Wakanda! We are more than who we allow ourselves to see.

Because of Wakanda, I see that black IS beautiful.

Someone once told me that, basically, if it weren’t for his ancestors, blacks wouldn’t have been brought to such an affluent nation. Slightly insinuating slave traders did blacks a favor by bringing them to the New World. That we were rescued from the dessicated deserts of Africa, lands where people act as water canals and wagons. How else would blacks get to enjoy the prosperities and opportunities such a world as the New World had to offer? Never mind the fact that blacks had to endure the brunt and degradation of slavery for hundreds of years before it was finally abolished in 1863. (Hundreds of years after their predecessors were stolen from their homeland, forced into bondage, beaten to pulps like the savages their “owners” thought they were). Never mind that blacks weren’t given the vote until 1965, and were BANNED from marrying whites until the anti-miscegenation laws were declared unconstitutional 2 years later...not until 1967. 

Yes, you could tell me in so many ways why I should be grateful that my ancestors were shackled, forced onto ships, and then taken across the Atlantic to a faraway land where I would have no civil liberties even decades after such laws aforementioned were passed. I get the part about “America, the beautiful”. The land of the free. The land of opportunity. The land where any man can become king.

But while so many doors are opened for so many people, an equal amount if not more are shut in the faces of so many others. /Opportunity.\ Hard-working people getting forced out of a place they called home for decades because their last names don’t belong on some big racist man with an even bigger mouth’s roster./ Freedom?\ Bigotry, discrimination, far from equal rights. What is beautiful about that?

Maybe that’s why when I watched Black Panther for the first time (and only time as of yet), in my life, I really truly realized Black IS Beautiful. At 33 years of life, I believed it. I saw it. And black culture? As wonderful as the bright, vibrant Wakandan blankets that filled the silver screen as I gazed upon their colors in awe.

It didn’t hurt that the protagonist was a very handsome, well-spoken “Wakandan” man. And who wouldn’t kill for Angela Bassett’s razor sharp bone structure or flawless skin, donning a full head of white hair though she looked like she was still under 50? Or wouldn’t mind having an ounce of Letitia Wright’s creative intelligence and spunk?

These Wakandans lit up the screen with their liveliness. I loved them for their conviction, their loyalty, and most of all, their sense of self. They belonged only to themselves and roamed their land freely. And though the way in which their king was chosen might have seemed archaic, even barbaric to some, it has to be said, each battle was fought fairly, and each opponent given an equal shot. The modern democracies of today hold elections handled by much dirtier hands, men and women running with less pure intentions in their hearts, with little concern for the values and ideologies this supposed nation was built on. But I’m not here to talk about the orange man.

Let’s cut back to the Wakandans. Yes. They lived in a prosperous world, full of futuristic gadgets, highly advanced technologies; lands outlying the urban crawl were breathtakingly verdant with natural rocks reaching far above, piercing the blue air. It was wonderful.

And in a world where a young black person might be constantly told they are stupid or savage-like or ugly, Black Panther boldly says, you are intelligent, clever, regal, and beautiful. Our strengths go beyond the basketball and football fields. We can earn scholarships based on academic achievement and not how well we can sink a ball into an open circle. 

If Wakanda existed today, it would be an untapped mountain of potential. As the Wakandas so delicately displayed, gently harvesting their gleaming, violet crops of Vibranium.

What would our ancestors have achieved if our world was not invaded by foreign beings? How many brilliant minds were raped of brilliance and sent to suffer like dogs on a foreign continent? Forced to believe they were nothing more than a piece of vermin to work the fields, get whipped to the verge of death, have their spirits smashed into the dirt along with their faces?

If you are groomed to believe you are special, that your life means something, that it means as much as any other man’s, and that the world is a place worth your existence, you would stand strong with your head held high and value righteousness over ego.

If you are groomed to believe you are worthless, that your life means nothing, and the only way to alter your status is to lie and cheat and steal, you will walk with a hunched over back, a broken soul, and a mean spirit that very well may leave you in the spot you began. 

Sometimes I wonder if the person who told me his ancestors did my people a favor by bringing them here really believed that as his bottom line. Broken spirits and bruised bones (not to mention the deaths of those that did not survive the voyage over) seemed a high price to pay for a freedom we still struggle to obtain today. Because scores are still not settled, and tragedies happen constantly. Black lives are lost while white men walk. Yes, many of us enjoy our lives here. But I almost don’t want to shake the hand of the man that beat me. Would you? (And I don’t mean the modern.man..I mean, physically go back in time and shake one of those slave owners' hands. Forget that.)

True. Africa isn’t a lush paradise like the jungles of the Amazon but...I feel the continent lost more than just bodies. It lost what those bodies could do, the souls that lived within them, and the minds that ruled them. Beautiful people, strong in body, mind and in spirit. Language. Culture shown through clothing and rituals. Grand landscapes. This is what Wakanda has shown me. It is fictional and still...it has taught me there is more to me than I think there is. And that black is far more beautiful than people allow themselves to see.

Wakanda!