The internet records the following regarding the financial success of the Black Panther as of March 25, 2018:

  • Receipts grossed $631.4million in the US and Canada and a worldwide total of $1.239 billion;
  • The film made $370.5million worldwide in its opening weekend (the 15th largest of all time);
  • Thus far, Black Panther is the highest-grossing solo superhero film and the 3rd third highest-grossing movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU); and
  • In only five weeks after its much anticipated release, Deadline.com estimates profits from the film to be $461 million.

Wow. And who once said a black-themed movie where the major characters and even the director were of African descent would be able to generate this kind of enthusiasm, let alone billions of dollars? That’s right, Hollywood once said that. Well, anyway it’s refreshing to see a movie where the lead character is a prince and not a pimp, and where the female leads are intelligent moralistic and sexy.

Today’s take-away from the film involves the recent chatter I’ve heard on numerous talk radio formats. It seems the Black Panther has reawakened the idea of a viable black state, governed and populated by blacks. I said “reawakened” because the idea of an independent and separate black state began with the American Colonization Society after the War of 1812, gained traction with the establishment of Liberia, became a fleeting dream of Frederick Douglass before the Civil War and seemingly ran its inevitable course with the prodding of Marcus Garvey. In modern times, Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam advanced a rhetoric advocating black separation and independence. The NOI still believes cultural separation is the only future for displaced Africans in America, they just don’t seem as vocal as they once were.

Nonetheless, today’s chatter is still refreshing. However, I question if the chatterers really understand that which they seem to believe is admirable. A black state would require the black populace to completely change the virus that currently inhabits the black community. Simply put, we don’t trust one another.

As a young Thundercat I grew up listening to the parable of the crabs in the bucket: as soon as one appeared on the verge of escaping the bucket, one of the others would pull him back down into the morass of the bucket with the rest of the crabs. So, in the real world blacks routinely criticize each other for even the most minuscule of reasons. Don’t speak in ebonic slang? Then you’re trying to act white. Do well in school? Then you’re trying to act white. Want to live in a nice house in a safe neighborhood? Then you’re trying to act white.

Notice a pattern? Why is it in this American society that anything seemingly good, decent and safe is automatically associated with whiteness? Of course that’s a rhetorical question because the answer is well known. In order to justify the enslavement of African captives European colonizers vilified any and everything that was not of their doing or making. They eventually developed the concept of “whiteness” to exclude anything different from themselves. So, naturally, only those things associated with them are good, decent and safe; while any and everything not associated with them are bad, immoral, and chaotic.

So how can a black state exist when we don’t even believe in our own goodness? It’s good to see a movie, as fictional as super hero movies are, where blacks exist in a society where love, honor and respect flow from every fiber. That’s so different/better than the constant portrayals of black males as degenerate baby-makers and black women as loud and obnoxious seductresses.   

Maybe it’s okay that the chatter-heads on talk radio dream of a black state. But for those of us mired in the morass of the real world, I’d just like to see the black community support its own educational institutions (HBCUs) before they cease to be our educational institutions.

See you soon.

PS: Has anyone seen the President’s taxes yet?