SONY AND RCA DROP R KELLY AFTER DREAM HAMPTON DOCUMENTARY SURVIVING R KELLY

As you may or may not recall, black feminists' #MuteRKelly stumbled last summer. As a result of some high profile black feminists protesting, Spotify took R. Kelly off its site. But it wasn't long before Spotify put him back on. 

Then Dream Hampton's serial documentary came out this month and put faces to the young black girl victims.

And now we've won. 

R. Kelly has been dropped by his music label

FROM BLOOMBERG NEWS 

    "Sony Corp.’s RCA music label has scrubbed R. Kelly from its lineup after a documentary series renewed the furor surrounding allegations of criminal sexual misconduct.

     As of Friday morning, R. Kelly was no longer featured on RCA’s website. Billboard reported that the artist and Sony had agreed to part ways in the wake of the Lifetime series “Surviving R. Kelly,” which included accounts from his alleged victims.

     Representatives for Sony didn’t respond to requests for comment from Bloomberg, and R. Kelly couldn’t immediately be reached."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-18/sony-s-rca-music-label-severs-ties-with-r-kelly-after-uproar?

I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that Hampton's series was also influential in getting Cyntoia Brown released. So congratulations to Dream Hampton and black girls everywhere. 

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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Rescinds Invitation to Honor Angela Davis Over Palestine Support

 feeling rebloggy

   Activist, poet, academic and writer Angela Davis says she was “stunned” to learn last Saturday that the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute had rescinded its invitation to honor her next month, in her hometown, with the Fred L. Shuttlesworth Award for Human Rights...
     After informing her of its decision, the BCRI board of directors, Davis added, “refused my requests to reveal the substantive reasons for this action.”
     She later learned, however, that “my long-term support of justice for Palestine was at issue...

https://www.al.com/news/2019/01/angela-davis-stunned-at-bcri-decision-but-is-still-coming-to-birmingham-for-alternative-event.html?

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FEMINISTS RESTING IN POWER: AMY JACQUES GARVEY AT 123

Feeling Rebloggy

A repost

Amy was a lot more than just Marcus Garvey's wife, before and after he was imprisoned.

“The Veiled Garvey: The Life and Times of Amy Jacques Garvey” is the first book-length biography of this important but unsung figure. 

Born in Jamaica in 1895 to an educated “brown” family, Amy Jacques suffered from bouts of malaria and, in order to live in a malaria-free area, moved in 1917 to Harlem. There she became involved in the UNIA, serving first as a traveling secretary and later as private secretary to its leader, to whom she was married in 1922. 

The following year, the government brought charges against Marcus Garvey — claiming fraudulent sale of shares in the UNIA’s black steamship line; over the next years he was imprisoned and eventually deported. (A number of factors — including the hostility of J. Edgar Hoover, Marcus Garvey’s lack of business acumen, and the antipathy of other black leaders — are said to have contributed to Garvey’s downfall.)

Thrust by these troubles, in her husband’s absence, into a prominent position in the UNIA, Amy campaigned for his release, kept his words and philosophy before the public, and developed a female Pan Africanist philosophy on the women’s pages of The Negro World.

“She blossomed,” says Taylor, “by honing her journalistic skills, writing commentary on the international situation, and refining her discourse on Jim Crow.” But it was after her husband’s death in 1940, she says, that Amy Jacques Garvey took flight as an independent thinker. While the UNIA lauded the promise of black capitalism, for example, Amy took note of its limitations. And she became less concerned with getting people to join the UNIA, says Taylor, than with getting Pan African ideas into existing organizations.

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2003/02/26_garvey.shtml

* * * * *
I've also read that Marcus did not hand off power over the UNIA to Amy while he was in prison. That may be one reason the organization did not survive and transform. 

However, after reading Elaine Brown's book (A TASTE OF POWER) on how violent some black men got within the Black Panthers when they thought their [toxic] masculinity was being challenged, this decision/action of Marcus' may have protected her

* * * * *
From AAIHS, Transnational Black Feminism

...On the women’s page of the Negro World, black women activists articulated the position Sojourner Truth had emphasized so many years earlier: 

• The struggle for women’s rights cannot be divorced from the struggle for civil and human rights.

