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#is still a predominantly white male space and i think everyone would benefit by making that demographic
popcorn-for-dinner · 6 years
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Wakanda Forever: Finding Black Pride in Kings and Teenage Girls
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“You don’t know what you were missing, till you have it”
There’s a particular scene in Wonder Woman that often gets referenced when the film is being discussed; the “No Man’s Land” scene. I had the pleasure of watching Wonder Woman alone (yeah, come at me) and at the time of watching, I had no reason to believe that this would become an iconic scene. To me, it was just another good action set piece. Granted, one that I applauded (metaphorically, of course. I’m not trying to validate those stereotypes), but still, just a well-done sequence.
I would soon come to realise the power of subjectivity.
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In various discussions since leaving that theatre, I have listened to countless women, both in my real life and online, talk about the effect that the scene had on them. Their experiences of joy, pride and childlike glee, with many being brought to tears.
I am under no illusion that its star (Gal Gadot) and director (Patty Jenkins) were both aware of the importance of the scene they were constructing and the need for such a scene in this movie in today’s world. I quickly realised that this scene wasn’t (primarily) directed at me. Sure, I could appreciate it from a story or technical point-of-view, but it could never get me in my feels the way it did my female counterparts. Where I saw another hero blocking bullets, they saw a woman standing, against and for men, for what she knew was right. The largely underrepresented female, superhero-watching audience was finally seeing a woman exhibit such heroics on the big screen.
“Those who complain about representation, are the ones who’ve always been represented”.
Like most sane people, I love Will Smith. I grew up on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reruns, then came the Men in Blacks, Hitch, Hancock, I, Robot etc. He was a movie star, he did it all: action, drama, comedy, sci-fi. To me, he was the movie star. I would go on to, harshly, learn that he wasn’t the norm, but the exception.
I was now seeing the ubiquity of white movie and tv stars, I now noticed that beyond the handful of black movie stars, people with my skin colour were criminally underrepresented. This was weird because I was living in a country (Nigeria) where everyone had my skin colour. So, to a young boy who was falling in love with the arts, the idea quickly became, only white people get that shot and maybe a handful of Black Americans, but even then, they definitely still gotta tell the white man’s story.
Which brings us to 2018. A year in which I get to see an African King and a black teenage girl save the world. An African King and a Black Teenage Girl! Many have criticised the hype for Black Panther, with some stating that the importance of the movie is being overstated by its fans. “Y'all acting like this movie gonna solve racism”.
I do not think the importance of these movies can be overstated.
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Black Panther is a big budget superhero film that focuses on an African nation, its king and citizens. It features an impressive, predominantly black (and beautiful) cast. This cast not only boasts talented actors with strong African backgrounds (Lupita Nyong'o, Daniel Kaluuya and Danai Gurira) but it also includes actors based in Africa, not least of whom is the South African legend, John Kani. Twenty years ago, a convergence of all these factors would have seemed nearly impossible.
A Wrinkle in Time, in its own right, conquers its own fair share of impossibilities. In keeping with a career that continually breaks new ground while affecting change, Ava DuVernay now brings a sci-fi, Disney, epic with a brown skinned girl as its heroine. Who would have thought? Even in a world where Katniss Everdeen and Hermione Granger became household names and shot their respective actresses to bona-fide movie star status, such a movie still seemed impossible.
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Ava DuVernay has not shied away from the fact that this is new ground for everyone. I’ll admit that I am not familiar with the original 1963 novel and its ensuing legacy (it wasn’t high on our literary lists in Nigeria). But boy am I excited. In creating this film that will inevitably be a sea change moment, Miss DuVernay has surrounded herself with notable producers (Catherine Hand and Tendo Nagenda), the writer and co-director of Frozen, Jennifer Lee and a cast that includes Mindy Kaling, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Michael Pena and Oprah Winfrey (playing an all-knowing being, because, duh) along with Chris Pine and Zach Galifianakis rounding out the cast.
As mentioned earlier, A Wrinkle in Time’s heroine is a brown skinned teenage girl. However, this was not always the case. In the original novel, Meg Murry is white. Here she is portrayed by newcomer Storm Reid. Miss DuVernay has continually referenced her desire to create new worlds and how, expectedly, these worlds would be different from what her white and male counterparts would envision. The effect such inclusion could possibly have cannot be overstated.
