#most white women/girls do not have a black girlhood touchstone

[sleepynegress]

The Most Common and Expected Post About Black Girls in Fandom...

On the screencap from a post in the #iwtv tag, about Claudia below...

The below line of thinking isn't uncommon or unpopular. This is just typical racism/misogynoir in fandom. Typically white fans struggle with empathizing with characters of color, and especially Black girls/women. Hence, entire subcultures/communities are dedicated to tearing Black women and girls down, when they exist in mainstream spaces, see: Qanon-type stuff being spread around Meghan Markle.

Because not only it's awful behavior, but it's a common enough online hobby, that thousands of white women are a part of it. I do not understand hating a stranger as a hobby. We saw and continue to see people like Francesca Amewudah-Rivers get viciously bullied for simply existing in a space, while unambiguously Black. And I'm tired, been tired of the default being treated like some uncommon, special thought. It's not.

You're not for posting it. Halle as Ariel, Francesca as Juliet, and on and on...It's just the default thought for too many. It's hard for people to see themselves in the other when they are used to their reflections as default, so the first instinct is to hate instead. So, as difficult as this is to face for someone who feels this. Yes, the below is in the same line of thinking. It's not uncommon. It should be self-examined. 10 dollars (not real dollars, imaginary!) says the person who posted the below, does not feel this about Lestat and will struggle to identify why they feel this for Claudia and not Lestat when Lestat has done objectively worse acts and was turned as an adult. Anyway... Just a smidgen of self-examination, when these thoughts cross your mind. 👇🏾 Ask yourself if you've ever ID'ed with any Black girl? Ask yourself how many Black girl vampires have you seen at all?

[sleepynegress]

Now that I’ve let it marinate, here are my THOROUGH thoughts on Black Panther...

Cut because extensive spoilers...

First, it was a great film.  Great in terms of being a big budget “blockbuster” fun movie and great in weight. Budget and weight are areas previous black superhero entries have lacked and why this one resonates so much now.

Now, I’m gonna break down the contents that stood out to me... 

We open with a beautifully done and narratively resonant breakdown of the history of Wakanda.  Basically, the civilizational advantage of inherited wealth (<- coming back to this), via space metal, times multi-trillions.  They watch the world fight, violate, and destroy --ESPECIALLY to people on the same continent on which they exist-- and choose, smartly, to remain hidden.... Or who knows??  Maybe they would have defeated the guns of old and stopped the colonizers before they did real damage... Which is a what if?... 

...That Killmonger symbolizes.  He is the dream deferred, the one that exploded. He is the gaping wound of the enslaved that Wakanda did not even try to save. He is post-African black pain/rage at that scattered people that reaches for a home that was snatched from them generations ago...  The ones taken from home without choice, with potential squandered by lesser people. Which is why he is the most sympathetic villain I’ve ever seen. Grounding him in Oakland, even to the point where even his vision took him back to that project (with the ancestral sky of Wakanda outside his window, honestly I cried).  #killmongerwasntwrong

As for the Wakandan feminine... This movie was honestly, the most thoughtful mainstream rendering of black womanhood in the hands of a black man, I have seen on screen... I argue Daughters of the Dust is still the tops for me, but this mainstream big budget comicbook film(!)  reminded me of it with certain elements...

Nakia is the “we knew and we told you but men stay not listening”, black woman from the future, ahead of even T’Challa until the movie’s plot resolves and catches up to her vision.  Killmonger wasn’t wrong, but Nakia was right. The hashtag should be #NakiaWasRight. As usual, black women know and tell with a precision first, but rarely get the credit. Killmonger wasn’t wrong but toxic masculinity, courtesy of Western values and abandonment, corrupted his vision for himself and black and other oppressed peoples.

Okoye is the strength of black womanhood, -not the gross stereotypical SBW garbage that too many white people think is a compliment, but is really their trite way of saying “Pain must not affect them the same way!”  No, she is disciplined, capable, beautiful, and beloved.  As an aside, I just know Alek Wek screamed when she threw her wig in that one scene. That act reminded me so much of Wek doing similar at that runway show (which was iconic!) and pretty much made the same statement (that wig was totally raggedy and ugly on purpose).

Shuri is black potential unhindered and allowed to thrive. All because the expectations and opportunity in Wakanda are limitless... She is as important a cultural touchstone in terms of influencing young black girls to take up STEM fields as the film Hidden Figures is. She is black girl joy and magic rolled into one.  Mischievous, loving, sweet, kind, curious.  Letitia’s performance was brilliant because she played the girlhood we are so often denied so well, it was undeniable even by the usual suspects who would... That said, I can see people treating her too preciously in a direction could also go the way of dehumanization.  She’s not a mascot, child, baby, or spirit animal. She’s an intelligent teenager, a genius.  She’s not your token prop for proving how much you can adore “one special” black female character. I can already see the overly-precious and precocious cameos in white slash fic where she drops off a “tech thing”, is hugged, has her hair ruffled amiably, sasses cutely, and then disappears... WHITE PEOPLE, DON’T DO THIS.

