I saw the "Black Panther" movie on opening night last Friday. I wrote a critical review of the movie, complete with spoiler alert, on Saturday morning and posted it on this blog. Since Saturday, e.g. five days, almost 17,000 people have read or at least clicked on that article. That's not even close to a record for readers for a blog article on this site, but its clearly the high mark for any article I've posted that centers Africa and African people particularly. And, that fact is a pathway in understanding why that movie, despite its visual spender and excellence, continues to bother the you know what out of me.
Many of those 17,000 people had critical things to say to me in response to my critique of the movie. I'm a revolutionary Pan-African political organizer and I've been one for a long, long time. So, please don't miss what I'm saying. I'm definitely not thin skinned. Criticism is an essential and necessary part of the work I do and although its not always fun, I do accept and look forward to hearing sincere criticism because that shows me people care and want to see us do better. In fact, we use criticism/self criticism as a major tool in our Pan-Africanist work. And, because of my practice using it, that's what irritates me about much of what I've gotten back regarding my movie critique.
If people had responded by offering counter ideological/philosophical arguments to the points I raised, I wouldn't have minded a bit. I would have read their critiques and I would have done what I always do when I receive a balanced critique. I would have thrown it around in my head until I figured out a way to concretely address it. What's been irritating about the critiques of the last five days is there have been no well thought out and balanced assessment of my movie review or any of the critiques I've seen from my like minded comrade family members. Instead, what I've seen is people saying our critiques aren't valid because I miss-named cast in the movie. Are you serious? That's the best you can do? That's like me dismissing a doctor's correct diagnosis of my illness because he mistakenly called me by the wrong name once. In other words that's absurd you'll. I'm no popular culture expert. If these people haven't done anything to contribute to our people's struggle for liberation, I probably have no clue who they are. Just like most of you can't name 10 organizations who have struggled for our liberation on a militant and independent basis. That irritates me.
I'm also ticked that a movie is made that is based on even a fictional Africa. And, said movie has at its core a character who challenges the necessity to utilize Africa's vast mineral wealth to advance African people forward. Yet, that character is portrayed as a person who says the right things, but behaves in a ruthless and inhumane way towards his own people. This is the worst form of subtle movement murder because it sends the message that revolutionaries always talk good, but never follow through with behavior that's any different than that displayed by our oppressors. Therefore, there's no reason to follow a revolutionary model because at the end of the day, it won't be any different than what we are dealing with today. I'm irritated because this is a common theme in Hollywood movies. Last year's "Selma" weaved in the same trickery, displaying Malcolm X as an intruding, arrogant, and egotistical person who only wanted to advance his personal resume by intruding on Dr. Martin Luther King's brave and selfless work. It makes me remember the first movie I ever say about Martin Luther King in my youth. That movie I believe starred Paul Winfield as King and Marc Anthony Williams as Malcolm X (for all you Hollywood purists out there, my names may not be entirely correct here either). The Malcolm character in that movie was displayed as a bloodthirsty anti-white and insecure person. And that movie was made in 1977 so don't tell me I'm imagining things when Killmonger's role in "Black Panther" triggers me. In the course of over three decades of organizing my people, I have dealt with this dismissal and lack of trust in my politics from people on a regular basis and if you pay attention to the propaganda coming from these movies I'm telling you about, you can understand where a lot of this has been coming from. Its all very irritating to me.
I'm irritated that an agent for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), is given a positive role in this movie. This is the same agency that murdered Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, Africa's most realistic mirror of Wakanda in real life. After brutally overseeing the murder of Lumumba, the CIA did everything in its power to completely destabilize the Congo. The CIA staged and oversaw the illegitimate overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah's government in Ghana in 1966, making sure to institutionalize lies about his government as its primary method of turning people against his governance. They also staged overthrows of the Keito government in Mali in 1968 and were it not for Cuba's brave and selfless sacrifice in the 80s (something you nick pick critics of Cuba today truly have no understanding about), the CIA would have successfully contributed to making all of Southern Africa a racist apartheid haven. The CIA continues to play a significant role in facilitating the continued neo-colonial dominance in Africa today. From the assassination of Thomas Sankara in 1987 to the murderous and criminal overthrow of Qaddafi and the Libyan Jamihiriya in 2011, to the development of dozens of U.S. military bases in Africa to subvert mass resistance today, the CIA continues to do its thing in making sure Africa is ripe for the picking by imperialism while our people suffer as a result of their efforts. With all that happening, I'm irritated as hell that so many of our people would champion a movie that portrays a CIA agent as a hero. Amazing that we could do that and amazing that people clearly don't see what their agenda is here.
Finally, the most irritating thing of all is listening to so many of our people talking about "blackness." What the hell is "blackness" anyway? "Black Panther" and everything else that reflects our culture, is a manifestation of our relationship, good, bad, ignorant, indifferent, to Africa, period. "Blackness", whatever that is, has very little to do with it. Its our political, cultural, economic, social, and spiritual relationship to our mother Africa. The only reason we are talking about "blackness" is because our slave master has disconnected us from our mother so we are crying over the pacifier (blackness) because we don't know where our mother is (Africa). You can be mad about that. You can deny it. You can refuse to discuss it, but you will never be able to refute it, period. And, just the fact that so many of you Africans, who want nothing to do with Africa in your every day lives, have felt completely comfortable attacking those of us who defend Africa when we see her misrepresented as this movie does, illustrates in a dysfunctional way just how African you really are. Whether you know it or not. Because otherwise, you would have absolutely no reason to care what we thought about this movie. The fact that you do tells you more about yourselves than you are probably ready to realize. And that last part I'm not irritated about at all. Nope. Because all of that reaffirms for me that us crazy folks who talk about Africa 24/7/365 are actually winning after all.