Really, is that not what we hope for? What we all want? That inclusivity. A world in which a young girl can look at a big budget Disney movie poster and see herself as the heroine.  A world in which we get Angela Bassett finally playing a queen. Where young brown and black skinned girls, and maybe just as importantly young boys, can see that girls can save the world too.  The same world where the great Forrest Whittaker admits to carrying out extensive research on the Yorubas in order to bring authenticity to his role. This world only has positives. It provides filmmakers with more diverse voices, from different backgrounds, the opportunity to share their visions. All sorts of stories are told in this world and everyone gets to be represented. Such inclusion can only lead to better, well-informed stories and more opportunities for people too often left in the fringes.
In their introductory scene from Captain America: Civil War, King T’Chaka (John Kani) and his son, T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) speak “isiXhosa” (A South African language). This was not originally in the script, it was an input from John Kani. This input led to a scene in a Hollywood film in which two actors are speaking isiXhosa and neither of them is a warlord nor an internet scammer. It might not seem like much, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s huge.
It just goes to show that the inclusion of diverse voices behind and in front of the camera bleeds its benefits in such subtle and wide-ranging ways. Some of these benefits may not be visible to the lay man but they mean the world to those marginalized groups.
At the premiere of Black Panther, John Kani gushed about the “seriousness” of the movie and why he wanted to show Africa and its denizens in a different light. To deal with the myth that “if the white colonialists did not land in Africa, we’ll still be walking in skins…”. Frankly, that’s a cause we can all rally behind.
Now, no one is saying that things are automatically fixed or that change has happened, we are definitely still some ways off but it’s a hell of time to be alive. What we need to then do, is not falter but use these burgeoning changes as catalysts for a much larger attack on the status quo.
While the eventual quality of both Black Panther and A Wrinkle in Time is not the driving force of this article, I would be remiss if I did not mention that in the hands of Ryan Coogler and Ava Duvernay, I feel little reason to fret about the outcome. They are two filmmakers that made instant splashes with their unique visions in Fruitvale Station and Creed (Coogler) and Selma and 13th (DuVernay). I’m not sure I trust any two people to better understand the importance of the positions they have been placed in and the need for success.  They are not only capable of delivering the goods, they are more than deserving of the opportunity. They, it seems, live their lives by that mantra that we, as minorities have stuck in our psyche.
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Would it be a stretch to draw a line between the release and adoration of Wonder Woman and the rise of female empowerment (#MeToo, Time’s Up) in 2017? Probably. Could I make the argument to you after some shots of Vodka? Most likely. The point is that change starts from all sorts of weird places and all we can do is hope. Hope that the change is not stifled by its location but given the space and support to grow. So yes, I’ll be with my tickets opening weekends of Black Panther and A Wrinkle in Time hoping that this is the beginning of some form of change in Hollywood that would hopefully grow and spread to the larger world.
Bankole Imoukhuede
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21stcenturymen · 6 years
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Where Do We Go From Here?
RATING: Everyone
After 29 posts and a little over half of the content I want to cover in this blog (and eventually, book) I think it’s time for a reset. Not a recap, mind you, though a listing of posts and links might be a good idea soon. This is a post to refocus the intent here.
This blog is written by a cis white man for cis white men. It’s not intended to be instructive to women, people of color, or non-gender binary folks. It’s to help white men see through our own crap. And we’ve got a lot of it. An embarrassment of privilege and misdeeds. And I started writing this to help cis white men understand we don’t have to perpetuate that anymore. We can be whole people while helping to lift up our fellow humans. Humanity is not a zero sum game.
The history of white male supremacy is long and vile and none of us wants to look at it and say, “Yeah, I did that.” Because - with relatively few exceptions - there are few white men alive who caused the situation we’re in. But we can’t say we don’t benefit. Let’s analyze one of the simplest examples of continued privilege: land.
White men came to this continent, stole land from the indigenous peoples, and still haven’t given it back. Ever. And when the descendants of those indigenous peoples tried to protect their land and water from an illegal pipeline that violated a century or more of treaties (this is still an ongoing situation, BTW) our own government hired mercenaries from around the region (some from my hometown Hennepin County police force) to protect corporate interests owned by - you guessed it - white men. White men who’s investors and stockholders are predominantly - you guessed it again - white men.
