By Daymyen Tyler Layne

Prologue:

I am torn from my history. I am torn from my past. I will never know my father, past the interactions of a ten year old boy. I do not know that I will ever see my ancestors on the ancestral plane. Purple hues in skies that my eyes may never set sight on. I am lost. I feel…lost…Lost. And I do not know if I will ever find my way back. 

These are the feelings that I left this theater with. There were other feelings as well; overwhelming JOY, a beaming pride of Black History that I cannot shake, a deeper recognition and an invigoration of our matriarchal nature, blaring positivity, hope, and a new found love for this universe that Marvel has carefully curated, within that giving the reins to Ryan Coogler with what could be the most important film in all of the phases; The origin story of King T’Challa: The Black Panther. What I did not expect from this film was my for soul to be torn in two. That…I shall explain as we journey together. 

The Experience. 

 

These thoughts are my own. I do not speak for an entire people – although some may feel akin. I have now had about four days to digest my experience with Black Panther. It is, indeed, the Marvel movie that all comic book fans deserve. As a fan of comics since I was a boy, like many Black Nerds, I often found it hard to identify with the superheroes that I saw on screen or read on the page. As we search and search for those that we identify closest with, I chose most of the ideologies that lie with Detective Comics’ Superman (sans ‘The American Way” -_- because that propaganda just didn’t need to be there). With a symbol of hope standing as the House of El’s crest, this character led me to believe I could be stronger than most, in the face of all adversity. That I could rise above all weapons formed against me and persevere in the face of injustice, even though he’d never look like me, until Steel. Thanks Shaq. Then there was John Stewart. Born to the page in 1971, ten years before me, A marine, which made it relatively easy for him to fit into what his roles and responsibilities were as the latest rendition of Earth’s Green Lantern. Far and away the superhero that I hold closest to my heart, as I saw much of myself in his stoic nature and his ability to hold true to his values when others wanted him to break the rules. All while using the power of his ‘Will’ to push his, or the Green Lantern Corps’, agenda along. A founding member of the Justice League (anyone recognize his absence in that film? – Still waiting for them to ‘Unite The Seven’ as the original advertisements touted). As we look for the ways in which we can align ourselves with our heroes, we look for what is best in them. Their power, things that make them great, how they push through adversity, the things that push us to be what we hope to be when we are in our darkest hour. John Stewart exemplified that for me, and he looked like me. As the word is beginning to realize, this is paramount.

There were others that I would, or should, pay homage to, and I am sure that I am forgetting some. Damon Wayans and his Blankman – with slapstick comedy, Robert Townsend and his Meteor Man, Wesley Snipes and his Blade, Michael Jai White and his Spawn, and even Tai’Mak and his Last Dragon in Harlem. We’ve been fortunate enough to experience new adaptations of Black heroes to the screen as of late by the likes of Luke Cage, a bulletproof Black man, wearing Trayvon Martin’s figurative hoodie, in a day and age where children, like Tamir Rice, are being shot down in the street and even X-Men’s Bishop, as weak as that role was. Black heroes to the screen are not a foreign concept – however Black people have had to be creative in the ways in which we have brought these characters to life, and Coogler’s Black Panther is no different. What is different, this time around, is the monstrosity of the engine behind what is the Disney/Marvel machine. Armed to the teeth with $200M dollars the cast and this director, our Ryan Coogler, set forth to make history. I think we can all say they succeeded.

Coogler, The Tempered Radical.

Let’s get one thing straight. Ryan Coogler is a Tempered Radical. Debra Meyerson describes these figures as “people who look to succeed in their organizations yet want to live by their values or identities, even if they are somehow at odds with the dominant culture of their organizations…” With the three movies that he does have under his belt at the ages of 27 (Fruitvale Station), 29 (Creed), and now 31 with Black Panther, he is finding a way to move the needle within the constructs of Hollywood, with extreme quality. As I attempt to critically dissect this film, I often think about this brilliant mind that brings these ideas to fruition. Where he comes from, what his influences are, who he is in terms of the landscape of his profession and the greater narrative of America. It makes me think much of myself, and how I digest what the world makes palpable to me. He gave us Oscar’s story, he gave us the story that Carl Weathers’ deserved back when Rocky was on the rise.  With a laser-like focus Coogler has been able to cut to the nerve with his under-belly exposing cinematography, finding ways to show us, time and time again, the beauty and ugliness of America. He should be recognized for his genius work and his ability to find points of connection for all audience members in attendance.

Black Women Will Save Us ALL.