Following the ratification of the nineteenth amendment in August 1920, the Jamaican black nationalist Amy Jacques Garvey praised the amendment for expanding opportunities for women in the public sphere. She was not oblivious to its limitations especially as it pertained to black women in the United States. But, [Harvey] saw it as a source of inspiration and a step towards greater liberation for all women.

In [Harvey's] writings during this period, she often drew comparisons to white feminist movements in her efforts to encourage black women to push harder in the fight for their liberation and the liberation of other people of color. 

“White women are rallying all their forces,” she argued, “and [they are] uniting regardless of national boundaries to save their race from destruction and preserve its ideals for posterity.” “We see them in the law courts pleading as advocates; they preside as judges and administer laws; while in less numbers, yet they are to be seen in parliaments, congresses and council chambers legislating for their people.”

“Be not discouraged black women of the world,” she added, “but push forward, regardless of the lack of appreciation shown [to] you. A race must be saved, a country must be redeemed...” 

Read More:  http://www.aaihs.org/on-transnational-black-feminism/ 

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SHIRLEY CHISHOLM ON HER 94TH BIRTHDAY

Feeling Rebloggy
 

It has been 50 years since Shirley Chisholm stared down sexism and racism to become the first black congresswoman in history. Today, members of Congress say they carry her lessons with them.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, told CBS News that Chisholm encouraged those around her to be "tree-shakers" and "changemakers." Jackson Lee said that mentality was evident in Chisholm's first marquee squabble in 1969 as the urban congresswoman took on party leadership when she was appointed to the Forestry and Rural Villages committee. 

With hard work and by recognizing the poverty in her district, Chisholm used the committee placement to help institute federal nutritional food programs that are still used by millions today...

As the daughter of Caribbean immigrants, Chisholm helped change how the immigrant community was perceived and showed everyone how they could be successful Americans, according to Clarke.

"Her run for Congress actually extended the Voting Rights Act into the Northeast," Clarke said.

For efforts like those, Clarke and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-CA. introduced a bill earlier this year to install a statue of Chisholm for display inside the U.S. Capitol. 

~CBSNEWS 

HAPPY 94th BIRTHDAY SHIRLEY

REST IN POWER

Read More: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/shirley-chisholm-first-black-congresswoman-revered-on-capitol-hill-50-years-after-her-election/?

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JANE FONDA AND PATRISSE KHAN CULLORS ON THE SOBERING REALITIES OF RACISM GENDER AND JAIL

Feeling Rebloggy

Patrisse: I wanted to ask what was your impetus in joining movements? What drove you to that? I know that you talked about your own family's history, but what about you?

Jane: Well, it was the Vietnam War. I was living in France, and the French had already been there. So, they had their war in Vietnam, and they knew we couldn't win, and it was an interesting thing for me, as an American, to listen to [the French] talk. I just felt, I can't just stay here and listen to this, I have to go back and be part of it. And, as you probably know, once you begin to study one issue, everything else—race, imperialism, capitalism—everything starts to come into question: economic issues, the fact that we don't have that economic democracy. But it was when I read your book, "When They Call You A Terrorist"—when Trump was elected—that I realized that white supremacy is closer to the surface than I had ever realized, and I thought, "Man, I better understand this more." You think you know, you think you understand, but if you're white, you don't really. And so I very deliberately have been studying, and I read your book, and it really moved me, and I called you up.

Patrisse: I thought it was a joke. June [my assistant] was like, “Jane Fonda wants to talk to you.” And I was like, “What?”