Queen Ramonda, the female elders tending to blossoms, the elderly woman at council all represented a kind of feminine energy that is something we black folks (of course) had first, but is universal... The women who know the rituals, the medicines, the crafts, traditions, passed down among them.  Just about every culture on Earth has this... A gathering of cooperative women who heal and guard traditions

T’Challa The Black Panther represents healthy/regal uncorrupted masculinity.  Again, courtesy of the privileges of being Wakandian royalty, just like his sister.  Steady, protective of his family, responsible,  confident, and vulnerable. Heavy in burden, but projecting lightness and ease of wisdom to all alongside his tread, Shuri’s invention of sneakers was perfectly perfect for him.  

M’Baku could have gone wrong easily, with his size and comic origins (“Man-Ape”) but no, he was strong in both mind and body, and most importantly human, (this is where white filmmakers would have ruined him and made him a lovable lout).  A vegetarian who challenged, lost, teased, and made wise choices for his people.. A people that represented that proud underclass, even on the boundaries of supposedly enlightened Wakanda.

The TECH...  OMG...The tech, the beads, the transportation, the organic design and flow and interconnectedness of it.  The flying ships shaped like lifeforms already designed for flight.  The energy bolts, shock absorbers and redistributors...  If I remember my physics, energy expelled does not disappear. It HAS to be expended in some way. Shuri’s inventions all had that in common, effectively harvesting and using energy. 

Now, I’m getting back to that inherited wealth, that I feel is one of the biggest messages taken away from this film:  There is no such thing as benevolent privilege.  ...Even if that .00000001% status literally dropped out of the sky, (which we know, did not happen that way for the actual privileged among us).  Wakandians never exploited people, never actively subjugated, nor committed genocide and yet, their hands were still red... They were the passive bystanders, who knew what wrong was, but did nothing. This was T’Chaka leaving his nephew in that project, Erik glimpsing that ship fly away...

And yet, that kind if purposeful greedy, manic, snatched-away at the cost of stomping on “the other” kind of privilege WAS ALSO represented in this film via Claue.  ...His racist taunts, his jealousy, his repugnant personality.  He was the embodiment of the evil of whiteness. Brilliant performance by Serkis on that.

Freeman was an exposition machine for entry into the (white) Marvel world.  He had to guided and instructed to obvious places (a nod to what black actors typical endure in white narratives). I found it fascinating reading one fan lament that the importance of Captain America’s shield was taken away because it wasn’t just his, wasn’t rare, but Wakandians had a bounty all this time.  It was no longer this white hero’s “special thing”.   They were sad about that, but not that it had been stolen and sold on the black market to become his shield in the first place.  ...Freeman’s character represented white fans awaking to their own casual racism and disregard of the black other. In this case, it helped these advanced people hide.  Sometimes, you don’t disabuse people of their low expectations.

As for random bits? Loved the thoughtful costuming and set design. NEVER has a black film set in “fantasy/scifi” had the money and work and black perspective this film has.  LORDT Jordan got a juicy ASS! (I’m sorry, but I’m human yall), M’Baku is tall-thicc-hotness personified, Bassett is an immortal goddess, Lupita is a dainty doll made of empathy, The Dora Miljae is the power of black cooperative womanhood... Also shout-out to the elderly member of council with the Namibian influenced hairstyle.

The ancestral plane, yall... Note that it was twilight when T’Challa first visited, but brightly lit during his second visit.

“Bury me in the ocean with my ancestors who jumped from ships.”  T’Challa taking Erik up to see the Wakandian sunset...

 “...Hey auntie.”  also, Jordan brilliantly played Erik as full of posturing as a mask for deep-seeded pain... Just jeez.  

BATTLE RHINOS!!! where Nakia ended up after that car was destroyed, Okoye paddle-sailing on the damn road with a spear, Just THE WOMEN being the MVP’s in every way in this damn movie. Listen, I loved Wonder Woman? but it did not do cooperative womanhood nearly as well...NOT EVEN CLOSE... I’m probably gonna add more to this post... I’m still dazzled and gobsmacked a day later.

THAT SAID, my only quibbles are that you CAN TELL that this movie’s original cut was 6 hours long (editing felt a bit off at places) and the way fight scenes were filmed, weren’t filmed-and-cut as well as Winter Soldier.  

But that’s it.  These are my scattered thoughts.

ONE MORE THOUGHT!!! Could be that Killmonger did the Wakandians favor burning all those flowers, IF Thanos is going to Wakanda for the reason I think he is, in Infinity Wars... That might make it harder for him to locate.

Gotta link this, because totally neglected  W’Kabi. I should add that I’ve only seen it once. But I hope to see it again.