Black History Month is at an end
and Walt Disney told our story.
We learned about Wakanda
and Black Panther got the glory.
Wearing dashikis and head wraps,
we clapped and cheered for Wakanda;
that magical of all kingdoms,
it looks just like Uganda!
Now, Uganda is over in Africa,
and the poverty rate is high.
Healthcare is abysmal
and people with cholera, they still die.
The folks over in Somalia?
They ain’t looking so good.
Trump just bombed them again,
just like I knew he would.
But over by way of Ethiopia,
the folks there got a plight.
They ain’t eating at all.
And it ain’t about a hunger strike.
The African women of Liberia
have long been seen as slaves;
sex slaves to be exact
and that don’t get no praise.
What about over in Kenya?
They got educated folks
and still, some end up homeless
Look it up, this ain’t no hoax.
Now we come to Ghana,
is this a kingdom too?
It was once ruled by the British.
Does that give you a clue?
Libya is off the chain
and slavery is everywhere.
America and NATO
filled Libyans with despair.
But we celebrate Black History Month
with Black Panther to the rescue.
There’s a kingdom over in Africa,
where lives the privileged few.
Wakanda, is its name.
Its Black Panther leads the charge
against usurpers to the throne
within the kingdom or at large.
Vibranium is its weapon,
against enemies far and wide.
I bet real African nations
wish this kingdom was by their side.
Between fantasy and reality,
we choose fantasy every time.
and we’d rather pay Walt Disney
our last hard-earned dime.
We don’t care about Liberia,
because that is just too real.
And we don’t live in Uganda
where cholera is a big deal.
We want to live in Wakanda,
fake as it can be.
But that is what we are,
fake people with a fake history.
This here ends Black History,
with many thanks to Walt Disney
who sat us down in Wakanda;
a kingdom; a magical fantasy.
Written by,
Shelby I. Courtland
©2018 Shelby I. Courtland
In my opinion, it is a shame that throughout this entire short month that has been set aside to showcase Black History, Walt Disney and Marvel COMICS took over the focus that should have been on REAL Black heroes and heroines who were on the front lines, battling slavery, oppression, Jim Crow, segregation, voting rights, gentrification, mass unemployment, mass homelessness, a school-to-prison pipeline, mass incarceration, income inequality, substandard health care, cuts to education, inadequate housing, economic inequality, food insecurity, crime, violence, drugs, gangs, teen pregnancies and high homicide rates of Black youth in inner cities and the list is endless.
There was no focus on the above because Black people were so easily distracted into wearing African head wraps and dashikis because a movie was hyped about a fictional kingdom in Africa where there was untold wealth and a superhero to the rescue to protect his rich kingdom.
We would rather remain blind to the facts and to reality. We want, for two hours, to forget the realities we face because we need to be made to ‘feel good’ about belonging to some kingdom in Africa that isn’t even real. How pathetic is that? We want Walt Disney to hurry up and give us Part II of “Wakanda Forever” just in time for next Black History Month so that we can, again, focus on fantasy and not on our reality. How sad is that?
When have we ever lived a “Wakanda Forever” life here in AmeriKKKa? Do you seriously think that even with the links that I have provided in my poem, that the REAL Africa is anything at all like what Walt Disney would have you believe?
When you left the theater, did you see “Wakanda” when you stepped outside? Did you see “Wakanda” when you returned home? Did you see “Wakanda” when you checked out the local news where you live? Did you see “Black Panther” save any Black man, woman or child from being arrested or shot and killed by cops for playing in a park with a toy gun or for failing to use the proper turn signal or for selling loose, un-taxed cigarettes or for simply sleeping in their bed?
How did paying Walt Disney and Marvel Comics for the ‘pleasure’ of watching their distraction help you in any way? Did wearing your dashiki and African head wrap stop the police from pulling you over? Did wearing your dashiki and African head wrap stop your landlord from handing you an eviction notice because your neighborhood is about to be gentrified? Did the “Black Panther” swoop down and take you to “Wakanda Forever?” If you are reading this, Black man, woman, teenager(the few who can read), then the answer is “NO!”