...Jane: You know, I've traveled a lot around the world, and the third world, and one of the things that I've learned is, it's easier to understand—for example, misogyny, women being treated like cattle—when you're in a country where it's totally blatant. That's when you think, "Okay, oh I get it." One of the gifts that POTUS has given us, is things are so blatant and bad, that things that were underground before, at least for white people, have come to the surface now. It's like oh my God, I now understand that we can't really be a full democratic country, a healthy country, as long as we have the legacy of slavery and race. We can't, and I'm not sure that it would've hit me before November 2016. Isn't it awful to say, I'm grateful for the lesson.

Patrisse: Of course.

Jane: But we all have to do it together.

Patrisse: For the last decade, many activists across Los Angeles county have been trying to stop a $3.5 billion jail plan. A plan that would be a woman's jail and a mental health jail. We tried everything: we lobbied our elected officials, we held protests, we did everything and we realized, "Oh they're not budging on this, so we need to take it to the people." We did a poll ahead of time, sort of to see what people want to see, so I started Reform L.A. County Jails, the pact, and we've been gathering signatures since March, we just completed our signature gathering. We have gathered over 230,000 signatures, we've registered over 10,000 people to vote in a short amount of time, and this is gonna be on the March 2020 ballot box.

I told Jane, you know, "We're gonna do this initiative." And she goes, "I want to help. I've been studying around jail issues and prison issues." Jane has done more than help, I mean Jane's been an ambassador of Reform L.A. Jails initiative. She's gone out door knocking, she's gone out gathering signatures, she's held dinners in her home around it. I mean, she's literally been a huge collaborator with me on this project. I think we've been able, for the first time in history, in Los Angeles County history, to popularize a jail fight and a conversation around ending mass incarceration...

 ~Harpers Bazaar

Read More: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a23105747/jane-fonda-patrisse-cullors-women-who-dare-2018-racism-civil-rights/?

WHY TRICKLE DOWN SOCIAL JUSTICE FOR BLACK WOMEN DOESN'T WORK - KIMBERLE CRENSHAW

Feeling Rebloggy

Now more than ever, it's important to look boldly at the reality of race and gender bias -- and understand how the two can combine to create even more harm. Kimberlé Crenshaw uses the term "intersectionality" to describe this phenomenon; as she says, if you're standing in the path of multiple forms of exclusion, you're likely to get hit by both. In this moving talk, she calls on us to bear witness to this reality and speak up for victims of prejudice. 

A TED TALK: 18 MINUTES (Listen while you make breakfast, watching not required)

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ARETHA FRANKLIN SINGS FOR THE OBAMAS AT THE KENNEDY CENTER HONORS

ARETHA FRANKLIN
 SINGS

NATURAL WOMAN

2015 KENNEDY CENTER HONORS

The Obamas’ Aretha Franklin tribute is an elegant reminder of how she united us

https://www.vox.com/2018/8/16/17698898/the-obamas-remember-aretha-franklin

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REST IN POWER ARETHA FRANKLIN, QUEEN OF SOCIAL JUSTICE

Feeling Rebloggy

Aretha Franklin, who died Thursday at the age of 76 in her home in Detroit, was known for her unbelievable musical talent and majestic career, but the Queen of Soul was also a longtime warrior in the fight for social justice.

A close friend of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who visited her in her final days, Franklin was a vocal supporter of civil rights movements, often performing at benefits and encouraging voter registration. But her private and church-based work—including stepping in to financially support Martin Luther King Jr.’s movement, the families of incarcerated people, and black activist ministers—was largely under the radar, Jackson told the Detroit Free Press recently. That’s part of why she was a fitting choice to sing at the inauguration of America’s first black president, Barack Obama, where she regaled the crowd with an emotion-filled rendition of “My Country Tis of Thee”....

~QUARTZ

Read More/ Hear More: https://qz.com/quartzy/1356841/when-aretha-franklin-offered-to-post-bail-for-angela-davis/

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REST IN POWER QUEEN OF SOUL ARETHA FRANKLIN

Feeling Rebloggy
From February 14, 2017

On this day 50 years ago, a little-known gospel singer from Detroit went into a New York City recording studio to try to jump-start her career. No one saw it coming, but the song Aretha Franklin laid down on Valentine's Day 1967 would go on to become one of the greatest recordings of all time.

