Suspended in Her Jar<\/a>.<\/p>\nI know the conversation about this movie, the first superhero movie ever not only to feature a Black hero but also to take place in a completely Black culture, must have a very special significance for people of color, beyond what white viewers can appreciate. But it\u2019s an incredibly powerful experience for a non-Black viewer, also.<\/p>\n
This is partially because the story is so well crafted. The characters aren\u2019t flat or trope-ish, and the conflicts the hero faces are internal as well as external, with repercussions both for himself and for his people. In this respect,\u00a0Black Panther<\/em>\u00a0is good classical epic, the story not only of a singular individual but of a cultural identity. And like most good classical epic, it crosses lines with the tragic genre, with implications of past choices creating potential destruction for the hero in the present.<\/p>\nWhat really struck me about\u00a0Black Panther<\/em>, though, was that I\u2019d never before seen this kind of story played out with an almost entirely Black cast. Sure, I\u2019d watched gangsta movies and comedies with mostly Black actors, in non-white settings, but these took place invariably in the kind of marginalized spaces to which people of color are relegated, in a white-dominant society.<\/p>\nAs white people, we just take it for granted that we\u2019re going to be the action heroes, the romantic leads, the beauty queens, the tragic brooding ones. We\u2019ve established white western culture as the playground where stories happen. Fantasy and sci-fi, especially, have been almost exclusively white-person-dominant. And this is unfortunate, because fantasy and sci-fi are where we explore possibilities and different worlds, where we speculate about where we are heading. If all our exploration and possibilities and speculation keep us circumscribed within the range of white-dominant stories and terrains, we leave very little prospect for real social change on race issues, at least on the imaginative level.<\/p>\n
But\u00a0Black Panther<\/em>\u00a0reminds us that ultimately real social change on race issues can\u2019t be led or dictated by white people, no matter how woke we are as allies. The story is very much about Black leaders navigating the thorny ethical issues of how to deal with white global supremacy, how to use their own power for justice. So Black identity and the issues we face in America today are central to the story, while at the same time the story doesn\u2019t reduce Black identity simply to these issues.<\/p>\nJust as I\u2019ve been reiterating that men can\u2019t define women or solve women\u2019s issues for us, so also we white people should step back from white-savior narratives and definitions of the terms of racial justice. Watching, and being moved by, stories told by and about Black heroes is a good way for us to participate in the process without presuming to be the ones who dominate the tale-telling.<\/p>\n
This is important because we\u2019re so used to being the point of the story.\u00a0We love racial justice stories when we get to swoop in and save everyone, but a lot of white folks get uncomfortable when conversations about race issues don\u2019t let us be the leads.<\/em>\u00a0I think this white-centrism is one reason why so many people who are personally committed to being non-racist end up still opposing movements like Black Lives Matter: because we want ending racism to be all about us. Because it gives us an excuse, we think, to avoid the uncomfortable reality of our own privilege, and the injustices on which it is based.<\/p>\nI\u2019m not saying we have to shut up everywhere. As white allies, one thing we can do is try to get our own folks to listen to Black folks. Often Black activists are exhausted from having to do the work of explaining race issues to white people who think they \u2013 we \u2013\u00a0 already have it figured out. Also, there are many spaces which are so white-dominant, Black voices never get heard. In those spaces, it\u2019s common to hear polite racism presented in a \u201cjust sayin\u201d sort of way. And it\u2019s our moral obligation to oppose this.<\/p>\n
Anyway, right now what I\u2019m saying is, go see\u00a0Black Panther.<\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rebecca Bratten Weiss is a writer, editor, and freelance academic currently hiding in her bean patch because she can\u2019t take it anymore. We will be joining her there shortly.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 \u00a0 This essay, \u201cWhite Folks Need to Watch Black Panther,\u201d is republished with permission from Rebecca Bratten Weiss\u2019s blog\u00a0Suspended in Her Jar. I know the conversation about this movie, the first superhero movie ever not only to feature a Black hero but also to take place in a completely Black culture, must have a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6911,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1234,2495,909,2407,1879,2852],"class_list":["post-6908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-black-lives-matter","tag-black-panther","tag-movies","tag-race","tag-rebecca-bratten-weiss","tag-sick-pilgrim-goes-to-the-movies"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n