To My Black Brothers and Sisters -- the Black Panther Movie Is Just a Movie….

To My Black Brothers And Sisters -- The Black Panther Movie Is Just a Movie….

I will surely take on the slings and arrows for my critique of one aspect that has taken hold in our Black social gatherings, be it via Social Media or even in our churches, due to the phenomenon that is the Black Panther movie… it has become the literal and proverbial sacred cow of movies for many Blacks. I know of racial pride gone buck-wild, but this Black Panther movie is a runaway white-hot fire… with many of our social scholars equating the Black Panther movie to some life changing Aesop’s epiphany -- oops, I have to check to see if Aesop was Black, notwithstanding, that historically, that he was slave in ancient Greek, because if he were not, he is not worthy to be used in this discussion, according to many of these progressive, social scientists who seem to speak for many Blacks, mostly to our malignant detriment. The sheer worship -- among many of my Black brothers and sisters -- of the Black Panther movie is a convicting testament, as to how we Blacks have been beaten down so much that we are now taking solace/refuge in a movie concocted by Hollywood. I pause here to take the proverbial ‘chill pill’ and to bloviate in street vernacular to say -- ‘chill out’ and, moreover, also to say to my Black brothers and sisters… the Black Panther Movie is simply just a movie…!

I must confess to say that I took my teenage daughter to see the Black Panther movie and we enjoyed it immensely. However, I must also confess too that the Holy Spirit had chastised me not to go and see that movie, yet I yielded to my flesh and the pleadings of my daughter. You ask why was the Holy Spirit warning me not to see the Black Panther movie… and the answer was because of the scenes where the movie characters were communing with dead ancestors, and, essentially, engaging in demonic necromancy and voodoo-like worship (1^st Samuel, Chapter 28:3-25). During those scenes, I had to lean over to my beloved daughter to remind her of the demonic nonsense that she was witnessing and be able to discern and distinguish, notwithstanding the fleshly entertainment.

It is a truism that sometimes, we do not have to physically take drugs to be out of our collective minds; this seems to be the phenomenon we are witnessing among many Blacks, vis-à-vis those who are influenced by the Black Panther movie. We are still killing each other in a huge swath of Africa and we are still selling each other into slavery, even children, in that part of the world too -- but, alas, it is ok because it is Black on Black. I tell you a mystery, in the Caribbean, on the Island of Saint Kitts, in the hamlet of Saint Paul’s, where I was raised by my beloved grandmother, Edith Hazel, in poverty, the people who socially ‘beat us’ down were not White -- but people who look like my grandma and I. In a sobering addition, there are more Black-on-Black killings in many of our Black enclaves -- Chicago; Baltimore; Oakland… -- that happened this past weekend alone than the tragic school shooting that took place down in Florida.

It is woeful what our so called leaders have done to us, even more grating that many of them are preachers. Some of these racial pimps -- Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson -- were given the means to better our communities, and once again, forgive me for my secular blaspheme for not referring to these men as ‘reverends’; these leaders have feathered their nests and actually have perpetrated the social conditions… so that they can maintain power -- they are like the pharmaceutical companies that wish that certain ailments continue, so that the palliative revenues would continue to feather their coffers. Now, there is no ‘substance’ to what the politicians/preachers say… so instead, we seek refuge in a Black Panther movie.

This Black pride, as lifted from the Black Panther movie, have many of us now living the prideful lie that we are better than our White brothers and sisters, who too believed that same demonic nonsense that they are better than us. To my Black Christian brothers and sisters in Brooklyn and elsewhere -- why are there bars on our house windows? Those of us who have been robbed and raped… who did those terrible deeds to us? We walk around acting morally superior to the White man when the Incubus that is father Adam and mother Eve’s original Sin did not only implicate them, but us too… meaning that the vilest act the White man is capable of … we are capable of said act too. What did the Apostle Paul say: do not boast and say that you cannot do this Sin or that Sin, but pray the Lord does not allow Satan to come into you and then you engage in that Sin.

We walk around shouting platitudes like ‘Black-Lives-Matter’ and in reality, there are seemingly no manifestations of our convictions, and, then a movie like the Black Panther movie comes out and we take solace/refuge because the realities of our lives are too harsh to face, and just like a narcotic, the Black Panther movie gives us the illusion of paradise momentarily, unattached from our sobering realities. If you are old enough, you would have seen this phenomenon before too when we had the Million-Man-March; as a consequence of that march, my wife’s friend told her that now a Black man may now open the car door for her -- you cannot make this idiocy up.

There are movies and tomes that are worthy and that speak of the Black/African American condition/experience and that are rooted in reality: see Denzel Washington’s movie, Glory where he portrays the real life slave that took on the heavy burdens of securing freedom, which won Mr. Washington his first Oscar for his performance; see Eyes On The Prize; See Alex Haley’s, Roots; See Spike Lee’s, Malcolm X; and see John Singleton’s, Boyz In The Hood that portrays the realism that is life in many of our Black enclaves. I end with this wide awake reality that in every Marvel movie, Stand Lee has a cameo appearance just like we saw in the Black Panther movie… you know why Black folks: it is because he is the writer of the original Black Panther character (July of 1966) -- incidentally, Stand Lee is White!

It is my wont that I use music to help flesh out the themes of a given blog and here, I have used DMX’s -- They Don’t Know Who We Be -- the lyrics apply to many of our Christian preachers, politicians, and many of us who are replacing reality with the Black Panther movie.… drill down into the hyperlink and enjoy the realities of many of our lives. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB2_MmtMoIc