Very nice look at Sal's perspective. I disagree with some of what he says about Black Americans compared to Africans/some African immigrants (some of the same concerns or criticisms about Black Americans not realizing their innate abilities could be readily applied to Continental Africans and other Diaspora Africans as well, and I don't think that perspective fully appreciates what Black Americans have fully endured, and still do), but still very well-written and informative take on how Coates's has mangled the Black Panther book and character. As a Black American, who doesn't know in depth about the history (histories), nuances, cultures of Africa I could accept some of the words/names Coates used as him having some knowledge. What I was able to pick up on quickly was his warped views on Black folks in a more generalized sense, particularly Black men, and his attempt to transpose American history/thinking onto Wakanda, but to be fair to him, I would argue just about all the other Black Panther creators have done the same thing, with varying success.
Where Sal asserts that Coates exaggerates African ills for Wakanda, I will say that's something that not just Coates does when it comes to writing stories about Africa (though I am loath to defend him much at all). I think that's a common failing when it comes to writing about Africa. I recall how Judd Winick talked about getting information from a scholar on Africa before he wrote the Batwing book, but some of the same popularized ills showed up in that book. Perhaps most grating is that at least Batwing was set in a real-world country, but Wakanda is supposed to represent an idea, a dream, so to introduce some of these ills, to put them on Wakanda showed a lack of imagination and perhaps exposed some of Coates's self-hate and his own mental/imagination blocks.
Comparatively when writing about Black Americans there can be a tendency to go for stereotype, to not really see or portray Black people as fully three dimensional human beings, but instead to fall back into tropes.
