asked him to do. Well. Maybe not exactly but the nuance of it all make its within a madman's capacity to understand the mission. So now T'Challa is ready for war but first he has to come clean with everyone in order to go into battle. After all, he is asking everyone who he fought and lied to; to join in his quest. Yeah, like I said early, (not good). He convinces them all to stand with him and clean up his mess. I appreciate the effort Ridley put into this to make it a glorious call to arms. It just isn't. The effort is there but it fails to fire on all cylinders. Our Maybach is in actuality in a "1919 get out and push" machine. This new found unity that T'Challa is cleaving to, is a result of poor management. It mirrors Black unity today because all of the outrage and outcry from the past few years has simply lined the pockets in intersectionality alphabet personnel and his made Black people at large more jaded than ever before in the history of America. Key words like "on code" and "stay woke" do nothing for the bottom line. Yeah nigga, its that bad now. So when the T'Challas of the left and right try their dear best to marshal the forces they themselves have abused like T'Challa has done, niggas is like "whatever, nigga" There isn't nothing else better to do. So keep in mind that as the Black Panther limps to its final issue, remember everyone is a bridge. You never know when you are going to need to cross them. Do not be like certain folks in the community who play the blame game when things do not go their way. You ignore and shun the bridges, do not cry when the bridge is out, indefinitely. Today is Umoja. Let us strive, let us pray, let us seek, let us remember what unity truly is. Otherwise, it will remain fleeting idea in the minds of dreamers and seen in bad comic book runs. -Richard J. Wright