There are a lot of shitty things going on in the country I love. Kids are being shot in school—and not once in a while, either. The (mostly) Republicans under the sway of the NRA stand in the way of taking any actions that might reduce the “American carnage” that’s getting worse on Mr. Popular Vote Loser’s watch. Additionally, people who’ve known no country other than ours are in danger of being deported because he remains in thrall to his white supremacist base and the senior policy adviser who reminds him every day just what they believe. And that’s just in the past few days.
In spite of all this, or perhaps because of it, I’m going to ask you to indulge me (and possibly yourself) for a few minutes to revel in something good. Something that will nudge our society in the right direction, toward greater love and fellowship and a sense of community across the boundaries of race and culture; boundaries that some among us—those who control the lion’s share of wealth and power—would like nothing more than to exploit in order to keep us divided and ruled by them. Don’t laugh, but I’m talking about a movie and the impact it is expected to have.
The movie is called Black Panther and it was released nationwide here in America on Friday. To say that people are excited about it would be an understatement.
Oh, and screw the haters.
Of course, I don’t know what it’s like to be black and watch this movie explode into our culture. Then again, I don’t know what it’s like to black and do anything else, either. That aside, I wrote once about how I felt as a child finally seeing Jewishness positively represented in a blockbuster movie, so I’ll say that at least I have some idea of what that kind of validation can mean. Either way, I’m not here to comment on what this movie means to African Americans or black people more broadly; they can speak for themselves.
What I am thinking about is what it means to have these great, heroic, and richly-drawn black characters take their place in the vibrant superhero/fantasy culture, and specifically what it means for those who participate in that culture and who are not black. What sparked my thinking was an article called “The Many Meanings of Black Panther’s Mask,” which explored some of the ideas around kids of different backgrounds dressing up in Black Panther costumes and wearing Black Panther masks. The words “cultural appropriation” came up in the article, but the author couldn’t seem to find anyone to quote who had a problem with this phenomenon.
To me, the popularity of Black Panther and the fact that kids (and adults, for that matter) of all races identify strongly enough with the character to want to be him, means that people who aren’t black are putting themselves in the shoes of someone who is. That has an effect on a person. It goes that much further toward cementing the idea in that person’s mind that black people are worthy of the same respect they demand for themselves. In other words, it creates greater empathy. That’s a concept another black hero has emphasized strongly. For one among countless examples, here’s Barack Obama in 2007:
There's a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit - the ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes; to see the world through those who are different from us - the child who's hungry, the laid-off steelworker, the immigrant woman cleaning your dorm room.
Obama was talking about developing empathy for someone who is different from you and is struggling—and notice how racially inclusive his categories were. But identifying someone different from you as a hero, even a fictional one, is another way of broadening your mind and your ability to see yourself in someone of a different background. My hope is that it’s harder to dehumanize someone who looks like your hero. Maybe a white, or Asian, or Latino, or Native American kid who has hero-worshipped Black Panther—or President Obama, for that matter—will have a little more empathy for black Americans across the board.
Is that going to change the world overnight? Is it going to dismantle structural racism and white supremacy, or erase the disparities in our criminal justice system, or end the racially disparate treatment Americans experience from the police deployed to serve them? Of course not. Still, more love is better than more hate. Add up all those people finding themselves looking up to a black hero, and it sure can’t hurt. With all the hurt out there right now, we can at least take a little bit of comfort in that.
Ian Reifowitz is the author of Obama’s America: A Transformative Vision of Our National Identity (Potomac Books).
