I see Killmonger as representing the other side of T'Challa's coin.
...There are sound economic reasons why poor people are kept down. Racism is a great way to reduce competition...
...Slaves who were told they weren't even HUMAN learned to read even though they could be tortured and murdered for doing so.
Where were their positive images?
The problem I have with this argument as forwarded by the second statement is that it all but assumes that more and perhaps significantly more of those slaves could have learned to read under those conditions if they tried hard enough to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps." It can sound very humble when someone who's accomplishhed a lot against long odds says "I did it, so can you," but in fact it diminishes the exceptional accomplishments of exceptional individuals or individuals with exceptional motivation. Perhaps more disturbingly to me, the argument ignores the probability that many slaves who did not learn to read might later have and might have even contributed in more modest ways to the larger community if allowed to develop at their own pace as free and human beings uninhibited by an racist, oppressive state.
Economic racism is indeed an effective way to reduce competition. It is a tactic employed by evolved sensibilities, fully aware the defeated, outmoded, politicaly incorrect, overt racism and iron-handed oppression of the past cannot fly today. Tactics have changed to be sure. Progress has been made to be sure. But the following is not universally true:
"People...black or white, young or old...choose to focus on what they want to."
I chose to focus on The Black Panther as reborn through Marvel Knights and continued by RH and even at my age could be inspired by him, as I was by Capt. Benjamin Sisko of Star Trek Deep Space Nine, to step up my game and do even better by my family, achieve more professionally. But I have a college education, a good job and a car to use to reach the retail comic book outlets where I can spend the personal money I'm blessed to be able to put aside for BP monthly.
Where I'm from it is so much easier to follow the exploits of fictional Gangsta Rappers. I'm not saying they're solely to blame for the woes of black folks as much as I hold them responsible for degrading the signal to noise ratio making it harder for an ADD generation to get the messages they need; love thy neighbor.., respect yourself and others (our women), save your money, leave a good first impression, work hard, speak well, don't steal, shoot, kill...
How are they to know that good jobs are increasingly depended on a good credit score and names without apostrophes. A young black mother or couple wanting better for her/their kids aren't likely to be shown a house in a good school district unless the realtor is certain that the color-coded mortgage rate will protect the neighborhood's exclusivity. So the seperate but unequal schools in affordable neighborhoods will have to do hard as it may be for the kids to pull themselves up with the 20 year old textbooks they can't take home so they share with the four others in their group out of the 35 students in their class, half of whom are in another grade. But hey, they got a shot. This is America. They're still better off than 75% of the world, mostly.
"There are so many normal black people in commercials alone this is a non-issue."
Without analyzing the percentages of blacks to whites in commercials and the roles they have in those commercials. This is so not an issue.
Respectfully,
Mont
