Black Panther’s Success is Bringing out the Hater in People.

I was scrolling down my IG feed this morning and The Shade Room reposted a video of an excited Michael B. Jordan sharing the historic box-office numbers Black Panther drew over the weekend. So of course, still on a high from seeing the film and obsessively ingesting all things Black Panther, I go to the comments for what I thought would be a feel-good time. I was wrong. The result of my visit to the comment section was an angrily-written blog post at 8:30 in the morning.

I saw comments like, “he’s just happy he’s making money” and “what is this movie really doing for Black people?” or “Disney and Marvel are making all that money anyway.” Now, most of the comments were very positive, but the fact that I saw any negative comments really surprised me. Why are some of us mad Black Panther was successful? Can we live for once? It takes something great to happen to bring the real bitter folks to the surface. Kale bitter. Licorice bitter. Why are you mad that Michael B. Jordan is excited about the success of something he dedicated more than a year of his life to be a part of? He’s a Black man who was hired for a job. I’m happy for any Black man anywhere getting a job. Would you have preferred a non-Black man been cast as Killmonger? While we’re at it, why don’t we make The Black Panther white too? Like what do you want? I usually mind my business, but what we’re not going to do is be upset about the success of this film. Black Panther is more than just a movie, it’s art and it’s ours.

This movie is changing the way we view ourselves. That’s the real win. Anytime we can rally together for something positive is a win. Yes, Marvel and the big execs will make the coin, but because we went to see it and because the power we possess is on full display, we’ll see more films like Black Panther in the future, which means more Black folks will get more jobs for the next film.

I can’t say enough about what this film means for us, so I’ll just stop here. But if you’re mad, keep that hate to yourself, we don’t have time for it.