"Respect" hit the top of the charts four months later and turned Aretha Franklin into a feminist champion. The track was actually a clever gender-bending of a song by Otis Redding, whose original reinforced the traditional family structure of the time: Man works all day, brings money home to wife and demands her respect in return.

Franklin's version blew that structure to bits.

For one, Redding's song doesn't spell out "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" like Franklin's does. It also doesn't have the backup singers and their clever interplay. So much of what made "Respect" a hit — and an anthem — came from Franklin's rearrangement. She remembered how it all came together when she spoke with WHYY's Fresh Air in 1999...

https://www.npr.org/2017/02/14/515183747/respect-wasnt-a-feminist-anthem-until-aretha-franklin-made-it-one  

THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE

Relando said, “I’m a feminist because patriarchy is harmful to women and can hurt men as well with idealized notions of masculinity that demean and subordinate women and punish men who don’t follow suit. While male privilege is VERY real, when I think about it, we all lose collectively while patriarchy is sustained. Men need to do more.”

Approximately 1 in a trillion chance this is Renaldo

CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE & TREVOR NOAH DISCUSS HOW TO RAISE A CHILD TO BE FEMINIST

Feeling Rebloggy

Adichie's book DEAR IJEAWELE started off as an e-mail she wrote to a friend who had recently had a baby girl, a friend who asked her how to raise her child as a feminist. The 15 point e-mail was sightly changed and put into a book. Trevor Noah had her on THE DAILY SHOW to discuss it. 

She really makes feminism as easy to understand as easy as say...oh...BLACK LIVES MATTER.  But, just like with racism, the stereotypes assigned to those seeking equality have to be pushed aside first.

Fortunately Adichie is very, very good at this. 

EXCERPTS  FROM ADICHIE'S FACEBOOK PAGE BELOW

https://www.facebook.com/chimamandaadichie/posts/10154412708460944

BLACK FEMINISTS SAY TIMES UP FOR R KELLY

 Feeling Rebloggy

Just one day after R. Kelly issued a statement to defend himself against the months-long wave of sex cult allegations, a new movement has emerged with demands against the R&B singer: #MuteRKelly.

Award-winning film director Ava DuVernay sparked the conversation with the hashtag, which is among the top of Twitter’s trending topics, on Monday (April 30). She connected her official announcement to another major movement recently endorsed by Hollywood and calling for an end to the previously silenced culture of sexual assault and misconduct, Time’s Up.

MUTE R KELLY CREATORS
KENYETTE BARNES and ORONIKE ODELEYE

“We join the call to #MuteRKelly and insist on the safety + dignity of all women,” she wrote in a tweet. “We demand investigations into R. Kelly’s abuse allegations made by women of color + their families for two decades.”

DuVernay demanded that those who benefit from profitable relationships with him and his music cut ties as well, bringing others who joined her to call on Tidal, Spotify and Apple Music to remove his work from their music-streaming services. And as her call to accost the Pied Piper continues to pick up momentum in the Twitterverse’s general population, celebrities from all corners of Hollywood are following suit.  

Joining Ava DuVernay are black feminists, Shonda Rhimes, John Legend*, Kerry Washington, Jurnee Smollett-Bell*, Robin Thede, Viola Davis

https://www.bet.com/music/2018/04/30/hollywood-speaks-out-mute-r-kelly.html

As women of color within Time’s Up, we recognize that we have a responsibility to help right this wrong. We intend to shine a bright light on our WOC sisters in need. It is our hope that we will never feel ignored or silenced ever again...

To this end, today we join an existing online campaign called #MuteRKelly.

Over the past 25 years, the man known publicly as R. Kelly has sold 60 million albums, toured the globe repeatedly, and accumulated hundreds of millions of plays on radio and streaming services.

During this time, he also ...

• - Married a girl [who was only 15 years old, while he was 27]

• - Was sued by at least four women for sexual misconduct, statutory rape, aggravated assault, unlawful restraint and furnishing illegal drugs to a minor;

• - Was indicted on 21 counts of child pornography;

• - Has faced allegations of sexual abuse and imprisonment of women under threats of violence and familial harm.

