Black Panther Research Articles

Everyman by M Shelly Conner

Reviewed by: Everyman by M Shelly Conner Jane Rosenberg LaForge (bio) everyman M Shelly Conner Blackstone Publishing https://www.blackstonepublishing.com/everyman-dat0.html#541=91 350 pages; Print, $17.99 Since the 1920s, scholars and writers have tracked the progress of the six million African Americans over sixty years who left the segregated South and headed north in what is known as the Great Migration, one of the largest movements of people in history. With notable exceptions—James Baldwin, for instance; and the women of Alice Walker's The Color Purple (1982)—the oral histories, sociological studies, poetry, and novels have been dominated by a heteronormative authority. In her new novel about the back-and-forth flow of people and their stories between the South and the nominal North, M Shelly Conner tries to correct this deficit, with arresting results. Conner's everyman—the name is just one of many of the book's mysteries—demonstrates how diverse is the village that goes into the making of one cis straight woman, as well as the durability and delicacy of family secrets supposedly buried in the ancestral homeland. In casting a wide net to excavate tales that might otherwise be neglected, Conner makes use of a broad swath of African American history and traditions. Some of the novel's most beguiling sequences occur when Conner mines the mythology of African American Hoodoo from New Orleans, enabling [End Page 70] a mother to protect her daughter from a potential predator. The education of one gangster reads at the beginning like a slave narrative, with a young innocent saving the life of a stranger on the run. That gangster's name, and how his mother settled on it, suggests a possible liaison between his mother and a famous white railroad tycoon. It's a far-fetched premise, especially since the tycoon and his actual son, with the same name, don't fit into the novel's timeline. (There are other glitches between the world of the novel and the historical record, especially in terms of popular culture.) But the interlocking stories between gay and straight life, such as the symbiotic existence of Blacks and whites, serve to remind how one has always informed the other through a tangle of memories, fears, desires, and denial—even if one side cannot acknowledge that truth. The scope of the novel, with its nonbinary characters, leaves open the question why Conner did not make her protagonist gay or gender-nonconforming. Every Mann, also known as Eve, is not even a particularly good gay ally. She is "devastated" to learn her childhood friend Nelle is a lesbian and calls her own thoughts about homosexuality "disturbingly impure." Eve rationalizes her distaste for Nelle's sexuality not through church teachings or conventional morality but through the politics of the period: "Eve had been indoctrinated in the 1960s Black Power politics of black babies for the revolution and gays and lesbians could not naturally produce them." Nelle, meanwhile, calls Eve's desire "to really find myself in this world" a "straight luxury"—that even her best friend is too enveloped in her own needs to acknowledge Nelle's particular struggle. Yet the bulk of the novel takes place in 1972, when the options for Black liberation have been cut down by government persecution and state-sanctioned violence. To satisfy the requirements of a college class led by Brother LeRoi (whose name evokes the late Amiri Baraka's birth name, Everett LeRoi Jones), Eve must write a family history. The assignment collides with both the determination of Eve's aunt to reveal nothing and the declining influence of the Black Panther Party in Chicago. If Eve is to liberate herself from the subjugation of her aunt's shame, she will have to embark on a path of self-discovery that is not only narrowly focused but also personal. What Eve uncovers when she travels to the railroad town of Ideal, in Macon County, Georgia, is a sprawling, sometimes brutal history that might [End Page 71] otherwise be lost to treachery and humiliation. Eve's particular quest for the origins of her name recalls Frederick Douglass's attempts to learn the name...

