We took Jane to see Black Panther on Sunday. (Trust me…This is just another in a string of questionable parenting choices.) In our house, we are all about REPRESENTATION and EMPOWERMENT (and, yeah, I get excited enough when I talk about these things to warrant all caps). I wanted her to see a black superhero on the big screen–because it’s epic and groundbreaking (although it shouldn’t be. This is 2018, after all). Jane left her viewing of Wonder Woman feeling empowered and proud (see what I told you about questionable parenting choices… she was 6 when she saw Wonder Woman). I know that, for a lot of black folks, Black Panther is more significant than that. It’s a celebration of black culture, black talent, and, well, blackness…
Truth be told, I wanted to give her a narrative that competes the with story she already knows–slavery, systemic racism, oppression. She gets the gift of being witness to black joy often–at school, at church, around Atlanta–but Black Panther is a story (mostly) devoid of white people. It’s black utopia. Very few colonizers, you see. So, yeah, I totally wanted my kid to see Wakanda.
Here’s where the questionable parenting comes in: I took my 7 year old to see Black Panther without knowing a damn thing about it. I was all starry eyed about Wakanda. Know what Jane was? Terrified of the guns.
Because, in our house, we are just as anti-gun as we are anti-racism. And, in Black Panther, lots of people get shot. With guns. Damn.
Truth? She was real, real scared. Harder truth? She had nightmares.
BUT…
This morning on the way to school, Jane said, “Remember how funny it was when the girl in Black Panther said, “‘Great! Another broken white boy for us to fix!’” YES! I totally remember! And then we got to talking. Talking how, because the history she gets in school was mostly written by white people, black contributions to science, medicine, and technology are downplayed. I started chattering on about Katherine Johnson’s contributions to NASA –and how most folks didn’t even know she was part of the team until Hidden Figures came out–and Jane lit up. She’d heard about that! In school! Hooray for teachers dedicated to Black History all school year–not just in February.
Representation DOES matter. A lot. When I asked Jane what her favorite part of Black Panther was, you know what she said? The science. Know who was in charge of the science? Shuri. The princess of Wakanda. A teenager with kick-ass braids and a wit that won’t quit. Shuri is the one sent to California to liberate the people–not with guns, but with science and knowledge. That’s a message worth hearing.
Black Panther didn’t mean to my kid what it means to lots of black kids in America. But it was an opportunity for her to see black brilliance at work. And I’m not sorry about that. Black Panther also powerfully drove home a message that I hold close to my heart: only light can cast out darkness. The answer to guns, violence, and oppression isn’t more guns. It’s more knowledge, more opportunity, more goodness. It’s leadership and activism and love.
That’s a message I firmly support.
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