Centuries of theft, rape, and murder (to the tune of… 100 million or more human souls?) and we get to drive through parks, “buy” land for remote compounds where we either ski and sip champagne or hold up in defense from a “tyrannical government.” Or, most obviously, just continue to exist anywhere on this continent. All while promoting anti-immigrant sentiment; possibly the most blatant example of nationalist hypocrisy since… 30 years ago, or the 20 times before that. No reparations. No apologies, though Justin Trudeau’s 2016 apology to the indigenous peoples of North America I’m sure went a long way* to assuage such concerns while he was continuing to provide government subsidies and free passes to corporations who continue to violate this land’s rightful owners.
This is to say nothing of 400 years of slavery followed by 80 years of Jim Crow, followed by continued segregation, voter intimidation, and the fact that all women have been voting for less than 100 years.
The ability to walk down the street without a second glance from police and without being harassed for our bodies is privilege. No, we didn’t create it, but we still benefit from it and to deny that is not only denying history but disrespectful to our own sense of reality and progress. You and I, fellas? We can’t begin to be better men, to grow beyond the supremacy and entitlement of our predecessors into a richer and more nuanced humanity while we continue to ignore our responsibilities.
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It’s winter. Cave-bro needs to stay warm. Artwork by Hannah Boehme
If you insist on looking back, look back with shame, not with nostalgia. Look back on generations of lost progress, lost humanity, and lost dignity. Look back on generations of white male supremacy, how that generationally-ingrained trauma and violence has afflicted both victims and oppressors alike. Look back, and learn. We don’t have time machines. We can’t go back to a “simpler” time, but even if you could regain your supremacy and not have your privilege constantly questioned, would you?
Sure, go back to the 1950’s - the era that modern nostalgia tells us was so great. When automobile manufacturers convinced our government to dismantle inexpensive public transit so everyone could buy cars and fatten automakers’ wallets. When advertising agencies and Dow Jones stalwarts all but physically assaulted women out of the workforce because they didn’t want men to feel bad about themselves after coming back from war. And because they feared female empowerment.
Sure, go back to the 1880’s when women and most people of color were violently restricted and disenfranchised from voting (this is pretty much still happening, too, though maybe not to the same degree).
Sure, go back to the 1850’s when we, ya know, owned people.
But do you really want to go back to any of these eras? The past is not some lost Atlantis of peace and happiness. There is only now and the future. The rest is nostalgia. A lie sold to you by the same marketing firms who told women their place was in the home. But that was never true. Now, women, people of color, and those who have no time for our centuries’ worth of cis, male-centric pronouns have movements to empower them. And we need to get on board and support them. We need to be reliable whether we get rewards for it or not. Not because we want to be on the winning side, but because it’s the right thing to do and we have the arc of history to look back on and know that we represent and benefit from centuries of violence and cruelty.
PURPOSE: Knowing that we benefit from these things does not mean we should disappear or that we’re not human and worthy of dignity and respect. But we have to act like men and own our responsibilities. As we go into 2018, I want you to examine your privilege. Look at the ways you benefit from being a cis white man and seek to dismantle them. Not yourself, mind you, but the institutions that keep you in comfort. Hire a qualified candidate who doesn’t look like you. Call out street harassers and crass friends who insist on degrading women. Acknowledge the space you take up and respect the autonomy of those around you. Take feedback as an opportunity to learn, not an indictment of your humanity. Look at popular movies as having heroes worthy of your film-going dollar whether those heroes look like you or not.**
Or don’t. These things all require effort and they won’t be easy. But knowing what’s right and choosing to do what’s easy is the greater crime, and one you’ll have to live with later. There’s no concrete reward for doing what’s right, but there’s certainly punishment for failing to. Maybe not in court, maybe not even in being called out for your lack of action. But you’ll know. And making good choices is what makes real men. Not indifference or lazy cruelty. You can do this. I believe in you. I believe in us. We can do this. After all, we have centuries of our predecessors to atone for. Let’s remember to blame them for resentment we see towards white men, and no one else.
And I promise not to leave you hanging. There’ll be no issues raised on this blog without solutions. No criticism without opportunity. And if I fail to provide a solution in response to an issue, call me on it. I look forward to it.
Next up: All Our Heroes Are Dead
*No. No, it didn’t.
**Star Wars, Mad Max, and Ghostbusters having female leads is WAY overdue, and in no way ruins your childhood. The movies you loved still exist and you can watch them anytime you want. Seriously, don’t be that guy.