Many of those 17,000 people had critical things to say to me in response to my critique of the movie. I'm a revolutionary Pan-African political organizer and I've been one for a long, long time. So, please don't miss what I'm saying. I'm definitely not thin skinned. Criticism is an essential and necessary part of the work I do and although its not always fun, I do accept and look forward to hearing sincere criticism because that shows me people care and want to see us do better. In fact, we use criticism/self criticism as a major tool in our Pan-Africanist work. And, because of my practice using it, that's what irritates me about much of what I've gotten back regarding my movie critique.
If people had responded by offering counter ideological/philosophical arguments to the points I raised, I wouldn't have minded a bit. I would have read their critiques and I would have done what I always do when I receive a balanced critique. I would have thrown it around in my head until I figured out a way to concretely address it. What's been irritating about the critiques of the last five days is there have been no well thought out and balanced assessment of my movie review or any of the critiques I've seen from my like minded comrade family members. Instead, what I've seen is people saying our critiques aren't valid because I miss-named cast in the movie. Are you serious? That's the best you can do? That's like me dismissing a doctor's correct diagnosis of my illness because he mistakenly called me by the wrong name once. In other words that's absurd you'll. I'm no popular culture expert. If these people haven't done anything to contribute to our people's struggle for liberation, I probably have no clue who they are. Just like most of you can't name 10 organizations who have struggled for our liberation on a militant and independent basis. That irritates me.
I'm also ticked that a movie is made that is based on even a fictional Africa. And, said movie has at its core a character who challenges the necessity to utilize Africa's vast mineral wealth to advance African people forward. Yet, that character is portrayed as a person who says the right things, but behaves in a ruthless and inhumane way towards his own people. This is the worst form of subtle movement murder because it sends the message that revolutionaries always talk good, but never follow through with behavior that's any different than that displayed by our oppressors. Therefore, there's no reason to follow a revolutionary model because at the end of the day, it won't be any different than what we are dealing with today. I'm irritated because this is a common theme in Hollywood movies. Last year's "Selma" weaved in the same trickery, displaying Malcolm X as an intruding, arrogant, and egotistical person who only wanted to advance his personal resume by intruding on Dr. Martin Luther King's brave and selfless work. It makes me remember the first movie I ever say about Martin Luther King in my youth. That movie I believe starred Paul Winfield as King and Marc Anthony Williams as Malcolm X (for all you Hollywood purists out there, my names may not be entirely correct here either). The Malcolm character in that movie was displayed as a bloodthirsty anti-white and insecure person. And that movie was made in 1977 so don't tell me I'm imagining things when Killmonger's role in "Black Panther" triggers me. In the course of over three decades of organizing my people, I have dealt with this dismissal and lack of trust in my politics from people on a regular basis and if you pay attention to the propaganda coming from these movies I'm telling you about, you can understand where a lot of this has been coming from. Its all very irritating to me.
I'm irritated that an agent for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), is given a positive role in this movie. This is the same agency that murdered Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, Africa's most realistic mirror of Wakanda in real life. After brutally overseeing the murder of Lumumba, the CIA did everything in its power to completely destabilize the Congo. The CIA staged and oversaw the illegitimate overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah's government in Ghana in 1966, making sure to institutionalize lies about his government as its primary method of turning people against his governance. They also staged overthrows of the Keito government in Mali in 1968 and were it not for Cuba's brave and selfless sacrifice in the 80s (something you nick pick critics of Cuba today truly have no understanding about), the CIA would have successfully contributed to making all of Southern Africa a racist apartheid haven. The CIA continues to play a significant role in facilitating the continued neo-colonial dominance in Africa today. From the assassination of Thomas Sankara in 1987 to the murderous and criminal overthrow of Qaddafi and the Libyan Jamihiriya in 2011, to the development of dozens of U.S. military bases in Africa to subvert mass resistance today, the CIA continues to do its thing in making sure Africa is ripe for the picking by imperialism while our people suffer as a result of their efforts. With all that happening, I'm irritated as hell that so many of our people would champion a movie that portrays a CIA agent as a hero. Amazing that we could do that and amazing that people clearly don't see what their agenda is here.
Finally, the most irritating thing of all is listening to so many of our people talking about "blackness." What the hell is "blackness" anyway? "Black Panther" and everything else that reflects our culture, is a manifestation of our relationship, good, bad, ignorant, indifferent, to Africa, period. "Blackness", whatever that is, has very little to do with it. Its our political, cultural, economic, social, and spiritual relationship to our mother Africa. The only reason we are talking about "blackness" is because our slave master has disconnected us from our mother so we are crying over the pacifier (blackness) because we don't know where our mother is (Africa). You can be mad about that. You can deny it. You can refuse to discuss it, but you will never be able to refute it, period. And, just the fact that so many of you Africans, who want nothing to do with Africa in your every day lives, have felt completely comfortable attacking those of us who defend Africa when we see her misrepresented as this movie does, illustrates in a dysfunctional way just how African you really are. Whether you know it or not. Because otherwise, you would have absolutely no reason to care what we thought about this movie. The fact that you do tells you more about yourselves than you are probably ready to realize. And that last part I'm not irritated about at all. Nope. Because all of that reaffirms for me that us crazy folks who talk about Africa 24/7/365 are actually winning after all.
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