TO THE EDITOR:
Last Friday’s column "Wakanda Forever, But For Whom?" left readers of the Daily Tar Heel polarized. Some found its tone and language to be racist. Some empowering. That it was written by a Morehead-Cain scholar was encouraging from one perspective. Disappointing from another.
In the use of capitalized “Black” and lowercase “white” throughout the Wakanda Forever column, as well as the articles "Arming Teachers isn't the answer" and "Black students adjust to whiteness of UNC," some saw an act true to the Black Panther movie’s theme of a different world power paradigm. This gave readers a self-test of their reaction to the idea of Black outpacing White. To others, this was a systematic use of journalistic power to put one race below another.
“Colonization” for some was a message that certain things have essential elements indivisible from their nature. To ignore or strip away these elements to suit a singular purpose is to diminish the very nature of the thing. While [the insult] “colonizers” caused others to feel an angry implication that White people should be excluded from participation (or imitation) in a work of art (in this case a movie).
With such division it’s useful to ask — what else might we see in the question "Wakanda Forever, but for whom?" In this story the nation of Wakanda had traditionally been an isolationist and powerful nation. In the final act the new king decides to use the might of his nation not to subjugate the outside world but to empower it: a decision to have Wakanda stand for courage in the face of risk in order to seek betterment and wellbeing For All Kind.
That’s why he’s the hero. And that’s a message, I believe, all Tar Heels can stand behind.
Isaac Leuthold
MBA Candidate, Class of 2018
UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School