Together, we call on the following corporations and venues with ties to R. Kelly to join us and insist on safety and dignity for women of all kinds:

• RCA Records: The venerable music label currently produces and distributes R. Kelly’s music.
• Ticketmaster: The popular ticketing system is currently issuing tickets for R. Kelly’s show May 11.
• Spotify and Apple Music:  The popular streaming platforms are currently monetizing R. Kelly’s music.
• Greensboro Coliseum Complex: The North Carolina venue is currently hosting an R. Kelly concert May 11.

https://www.theroot.com/women-of-color-within-times-up-join-muterkelly-protest-1825646793?utm_source=theroot_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

https://www.npr.org/2018/05/06/608802024/-muterkelly-gathers-momentum


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BLACK PANTHER: THE DARK-SKINNED FEMINIST ANATOMY OF A BILLION DOLLAR BLACK SUCCESS

"Marvel’s “Black Panther” continues its record-breaking streak, passing the $1 billion mark at the global box office in just 26 days...

“Black Panther” has grossed $521 million domestically, making it the ninth-highest release of all time. In its fourth weekend, “Black Panther” is heading for a $40 million-plus weekend, which would make it the No. 2 superhero release of all time over “The Dark Knight’s” $535 million."

http://variety.com/2018/film/news/black-panther-billion-global-box-office-1202723326/ 

Black Panther is also doing well in China where it just opened on March 9th. It made 22.7 million dollars in one day, making it the third biggest Marvel movie to open in China. ]

Domestically, BLACK PANTHER'S success jumped out of the gate due in no small part to black people being hungry to see themselves on screen as something other than sidekicks and comic relief. 

Most black folks know this. A lot of non-black folks know it too.

But BLACK PANTHER being presenting black women as true equals in a fictional world with the most natural looking feminism I've ever seen is a huge part of its success as well. 

I went to the theater on opening night with every expectation that we'd see T'Challa's sister Shuri in the lab for only a moment or three just like James Bond's Q, the tech genius in most all Bond movies. And I expected Nakia, T'Challa's girlfriend, would smile, kiss, and send the Black Panther off into battle. 

In other words, I thought the Black Panther's sister and girlfriend would have approximately 5 cute little minutes worth of screen time a piece because men have not done well by us at the movies. 

For Okoye, T'Challa's general, I was hoping for a little bit more on opening night at the movies, maybe one short fight scene. I mostly expected Danai Gurira's charater to stand behind T'Challa and be a yes-woman.   

And I expected the girlish confusion to be presented at almost every step of the way, with a man to clear things up for them same as Chris Pine did almost every step of the way during WONDER WOMAN. (a "girlishness" which was praised by some white male reviewers of the movie and unnoticed by many white female reviewers of the movie.) 

But I did not get any women-business as usual at the movies with BLACK PANTHER.  

In this movie, the women are women (Nakia and Okoye) and the girls are tech saavy genius black girls (Shuri) who do what they are told but step into the fray when duty calls.

Future STEM Researcher

Nakia tells T'Challa Wakanda is wrong for being isolationist at the very beginning of the film. Okoye is more a partner and protector than a sidekick. Both Nakia and Okoye have major conflicts with their love interests. And while Shuri is indeed this movie's Q, Shuri winds up being at Black Panther's side during critical battle scenes.  

Most importantly, when the audience full of little black girls and little black boys sees King T'Challa making decisions they see him consulting with a board or directors, if you will, that is at least half women and includes his mother. Every opinion, male and female, is valued when big decisions are made about what course Wakanda should take.  

By the end of the movie Killmonger and #TeamToxicMasculinity have been defeated and King T'Challa has changed his mind toward what Nakia explained to him in the first few minutes of the film: With great power comes great responsibility a.k.a. The Spiderman Maxim but probably previously attributable to Jesus.