Black History Month? Who needs it when we’ve got “Wakanda Forever!”
“Wakanda?” Forever!
“Thank you Walt Disney for supplying us with our REAL and TRUE History, THIS Black History Month! All hail Walt Disney!”
shelbycourtland 
Splendid article, Shelby. The grip that Disney and all the studios that think in lockstep with white supremacist assumption keep the truth at bay, overwhelmingly encouraging fairy tales that echo and seek to justify all the other oft repeated soundbites it takes to perpetuate the Big Lie. A couple years ago I wrote a piece on Africa without Europeans, it speaks to your topic and I hope it is accurate. With that disclaimer in mind:
https://billziegler1947.com/2016/04/21/a-map-of-africa-sans-colonies/
Thanks for your outstanding voice!
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Thank you for your comment and for the compliment on this one and for the link. I am almost speechless. It would seem that descendants of slaves prefer to remain in total ignorance of truth and would instead, prefer fantasy even when their lives are lived so far from fantastical as to be ludicrous. And to prefer to pretend that a movie can invoke a false sense of temporary euphoria to the point where it renders much of its audience totally unfocused on reality is just beyond the end of enough. I simply don’t understand it. I really don’t, how people can be so far removed from reality by what to me is likened to some form of mass hypnosis.
Normally, I don’t have a problem with people ‘movie watching’. What I have a problem with is the fact of when it eclipses what should be the real reasons for celebrating Black History Month. This movie, in essence, rendered real gains by Black people, null and void when compared to what changes it provoked in Black people when they went so far as to make themselves up to appear to be representatives of a fake kingdom in Africa while ignoring the truth about that continent. To me, that is the definition of absurd.
Even talk shows were not focusing on the usual suspects touted out for the celebration of Black History Month, only this movie’s actors/actresses were the focus and also the focus was on a fake comic book character king of a fake kingdom. I just cannot wrap my head around any of this, it is so completely beyond my comprehension.
Bill, again, I sincerely thank you for your comment.
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Powerful Shelby!! Bless you.
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Thank you so much Marcus, for your comment. I just do what I can and it is quite apparent, that it is still, not enough! Again, I thank you for the compliment on this one.
Stay strong, my friend!
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Shelby, more and more I feel the house is on fire and you and I are running around like crazy trying to wake people up and get them out of the building. Hopefully I will see some good come of this before I die.
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Dr. Bramhall, I highlighted your comment because that is exactly what we seem to be doing and I can think of no better analogy than that to state the facts of what we are doing.
I guess people are just too far gone with regards to the relentless brainwashing that is all around us every day. I don’t know what else it could be that could make people so totally unaware and willfully so, as to be blind to what is reality. You and I face this mess every day and we don’t head for the nearest brainwashing center to get our daily dose of fantasy and yet, millions seem to do just that.
I do believe that smartphones have actually taken the place of actual human brains because not many are using that grey matter between their ears anymore. That is quite obvious. And why we keep trying, I don’t know because it is also quite obvious that we are having no affect on these idiots; none at all.
I thank you most sincerely for that spot on comment!
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Too true. Especially the part about smartphones replacing our actual brains. I have been feeling for a long time that smartphones (even though i am typing this on one) have had an overall negative effect on us. The ONLY real pro i can think of them is that i can connect with other people who aren’t otherwise brainwashed.
I have multiple times now discarded smartphones for a few months at a time reverting back to dumb clamshell phones. I eventually revert back because of some obligation (email, maps, etc) but my disdain for the devices still stands. All in all I feel as if the brainwashing of blacks has been mostly a success and only a small minority of us are aware of who the real enemy is and what they are doing. Whenever i meet a black person the very FIRST thing i have in my brain is whether or not they still have theirs. Even a piece of it will suffice but normally this is just not the case and it’s so sad because if we were all present we could do great things. Peace Shelby. Thanks for writing.
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Marcus, your comment is spot on as well! I only purchased a smartphone to use because I had thrown my car’s GPS navigation tool away when I sold my car before leaving Minnesota and then when I had to hurriedly leave another state, that is when I bought the cheapest smartphone I could find just to use the GPS navigation and upon settling in my new home, I tossed it on the floor of my closet and it has remained there ever since.
