Yall Just Don't Like Black Women

WAKANDA FOREVER

by Jasmine 

As a black girl who loves Marvel movies and has never picked up a comic book, I was living for Black Panther. Angela Bassett as Queen Ramonda snatched my edges. Danai Gurira's Okoye literally snatching her wig made me bald. Lupita Nyong'o as Nakia gave me everything I didn't know I needed. And Princess Shuri played by Letitia Wright had me wishing I paid attention in science class. The girl is sixteen!

Don't even get me started on Chadwick Boseman playing no games as T'Challa. They even had the guy from Get Out, Daniel Kaluuya. Uhh... Yes! I also would like to take a moment to appreciate M'Baku, Winston Duke, having no time for white nonsense. And of course, I can't forget my fave Micheal B. Jordan as Erik Killmonger. Girl, his body was insane! All in all, Black Panther is peak blackness and since I've been scalped by all the talent, I can join the Dora Milaje.

Now that I'm done stanning, I have something I need to say. Black Panther has sparked so many articles about the deeper meanings of the movie and the conversations it has sparked. I've come across a few articles that talk about Killmonger being a misogynist. One that stood out to was published by Bossip. The editorial written by David Dennis is called "You Love Killmonger at the Expense of Black Women." Before I go off about how much of a reach this is, I want to talk about Killmonger.

Firstly, I wouldn't really call Killmonger a villain to the same extent that other Marvel characters can be characterized as villains. I mean sure he goes about things the wrong way i.e. killing T'Challa and trying to take over the world, but he's right, well, kind of. His approach was just wrong.

N'Jadaka (Killmonger's birth name) was left behind after his uncle murdered his dad (sound familiar, right?). While Wakandans are running around with wealth, gender equality, and a lack of whites, N'Jadaka is forced to walk through America as Erik Stevens, a black man.

Wouldn't you be mad too? I know I would be, well maybe not mad enough to want to arm all the black people around the world with vibranium weapons, but I get his point. Life in Wakanda is going well and they chose to look the other way while other African countries suffered from colonialization and its aftermath. Killmonger represents black frustration that has been building for centuries.

I'm done trying to humanize the homie Killmonger so, let's address the Dennis article. After giving a summary of the conflicting ideologies in the movie, the author proceeds to list the five times Killmonger laid hands on someone in the movie. Two instances are T'Challa and the other three include him shooting his girlfriend, choking a lady for not wanting to burn the heart-shaped herb, and killing a Dora Milaje member.

While I do agree that Killmonger has a streak of harming black women in the movie, I wouldn't call Erik a "Chris Brown with military training." I also don't consider a misogynist because he's a FICTIONAL CHARACTER. Aside from that, fighting the Dora Milaje isn't misogynistic because in this case, they're the enemy so it's either fight or die. And if fighting the Dora Milaje is an example of hating black women, then let's go ahead and throw W'kabi and his tribe in that category since they had no problem with hopping on those rhinos (I'm just saying).

Going off the definition of misogyny, I can compromise with the author and say Killmonger was hostile towards women but that's about it. I will argue, however, that loving Killmonger is not at the expense of black women. If anything, it's the black women who steal the show, whether its Okoye riding on top of a car in a dress with a spear, Nakia fighting whites left and right, or Shuri being Shuri. T'Challa couldn't even be the Black Panther without women. The Dora Milaje's job is to protect him, like, do you understand how amazing that is?

With all that being said, I want to discuss this "at the expense of black women" thing. Since when did we hold fictional characters to the same standard of real people? Some of the revolutionary men in the black community, who held radical and militant views, are placed on a pedestal but they have misogynistic track records. There's Martin Luther King cheating on Coretta (Bradner, 2017). Then you have Eldridge Cleaver talking about practicing his rape techniques on black girls (Kifner, 1998) and Huey P. Newton shooting prostitutes and physically abusing his wife (Collier and Horowitz, 1989). And don't even get me started on Frederick Douglass allowing his white associates to mistreat his wife Anna as well as him cheating on her and forcing her to remain domesticated (Black History Month Anna Murray Douglass, 2007).

Mentioning the pitfalls of these leaders is not to take away from their contributions to the black community or equate Killmonger to any of them. I think that instead of getting upset with a fictional character over his treatment of black women, let's hold real people, who we consider heroes, accountable for the way they've treated our women. I mean, google is free and this stuff is well documented. All I'm saying is that a lot of times, unfortunately, the movement towards black liberation has always been at the expense of black women.

In the end, Black Panther is just an iconic black super hero movie that is very necessary and we can do without the editorials trying to make viewers feel bad about liking the homie Killmonger.

Here's the article:  https://bossip.com/1622576/editorial-you-love-kilmonger-at-the-expense-of-black-women/