The story line for BLACK PANTHER was so packed with natural feminism --even if the Dora Milaje had not been in the film at all-- that I was shocked to find out that someone like WORLD OF WAKANDA writer Roxane Gay had not written major chunks of the screenplay. 

Apparently it was DIRECTOR/WRITER Ryan Coogler who very deliberately focused on having strong black female characters from the start.

Another major factor in BLACK PANTHER'S domestic success after (Massive Marvel Marketing, story line, controversial villain) is the presentation of dark-skinned women as heroes. 

The success of HIDDEN FIGURES and GIRLS TRIP and almost all of Tyler Perry's less than stellar movies should tell anybody in white Hollywood how hungry all shades of black women are to see themselves in any capacity.

But BLACK PANTHER gave us strong feminist black women, women whose racial identity you never had to look up on google to be sure she was black.  

ILLUSION OF INCLUSION: Paler than pale, bi-racial looking women
who may or may not identify as black, who don't have afro hair 

That is, the paper bag test was not used for hiring black women this time out. In BLACK PANTHER, a black director who has a black wife that cannot pass a paper bag test in the dark, chose black women actresses that are the same shade as the black male actors for a major change.   

Ryan Coogler and Zinzi Evans

With one possible exception, every big budget movie that has presented black women that are easily identified as black has earned far more money than expected. I expect our track record at the movies is going to have more and more impact. 

Maybe Lupita N'yongo thinks the same thing. 

She bought the rights to Chimamanda Adichie's  book AMERICANAH not long after she starred in 12 YEARS A SLAVE. Striking while the iron is hot, thanks to BLACK PANTHER, she's recently announced that she's again moving forward on that movie project.  

After the success of HIDDEN FIGURES, GIRLS TRIP, and now BLACK PANTHER I have every expectation that N'yongo will get all the money and encouragement she needs to get AMERICANAH the level of attention it deserves. I, for one, cannot wait to see how African women tell the story of a college aged black woman blogger from Africa moving to the United States.

Instagram: @mamaayi1/Instagram 

BLACK PANTHER should be a major stepping stone toward our diversity becoming a lot more diverse than it has been and also getting more black women's stories to the public.

KILLMONGER AS THE MOST RIGHTEOUS VILLAIN THAT NEVER LIVED

MAJOR SPOILERS

I literally teared up when Killmonger was dying. In my head I was screaming, "WAIT! WAIT! Take him to therapy! Shuri can save him! WAIT! What about therapy?" 

Then, I was like um....naw. He could never walk around free again because the macho approach to destroying white supremacy would never completely die inside him. And he'd wind up killing everybody in Wakanda.

Speaking of toxic masculinity and the macho in a soul being somewhat immortal, I've only seen two black male reviewers imply they disliked BLACK PANTHER on this basis. 

One parsed the characters into Black Americans and Black Africans then decided that Black American man's being cast as a bad guy as compared to a White American CIA agent being good made the film "racist." This same reviewer mentioned but had no real objection to the only Black American woman in the film only having 15 words to say before the Black American male character, Killmonger, shot her in the face (head or neck. It's hard to tell in Marvel movies where death is bloodless).

Reading this review, I also wondered if this man failed to notice that almost all the characters were black in this black movie. That is, the bad guys are going have to be black too. And the bad guys are super-bad in white superhero movies, so I didn't expect Killmonger to be any different. 

Therefore, I did not see accumulation of white supremacist stereotypes packed into the Killmonger character or the Wakandans for that matter. 

Most black reviewers seem to see that, despite Killmonger being right about a good number of things, Killmonger was truly a villain. Killmonger's other goal, made so obvious by his actions, was what made him "the evil doer" in the film.

1. Yes, he wanted the end of the worldwide  oppression of black people.
2. But he also wanted most was to take the white man's place at the top of the oppression pile

Some people don't recognize Killmonger as a villain because they are arguing about wanting to use the white man's tools --oppression, war, and genocide-- to dismantle the master's white supremacist house every day.  

