After the March, Black Panther Died
This morning, we all woke to the sad news that Chadwick Boseman died, and my peer group — roughly the same age as the one we came to know as the Black Panther — is sincerely grieved. Nearly every post on my timeline this morning relates the shock and disappointment many feel upon the loss of this man we all saw as talented and strong. His loss reminds us of our own mortality, because if the Black Panther is dead at the age of 43 today, then any of us could be dead tomorrow.
We children of the 70’s are the first generation of African-Americans who did not experience legal segregation. Born after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, we (and our generation’s children) matured with certain freedoms previously unknown for Black people on American soil. As children, we were told we could be anything we wanted to be, and our pride in those who actually accomplished new heights made us stick our chest out, especially as we grew and began to better understand that legal freedom did not mean the end of Black oppression. Boseman and others who succeeded beat the odds.
Regarding Black Panther, Jamil Smith wrote for Time magazine, “It may be the first megabudget movie — not just about superheroes, but about anyone — to have an African-American director and a predominantly black cast. Hollywood has never produced a blockbuster this splendidly black.” And Boseman was Black Panther’s “fictional African King with the technological war power to destroy you — or, worse, the wealth to buy your land.” (Jamil Smith, Time)
Now, that last point is important, because though we children of the 70’s were the first “legally free” generation of Black Americans, it didn’t take long for us to learn that didn’t mean life would be easy for the majority of us in the United States. Overall, we as a people did not have much power or wealth on this land, so we absolutely LOVED the fictional world of Wakanda where a group of Black people was not limited by oppression and institutionalized bias but could instead freely rule and thrive according to our own rules. Black Panther was a beautiful fiction, and with Boseman’s death, we are reminded that it was indeed fiction.
Reality is much harsher. Instead of the Black Panther king, Chadwick Boseman was a gifted but frail black man who quietly suffered with colon cancer for multiple years then died. And instead of Wakanda, we live here in the United States where Black Americans battle daily for the mere opportunity to live outside the prison of discrimination which unfortunately inhibits the majority of us from reaching the heights possible if the educational system were better and employment processes fairer and if we had gotten our “40 acres and a mule” during Reconstruction in the 1800s, and if overall institutionalized racism were abolished.
Boseman’s death, which strangely followed the Commitment March where Black people asked America to get its knee off our necks, is another wake up call for us all. Under every Chadwick Boseman Facebook post on my Facebook timeline today, someone has also reiterated the now common refrain, “Just throw all of 2020 away” in one form or another. But the reality is we don’t get to throw 2020 away.
We have to deal with this year the same way we have to deal with each day of our lives, be it carefree or challenging or just plain unbelievable. Call 2020 “trash” if you want, but it’s STILL a part of OUR lifetimes. The pain and disappointment will either strengthen and propel us as we continue the fight in faith, or it’ll weaken us as we wallow and complain.
And this is no time for Black Americans to sit and be weak. Structural racism has created a nearly 85% difference between the number of white people (30 per 100,000) who die from COVID-19 versus the number of black people (74 per 100,000). Black Americans are 3.23 times more likely to be killed by police. Across the US, our children are not getting what they need to succeed at school (only 13 out of 100 black students are at or above NAEP proficient level in math and only 15 out of 100 proficient in reading by 8th grade). Few are aware than the median wealth of Black households is only $17,000 (compared to $171,000 in white families). And don’t think for a moment that there aren’t more difficult statistics to rattle off …
But in the same way our ancestors stood strong in even more difficult circumstances, we have to rise up today and stand in strength with hope and action for a better future for generations that we too cannot yet see. None of us can do everything at once. But we can all do something.
We can vote Trump out in November. We can strive to heal from our emotional wounds so we harm others less. We can commit to not letting our children turn 18 and leave home without skills. We can give up an addiction. We can confront our failures and stop allowing appearances to impact our ego as we begin to reach again. We can stop putting each other down for not being perfect. We can stop focusing on our individual smallness and instead touch the things we can reach, believing that every little step still contains value and meaning. We can choose to live and reach and grow and share, even though it’s hard, and no one hears us, and even though we might not even be here tomorrow.
So instead of only lamenting Boseman and our civil rights heroes and the many family and friends we’ve lost this year, let’s close our eyes and reflect on where we have personal internal apathy about making a difference as we dwell in anger and discouragement and fear or pain.
As we open our eyes, let’s also be born anew. Unlike T’Challa, we won’t have vibranium to fuel our superpower. But we can wake up and create new vibrations as we strive to return to the idea of community and engage the extremely painful and uphill battle for change and improvement.
At the end of Black Panther, we were reminded that we have to care about other people enough to do something uncomfortable for their benefit. We’re all a piece of the larger puzzle in making things better.
Let us not become weary in doing good … there is a harvest if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:9)
Readers of this blog post may also enjoy Sonya D. Springfield’s original song, “Community.” Click here to listen.