Growing up in the inner city of New York, our childhood was not glamorous. It was riddled with ‘making ends meet’ even when they had no means to, learning a village-like mentality within the ranks of seven children. I would be remiss to not speak on the women of this movie, as they are the engine that makes it all go. Angela Bassett, Ramonda and the rock of a mother figure, throughout tragedy, reminded me of my own. Enter the sisters…Lupita Nyong’o, as Nakia, the spy and love interest of The King, whose passions to save those less fortunate than her (Bring Back Our Girls!) outweigh the importance of love and the life of a queen. Letitia Wright’s bright spot as Shuri, the STEM wiz, and Danai Gurira’s powerful play on Okoye reminded me of the love and safety net of my own sisters, in which all three of them are older than the four boys. As there has been much of a push for Black women in the field of tech, it is important for your girls and for grown women of color to see Shuri as much of a superheroine as her brother is a superhero. In her own right, none of what happens in this film occurs without her genius, or her light. It was also interesting to see the Dora Milaje and their commitment to Wakanda, a homage paying to the Benin Dahomey Amazons, or the N’Nonmiton, warriors, who pledged their lives to the throne.

As I experienced the Dora Milaje, I thought of my own sisters, and how they pledge their lives to, and fiercely protected, their sons, their Kings, just as they did for me as I was ascending into my own. Once again, this is a depiction that, Black Women Will Save Us All. The matriarchal nature of the film was important to me in different ways as it made me reminiscent of my upbringing.

The Redemption of M’Baku.

“We all may have come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”  – Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

M’Baku’s redemption was an important story arc to me. As we see his tribe shun the ideology of all tribes following the rule of the one King most aligned with Bast and retreat to the mountains some millennia ago, we realize that hundreds of years of abandonment, standing on their own, and an outsider mentality has formed a way of thinking that shows a certain stubbornness that has spanned generations. The gravity of the relationship between M’Baku and T’Challa, and their tribes, seems as if it would never be resolved. The waterfall scene where the mountain tribe shows up is all too powerful that they still have a rightful place amongst the others, yet refuse to succumb to what has come to pass. 

M’Baku is viewed, early in the film, as nothing more than an evil, mindless beast, hell bent on rule. That is, until, after T’Challa has been murdered and Nakia leads Ramonda and Shuri to the mountains. Redemption of the character is found, despite the usual trope of Black Men as ‘Crabs in a Barrel’ – pulling each other down for self-rise. We see a shift in M’Baku and a purported loyalty to ‘his people’, to all of his people and not just his own tribe as things have been historically. This is important as Black Men as really the only ethnic sub-group that is socialized to physically size each other up whenever they aren’t familiar with one another.  This is something I’ve felt in the inner cities of New York as a youth, in Boston as a young adult, and even now as an adult sometimes. This socialization has become one of the most pressing issues for me to break down amongst young Black men, as I press on the poison of toxic masculinity. Not only did M’Baku and his mountain tribe save the king from death, pulling him from the river, only to complete the rally cry in support of T’Challa as W’Kabi and his Border Tribe decide to back Killmonger in his quest for Black world domination. The ability to rise above for ‘The Cause’ is important for us to take away from the relationship between M’Baku and T’Challa.

Killmonger: The Identity Crisis

I am Killmonger…

No one’s perfect

But no one’s worthless

We ain’t deserving of everything heaven and earth is

But word is…good. 

This is my home.

– SOB X RBE – Paramedic

“To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.” – James Baldwin

As this song, Paramedic, blares through the speakers in my car, I tend to lose focus on the road, thinking back to a dark theater where my heart was filled with love and was torn in two. The Black Panther, everything I’ve ever wanted and needed in a superhero film. Layered to perfection. An uncolonized Africa. The dream of all Black dreams. Yet and still, I am torn. Ripped in two. The next day as it comes on again…No ones perfect, but no one’s worthless… The bumper sticker on the car in front of me reads “Pain is Love”. While I’m sure that this is in reference to Jesus and not Ja Rule, I begin to wonder if the universe is sending me signs. In the moments where nothing makes sense, yet everything is clear, I wonder. My mind floats back to that theater, the darkness, and my identity crisis. I found myself separated again, visceral in nature. The same quiet rage as I had when I left the theater rises to the brim again. Burning inside…Heating up from my core, and I couldn’t understand why.

African…Slavery…American…African-American…Black…History…Black History…Connection…Lost…Dial Tone…Flatline…

Middle Passage…Middle Name…Middle Passage…Middle Name.

