Abstract
It is dehumanising to identify people in terms of colour. Stereotyping and discrimination come with racial identification. Black identity has been expressed in different forms over the centuries. For a long period black identity was a constructed identity assigned to black people through a white-dominated matrix. After the end of slavery, efforts were made to reconstruct black identity. This developed into two divergent lines: one resulting in an illusionary identity as identified by Frantz Fanon and a second line of thought of a continued search for a true authentic black identity as explicated by the Cameroon-born philosopher Achilles Mbembe. This process of creating a new authentic black identity is still ongoing and viewed by some as a pessimistic futile attempt. An example of the ongoing attempt for establishing an authentic black identity is illustrated by the movie Black Panther , which attempts to portray a different side of being black.
Highlights
The movie Black Panther, released on 29 January 2018, is unique in many ways: the first black superhero to emerge from Hollywood, a movie blatantly and subtly criticising colonialism and a movie in an attempt to reconstruct black identity
Its uniqueness is marked by the many roles exclusively for actors of mixed race
The fictional Black Panther becomes an international hero by fighting against crime and protecting his tribe living secretively hidden somewhere in Africa
Summary
The movie Black Panther, released on 29 January 2018, is unique in many ways: the first black superhero to emerge from Hollywood, a movie blatantly and subtly criticising colonialism and a movie in an attempt to reconstruct black identity. The result is that people treat others in a specific way and expect certain behaviour from them based on the assigned racial identity. This process of creating and trying to prove an assigned identity has resulted in demeaning attitudes and treatment of races based on an ‘alleged’ black identity, which was the result of an inhumane social construction of identity.
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