In my opinion, Killmonger's making a familiar argument is one of the things that made Killmonger the best villain I've ever seen. And he's one of the best villains in the Marvel Universe thus far because he's had a good reason to be a villain. In most superhero flicks the bad guy's badness either isn't explored very much or the bad guy is bad because he has had an extremely self-centered reaction to loss.

Killmonger's reaction to loss is extremely self-centered too, but some of it is a more of a we-centered selfishness rather than an I-centered selfishness --the "we" being all black people.


Eventually we find out that Erik Killmonger's father killed by his T'Challa's father because Killmonger's father was about to murder another man. Fatherless and also abandoned by the Wakandans, Erik grows up untrained in the ways of healthy manhood. Using a boy's view of what masculinity is, he understands the world simplistically as a dog eat dog place where the biggest, baddest dog wins. 

So Killmonger's  response to his father's murder makes perfect sense. 

He builds himself up to be as physically powerful and invincible as he can. He makes himself appear even more intimidating by cutting himself, leaving raised keloids as a reminder of each person he's killed in battle -- hence his nickname "Killmonger."

Once Killmonger is an adult and a well-trained war-machine of a man,  the anti-racism and social justice Killmonger has learned from his hot-head, gun pulling father is in effect trapped within the toxic masculinity he's learned from the world. 

This it how comes to be that  Killmonger's **what to do** (free black people from oppression) was right while his **his how to do** (mass murder/war) and **why to do (pure revenge)** was wrong. He wanted to do to white people what they have done to us. But everybody who has seen THE LORD OF THE RINGS knows, you can't use Sauron's ring to kill Sauron. It will just eat your soul first then make you turns on your friends.

One cannot use war and oppression and genocide a tool to do good. It's impossible. And the outcome of letting a violent boy-man lead would have been hell on all black people, black women most of all.

However, this villain's arrival in Wakanda with a legitimate desire to free oppressed black people winds up saving T'Challa and all Wakandans from being just like the predominantly white run United States. 

Before Killmonger arrives, the black people of Wakanda are sitting on all this wealth and power, yet doing nothing for the oppressed and suffering people outside its borders. Wakanda wasn't even sharing its medical technology -- in the same way the United States, through it's corporations, will let poor people die because they are unable to afford certain medications. 

Some black people who have seen this movie were upset with how Killmonger was portrayed and how the Wakandans were portrayed, as if black pathology was being used to tell this story. But all Director Ryan Coogler has done is show that black people are human too every bit as morally flawed as white people are as a group. 

That is, of course rich, advanced black people would hoard their resources and keep filthy immigrants out too. Of course we would.

Furthermore, when black people wind up riding the top of the wave in 50 years or 500 years, black people will distribute by class and wealth in the same ways white people do now. And we will have the exact same problems with hoarding wealth and despising poor people -- the only difference will be in the skin color of the people at the top.

Trust me.   Some 8% of black people voted for Donald Trump in today's conditions when white supremacy obviously rules. So imagine how many more black people would vote for a black version of Donald Trump when 90% of black people are middle class or better and 1% of them are super rich.

The good thing about Killmonger was that he was right about Wakanda needing to be socially responsible toward the black people of the world, which is why the audience loved him at points. But Killmongers ashy hotep designs on replacing the white man as top dog would have been as deadly to the world as white supremacy. And in a Killmonger run universe black women would likely have been the first victims.  

We know this by looking at real life.

All you have to do is look at the White Hollywood end of the #MeToo movement to see and understand this. You could also look at what kind of sentence white college boys get for raping white girls. The power white women have is borrowed through marriage or sex...and even that's shaky. 

This is why white feminism exists. 

Oppressors who gain power via oppression 

only pretend to share power

Black women had to argue to get black men of The Civil Rights Movement to allow a black woman to speak for one minute during the entire main program at THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON. And just like white men, black men beat their women when frustrated over not being to find a job and finding himself unable to fulfill his role as breadwinner and leader(boss) of the family.

This is why black feminism exists.   

