Truth Minute: Where is Wakanda? (Part 1) #killmonger
The movie Black Panther, in my personal opinion, truly lived up to the hype that surrounded it for the last few months of build up. I saw the fanfare and how people embrace their heritage. I heard screams of jubilation and awe during specific scenes that were filled with honor, respect and pride. I watched how my wife focused on the way the women of color were not only warriors but also refreshingly feminine. I watched how my sons looked at multiple scenes of african countries filled with beauty and majesty as well as their reaction to seeing a black man defend his Kingdom with honor, power and respect.
To be honest, many of us in the “Diaspora” deeply yearn to relate with our ancestral land and its people. Let me explain. Most recently I was at a dinner with pastors from Africa. Specifically Kenya, and although we shared the same skin tone our cultures were vastly different and I found myself having to explain “the american way” to them which gave me a level of awkwardness that I wish I could study my way out of by just knowing history. But I cannot as studying history is not the same as living that history especially when most of us here in the U.S. do knot know genetically which country or village in Africa we are from. Ironically, many africans are not taught what happened to many of us in their educational system either, so like Erik Killmonger’s character depiction, there is a sense of disappointment and rage that comes when that realization sinks in. So yes, I had plenty of mixed emotions as I watched that film. Part of me had Erik’s rage because it took me back to when I was younger and enrolled in a HBCU and watched films like Sankofa, Roots, or commercials of pot bellied babies of color in squalor with a caucasian asking for funds to alleviate an issue that their ancestors caused through colonization.
That rage, while tempered and healed within my soul, was made fresh during specific scenes and now as an older man I can see that we have so many young and old people of color who are in a constant state of rage within and it manifests through destructive patterns that only yield temporary relief. I have been there. I was looking to reconnect by any means necessary. Whether it was through tattoos of ancient Kemet (Egypt) and Andinkara Symbolization on my body or through the Study of Nuwaupian and Afrocentric literature (See James Baldwin).
I was trying to “Get out” the system to the point that I was appropriating an identity that was not my own (Egyptian Mysticism or Kemetic Science). I looked to the ancestors at a place called the Aahkhet Center but no answer, I looked in books to find out who I was and I could find no trace which left me dazed, bitter and confused. That is, until I found Wakanda. (To Be Continued).