My middle name is something that I hold dear to me. Tyler. It is the sole connection that I have to what I call a heritage. For it was my Grandmother’s maiden name, Carlotta Marion Tyler, who’s mother ran away with and married a slave, who had taken the last name Tyler as they were both on, the 10th President, John Tyler’s Plantation in Virginia. The name was given to me as a way to pay homage to my past. With that, as you can imagine, comes a metric ton of turmoil. Disconnected from anything that remotely resembles a culture past a plantation, besides my Grandfather’s (Frederick McDonald Layne) Caribbean roots of Guyana and Cristobal District, Panama Canal Zone) – a history of which I am also disconnected from. This void has weighed heavily on me for the past 3-5 years as I find myself constantly thinking in adulthood about connections to the past, ancestry, where my family belongs, and/or comes from, and what I will tell my children when they ask where they are from. This is partially why Killmonger’s character and this film struck a deep cord within me, albeit fiction. To pull at the string of the plight between African people and their now ‘distant cousins’ in the United States was a genius move within the film. It allowed us to envision Africa as to what it could have been, had it not been tainted by colonizers, and hits us right in the American gut with the effects of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. While people are raving about Michael B. Jordan’s last quote about being buried in the sea with his ancestors that jumped from slave ships, what really struck me was Killmonger’s quote about the missing Wakanda in the face of Black-American genocide.

“Where I come from, when black folks started revolutions, we didn’t have the tools to fight back. Where was Wakanda?“-Erik Killmonger

Where I believe most think pieces on this film go wrong is that they are looking at the lived experience of Erik incorrectly. Erik Killmonger is the personification of Black Rage in America. To have his father ripped from him at a tender young age, further cut from an African past that he was, both, figuratively and literally foreign to is a ‘tell’ of what is to come. This sort of disconnectedness sets the stage for the perfect storm within him. We should also recognize that the disconnect from our African history, in reality, also isn’t usually met with open arms. As I have been told before that ‘You are Black, you aren’t African”, by African people, there is an undertone that African-Americans that lived through an American Black experience aren’t of pure African worth.

Furthermore, the juxtaposition of ALL of the strong female characters from Wakanda, and Erik’s clear lack of female influence – his mother was literally a non-factor amongst character development – is a clear depiction of how ‘different’ Erik’s upbringing is from T’Challa’s. All that we see from him is lust, and violence. Base psychological flares of consciousness, and more toxic masculinity. This was purposeful to depict the ability for Killmonger’s sociopathic tendencies and disregard for human life. We should recognize that this is not enough to explain away the misogyny, and propensity of violence towards women.

Hints of a Martin versus Malcolm relationship burn through the screen as T’Challa and Killmonger go toe to toe, and, again, I found myself in a very precarious place. In a movie where I am supposed to see myself in the hero. Typically, I am always the good guy’s good guy.  I found myself asking – If being of African descent is my superpower, and I am disconnected from that, where is the heart of that plant for me? Or shall I be Erik Killmonger embodied, driven by rage, and forge my future ahead by any means?

This identity crisis left me having to choose between; connecting with ascending to be the King that I know I am versus; being cut off from my heritage, losing my father at 10 (not seeing him again until 26, then learning that he was dead and in the ground 5 days after he was buried), growing up in an inner city, and rising above all of that to take the throne anyhow. It is for these reasons that I see N’Jadaka for what he is.

All of this being said – Black Panther is one of the best, if not the best Marvel movie to date. I do not say this because it is an overwhelmingly black cast, or a magnificent ensemble of blackness, but because the layers within the film. The layers that pull you in a thousand different directions and make you relate to what you see, hear, and feel from the screen. However, Rotten Tomatoes currently has it ranked as the best film of all time. Just saying…

Aside from the obvious, creating story arcs where young black children can look at this film and say, “Ma…T’Challa looks like me…” or “I want to be as passionate and revolutionary as Killmonger” or “I want to save the day like M’Baku” or “I want to protect you like Okoye” or “I want to be as smart and sassy as Shuri” or “I want to be as regal as Ramonda” (And we all know Queen Angela is regal) is important and Hollywood should take notice. The true beauty of this film was that, besides Ulysses Klaw (Klaue) , Slavery, and Colonialism, the “villains” opposing Black Panther were not truly antagonists. They were competing interests, justified in their passion for their people. Different methods which all lead to similar goals. It all amounted to people connecting to these characters in way that they did not expect. For me that character was N’Jadaka. A tortured soul, and a beautiful mind, wounded by a past that he did not create.

The credits roll. First cut-scene. More credits. Second cut-scene. The Black Panther will return with The Avengers, and I related to Killmonger, the inner city kid genius, more than I did T’Challa, the risen King. That was unexpected. Indeed not perfect, definitely not worthless, fighting against the world around me to find my ascension.

Peace and Love,

Daymyen Tyler Layne

2/20/18