*Beware: spoilers*
I was really excited about
seeing Black Panther, and when I did, last Monday, I loved it.
I loved the issues it
addressed such as, "Should a wealthy country shut itself in to protect its
way of life, or should it help others?" It touched my heart for very
obvious reasons - after all, I work among refugees.
I felt encouraged to see so
many positive, funny, smart, powerful (in the good sense of the term, not in the political sense) Black male AND female characters. I loved seeing those
female warriors kicking ass!
I loved seeing what *could*
have happened if African countries had been able to benefit from their own
natural resources and build national wealth from it, rather than having it
robbed from them by colonialists.
I felt moved by the
villain's storyline and felt sympathetic to a lot of his grievances (even
though I disagreed with his methods to try and put things to rights). He was a
very human and relatable character, I thought. And when he said, "the
world will be reborn, and this time, WE'll be on top", I felt deeply the
pain of a people who have been oppressed, enslaved, exploited and discriminated
against, not to mention having seen their resources plundered (including by my
own country) - and yet I felt a pang as I thought, "As long as someone is
on top, it means someone is at the bottom". And so what the villain wanted
to create, no matter what his initial motivations were, was another injustice.
I loved how, when Jabari
leader M'Baku is offered the chance to take the Black Panther's power by taking the
Heart-Shaped Herb, he chooses to help T'Challa instead, when he could so
easily grab power for himself.
And especially, I loved
hearing the king of Wakanda's speech to the United Nations at the end:
Wakanda will no longer watch from the shadows. We
can not. We must not. We will work to be an example of how we, as brothers and
sisters on this earth, should treat each other. Now, more than ever, the
illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more
connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges,
while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another,
as if we were one single tribe.
So I decided to take
African asylum seekers to see it as a treat.
And then the debate begun
as one of my colleagues argued that only taking African people see it was
unfair. Well, yes and no. We are organizing special activities on Women's Day,
for example... and you could argue that's unfair. But the reason we do it it to
do something nice for people who have been oppressed one way or another. I
thought this movie was uplifting and positive for the African community. We
ended up going with 14 African people of both sexes (from Guinea, Sudan,
Burkina Faso, Rwanda, Angola, Senegal), one Iraqi guy and a young Albanian girl. They
loved the film. They giggled when T'Challa freezes upon seeing his
ex-girlfriend Nakia. They roared with laughter when Shuri points to T'Challa's
sandals, asking, "What are those???" They loved it when Agent Ross
tries some whitesplaining on M'Baku, the Jabari leader, who proceeds to silence
him by barking at him, together with his guards. They even applauded when the movie
ended.
On the way back, I was
driving the van and I remained silent. I could have told them why I took them
to see this film. I could have told them what I loved about it, what my
favourite moments were. But I decided not to. Because it was their film, their
moment. I wanted to give them ownership of it and not rob it from them by
putting my white words and emotions on their experience.
So I listened to them chat
excitedly about it, discussing which countries and tribes inspired the
costumes. And then, one of the guys said, "That was good." His friend
approved, "Yeah, that was good". And in that moment, I felt filled
with joy, as when two other guys came up to me before going back to their
rooms, saying, "Thank you for taking us. It was your idea, thank you."
#OneTribe