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Two Places I Love & Reflection
Out of all the places I could think of, here are two places that I love:
Takoma Piney Branch Local Park 
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Located next to Piney Branch Elementary School, the Takoma Piney Branch Local Park has grown significantly over the past ten years, and continues to do so to the benefit of the community. Once, as far as I can remember, it was just a park with simple infrastructure: playground equipment, tennis and basketball courts, and lots of green space to run around in or sit (just make sure you don’t land on dog poo). As of now, the park is booming in development. Having established a skate park (for people like me), upgraded playground equipment and courts for kids and adults alike, and started development for a dedicated green space for dogs makes me love this place. Without a doubt, it’s more community friendly then it was before.
Downtown Silver Spring
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Hosting some of best shops, eats, and live entertainment available, downtown Silver Spring is definitely a winner on my list. I love this place because it has something for everyone. If you don’t like live music, or other performances, you could go to the movies watch the latest blockbuster. Suppose you got tired of sitting around on the benches at Veterans plaza - then, you could choose to get athletic and show off your awesome ice skating skills at the ice rink or (if the ice rink isn’t there) you could just walk around as you sip your Kung Fu Tea inside Elsworth Place Mall, or around the block exploring your myriad of options to engage with on a hot summer day. The point is that with all the options available for someone, Downtown Silver Spring is sure to not disappoint one - and if you liked reading this then perhaps you’ll love reading books at the new Downtown Silver Spring Library, or perhaps you already are from the comfort of the new portable workstation on Elsworth Ave. designed by architecture students from the local community college, Montgomery College.
Reflection on Equity and the Built Environment
Of the two built environments that I described above, both have achieved the goal of being equitable to the community. These places are openly and easily accessible to many people - the Takoma Park metro station is less that 2 miles away from the Takoma Piney Branch Local Park, and the Silver Spring metro station is about a block away from the heart of Downtown Silver Spring (DSS). So, there shouldn’t be a problem for most people wanting to get access to these public areas. 
Green spaces are very important to the community. That’s why parks and other green areas are established within the built environment. According to an article by Howard Frumkin,  “ Parks and green spaces represent critically important environmental amenities; contact with nature is highly valued, and it offers a range of health benefits.  In cities and towns, parks are the principal venue for regular public access to nature. Parks also offer settings for physical activity and social interaction ” This is most likely why the Takoma Piney Branch Local park is being built up more - the people behind the project beleive this will strengthen the community in a variety of ways. Personally, the feeling of walking through an aesthetically pleasing place on a morning makes me feel more trusting of my future. Frumkin goes on to say that  “Racial and ethnic considerations arise in at least two ways. First, racial and ethnic groups vary in their preferences for park features and activities. For example, blacks tend to prefer recreational uses while whites tend to favor land conservation and blacks prefer more highly structured and maintained parks, with more facilities, than do whites. These differences call for culturally sensitive park design”. 
The Takoma Piney Branch Local Park has a large field adjacent to a high quality basketball court, a fantastic skate park, children’s play area, and a shelter and seating area - and above all this is a huge green space for dogs being established. The new promising establishments, and upgrades within the park has been largely funded by the Steve Francis Foundation. Steve Francis is a black former All-Start NBA player who had the basketball court named after him - so, because he grew up in that area, there is obviously support for people in the area just like himself, black and male, who aspire to become professional basketball players, and high quality facilities would compliment their hard work very well. While this development may be more favorable to blacks than whites, overall, there is a great balance in being equitable to everyone in regards to land preservation, and high quality maintenance and structure within the park.  Those who aren’t pleased seek improvement in meeting community needs - such as suggesting the highly debated dog park in town hall meetings that were predominantly attended by whites.  
As for DSS there are several nearby parks within walking distance, that feature the same kind of park facilities aforementioned. There used to be a large green space in what’s now called Veteran’s Plaza, at the heart of DSS. Benches provide a better place to sit than a hard grass ground, and ice skating can actually be more fun than playing frisbee perhaps. In accordance to what Frumkin had to say about culturally sensitive park design, again, the area has come to favor more blacks than whites as land preservation has been kicked out farther away and replaced with athletic facilities and high quality structured venues (which I personally believe would not disappoint both races). One can agree that in recognizing population changes, and demographics, the development of DSS is being fair and equitable - enjoyable parks are still a short walk away.
Citation:
Frumkin, Howard. “Guest Editorial: Health, Equity, and the Built Environment.” Environmental Health Perspectives 113.5 (2005): A290–A291. Print.
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