But, as Joan Morgan said, white women don't call their men "brothers." Having to fight black men for gender equality and stop them from erasing us and using colorism to sort us feels like betrayal  

Whenever white men, black men or brown men are talking about fixing a social problem, all women should keep their eyes open to make sure they are not solely talking about changes that benefit themselves. 

So remember this when at the movies and in real life...

Just say "no" 

to trading one oppressor 

for another

Killmonger's going to jail for life was the only way he could be allowed to live and have the black community be safe, especially the black female half. And I'm glad most of the black men who have seen the movie seem to understand that Killmonger had to go.

As Killmonger's death scene unfolded, I had just enough time to reject my initial therapy idea and accept that it was time for Killmonger to check out if he didn't want to go to prison for life.

Though he shot his black girlfriend in the face or head and lifted an old black woman off the ground by her throat, I'd temporarily forgotten that by the end of the movie. That's the only reason why it was very satisfying, in that moment, to see him get a hero's death. The part of him that wanted to save black people from oppression worldwide was righteous.

However, I did not have enough time to see if T'Challa had been exposed to Killmonger enough to understand just how badly Wakanda's United-States-Like hoarding and isolationism had let black people down in the rest of the world.

I guess that's what sequels are for. 

At the end of BLACK PANTHER, T'Challa is building and creating in a black neighborhood in Oakland. And if you stayed for the credits, you got to see that King T'Challa following up by going to the United Nations to say Wakanda will share technology with the world.

That last bit at the United Nations might have been a step too far.  Seriously. I had a longish Killmonger-moment when T'Challa started promising anything but medical technology to "the colonizers." But I guess that could make for excellent battle scenes in future movies because I am not above wanting to see the movie I expected BLACK PANTHER to be.

I walked into my movie theater expecting all the black characters were going to be good with a couple of white side kicks and that all the bad guys aliens or something. In other words, I expected something that was a skin-color opposite of THE AVENGERS, almost a film negative of all the very white superhero movies that came before.

But what I got was better.

Ryan Coogler's constructed an affluent world where almost all of the character's are black and the "colonizers" are acknowledged as negative and influential but never on screen enough to be central. 

The black women in the movie were there for the entire movie instead of as tokens, a backdrop against which a black male T'Challa could shine--which is what I also expected. 

Nakia and Okoye's part of the car chase scene had me grinning like a kid. And that scene where Okoye is doing battle, throws her wig in the enemy's face, then jumps over the rail to the first floor, red dress flowing was fire!  

Best of all little black girls in the audiene got to see black female characters with strong contrary opinions respected and ultimately trusted by black men. They got to see black women making choices that didn't make it seem like getting married was a woman's most important goal --even though the love story that's critical to every movie I've ever adored was present and accounted for. 

And when love was center stage in the movie the camera was focused on a black man. T'Challa exploded with renewed energy,  throwing multiple enemies off so he could save his sister Shuri from Killmonger -- instead of his very capable love interest.

The Dora Milaje (Based on real warriors)

Even without the Dora Milaje being on screen so much, this movie probably has the most natural looking feminism I've ever seen in a movie. And it's weaved through the entire film -- and it's a Black American film.

Ryan Coogler's a black feminist right? He must be right?

BLACK PANTHER isn't perfect. I had questions about T'Challa's father that I probably shouldn't have had. But by making the good Wakandans of Africa as hoarding and xenophobic as the predominantly white United States, Ryan Coogler has given us a deeply black, deeply human, and political movie that's going to continue to break box office records everywhere.

...which hopefully paves the way for future big budget, black, sci-fi and action adventure films for black nerds like me.

And all the success coming to BLACK PANTHER would not have been possible, if Ryan Coogler hadn't given us a familiar, toxic masculinity suffering villain worth crying over. 

Bravo! Mr. Coogler Bravo!

BLACKCHICKROCKED.BLOGSPOT.COM

For a reasonable black male perspective on Killmonger, click here:

https://shadowandact.com/erik-killmonger-forgotten-wakanda/?