What is extremely telling, in my opinion, is the fact that it is called a ‘smartphone’ seeing as how it’s literally taking the place of the ‘human’ brain. It is another so-called technological advancement that has, ostensibly, been designed to make life easier for humans, pretty much like the computer, from your average garden variety down to the computerized cash register. Back in my college days, when I worked in retail, we had cash registers that required us to figure out change. Nowadays, a computer type device does that for the cashier. And so what need does the cashier have to use his/her brain to do even simple math? These products or items or what have you are, essentially, dumbing us down in ways too numerous to count. They are making us too dependent on this technology and this I believe, we will regret. For many, it is just too late for the simple reason being that they never knew of an era wherein this technology did not exist and so they don’t believe that they can exist without it.
And another sad fact is that it is also too late for Black people because the path many have chosen, they will continue to follow it to their downfall. And nothing anyone can say or do can stop them because the youth of today are hell bent on their own destruction and we see this play out in almost every city in AmeriKKKa, what with gang violence, drug addiction, teen pregnancies, single moms, triple digit homicide rates, increasing high school drop out rates and the list is endless. Our youth are a lost people and they are headed where the truly lost will go; to prison or to the cemetery. I wish it wasn’t so, but I am a realist. So much potential and it is all to be wasted.
Marcus, again, I thank you for your comment!
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Why didn’t I check out your blog when you made this poem. This was so on point with how people adored Black Panther. People may say “But it’s Marvel”. Sure, Marvel made the character back in the 60s, but Disney owns that and the other IPs now. It’s a shame how they think it’s the be-all end-all movie. There are parts of Africa that don’t have poverty or sickness, but they never show those communities on TV. It’s like whenever there’s a movie about Africa it has to be the following.
“Positive representation” (I use this term loosely): Wakanda, The Pride Lands, some random jungle with talking animals, etc.
Negative representation: Mud huts, poverty porn, war torn areas, conflict diamond mines, and UNICEF flies (to borrow a Trevor Noah joke).
Well done!
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Thank you for your comment ospreyshire! I guess I can’t relate to movie watching because I don’t like movies or TV in general. I hardly ever sit down and watch mindless drivel. I am an avid book reader and so no movie does it for me. However, I cannot understand how people can bum rush a movie simply because it has been touted as THE movie to see and Black people will flock to ANY movie that has a mostly Black cast even as that movie depicts American descendants of slaves in the worst possible light. The Black Panther certainly did those of us who are direct descendants of slaves, no favor. I could not help but read about how the film’s only American descendant of slaves was portrayed and that he had to die while some ‘white savior’ in the form of a CIA agent was spared. Black people actually donned head wraps and dashikis to go and sit up and avidly watch that hot mess. And if you initiate a search for The Real Black Panther Party, you will find that this fucking movie heads the list. And this is why I always say, “I no longer despair FOR us. I despair OF us!”
Thank you again for your comment.
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You’re welcome, Shelby. I stopped liking Disney since I was a teenager and I only found even more reasons to dislike it during my adult years. It’s okay if you’re not into movies or TV. I mainly watch on-mainstream films and I rarely ever watch TV. Reading books is a good thing even though most of the stuff I’m reading involves non-fiction (I also have to read more of my Lingala and Swahili language books though).
Yeah, the hype was certainly insane. I did see the movie, but luckily, someone else paid for the tickets when that happened when I was with a group (long story). Killmonger had so many legitimate points for trying to fight back against the neo-colonial agenda, but he’s the bad guy for daring to have liberation for his people. Extending to your point with the CIA agent, I read an opinion piece about various Black Marvel characters with this movie and the Luke Cage series. Apparently, one ADOS female character loses an arm and gets a cheap-looking cyber prosthetic and the writer says how that wouldn’t happen if she got Wakanda technology and T’Challa might as well have said “all lives matter” by not saving people who look like him such as that character or War Machine. I wasn’t aware of that when it came to Google searching that. WOW.
No problem.
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