Co-conspirator for Justice: The Revolutionary Life of Dr. Alan Berkman by Susan M. Reverby

Reviewed by: Co-conspirator for Justice: The Revolutionary Life of Dr. Alan Berkman by Susan M. Reverby Jeff Jones (bio) Co-conspirator for Justice: The Revolutionary Life of Dr. Alan Berkman By Susan M. Reverby. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020. 408 pages, 6⅛" × 9¼", 19 b&w illus. $32.50 cloth, $22.99 e-book. What makes someone a revolutionary? And how is that label influenced by the historic moment? Thanks to the work of the 1619 Project, we are finally coming to grips with the results of the struggle of enslaved Africans seeking human rights and, ultimately, freedom in the New World. The Founding Fathers are considered to be revolutionary because they led the effort to overthrow English rule and cohere a democratic form of government. Militant abolitionist John Brown was a revolutionary who took up arms to overthrow the slave system in the mid-1800s. And then we arrive in the 1960s and 1970s, when the Black Freedom Struggle moved from nonviolent civil rights protest to become an armed Black liberation struggle, while at the same time, the United States was fighting a genocidal antiliberation war in Vietnam. It was a post–World War II moment, now some fifty years past, that still reverberates in today's definitional conflict between democratic rights for all and white supremacist authoritarianism. In Co-conspirator for Justice: The Revolutionary Life of Dr. Alan Berkman, author Susan Reverby addresses the question of who is, or what makes someone, a revolutionary. Her book, published in 2020, tells the story of a New Yorker who grew up in Middletown, became a people's doctor, underground bomber, and political prisoner, who served nearly a decade in maximum security prisons before emerging to play a truly significant national and global role in the fight to overcome the deadly AIDS epidemic. Alan Berkman's story, along with that of his partner, Dr. Barbara Zeller, and other colleagues and comrades near and far, not only puts his life forward with the respect it deserves but provides important insights as we contemplate the coming stage in our nation's political development. Reverby and Berkman knew each other as children, and as students at Cornell University. But their paths crossed dramatically in 1971. Both were living in New York City, Berk-man in the last year of medical school, Reverby working for a left policy think tank. Black Panther Party leader Bobby Seale was on trial for murder in New Haven, Connecticut, and Alan wanted to know if Reverby would be willing to "take up arms if Bobby is convicted?" [End Page 427] Although a yes answer was unlikely at the time, it became moot when Seale was acquitted. But I know from personal experience that it was a question many were asking in those days as the police and government killings of Black revolutionary leaders escalated under orders from FBI head J. Edgar Hoover. For me, it was the police killing of admired colleague Fred Hampton in Chicago on December 4, 1969, that propelled me into the armed underground. It is a benefit for readers that Reverby knew Berkman as she unfolds his story. Recognized by his family and classmates from his years growing up as the smartest kid around, she follows the course of his life with the care and analysis it deserves. Ultimately, the essence of his life's work is not so much revolution, in the sense of overthrowing a corrupt government, as fighting for a system of health care that provides for the poorest, least advantaged, and most oppressed among us. The story describes how Berkman, Zeller, and other medical radicals strove to provide high quality, unbiased health care while also confronting the white supremacist polices that they understood to be the foundation of the capitalist system. But it was not enough to provide thoughtful health care. The system responsible had to be confronted, challenged, and changed. Much of Reverby's narrative describes this in detail. In October 1981, for example, following the Black Liberation Army–led robbery of a Brinks truck in Nanuet, New York, in which a Brinks Guard and two Nyack police officers were killed, Berkman was asked to treat...

Review: The Content of Our Caricature: African American Comic Art and Political Belonging, by Rebecca Wanzo

Review: <i>The Content of Our Caricature: African American Comic Art and Political Belonging</i>, by Rebecca Wanzo

AN ANALYSIS OF MORPHEME IN BLACK PANTHER MOVIES: MORPHOLOGICAL APPROACH

This study aims to identify the types of morphemes and the category of the bound morphemes used in Black Panther Movie, the researcher chose to analyze the black panther morpheme because it is interesting, the language in the film is not only English, and the words used are simple. Has a complex and compelling storyline. The film then shone at the Oscars because many people enjoyed it and wanted to see it. And, when considering the issues and perspectives presented, Black Panther was so successful that it was accepted by the world and received numerous awards. The researchers used observation technique to collect the data by watching the movie, taking notes, and classifying the data into each category. The data then were analyzed qualitatively through three stages, namely data reduction, data display, and verification, after gathering all the data from the Black Panther film, the researchers will choose and simplify the information that will be used in the analysis. The data were be organized and classified into the derivational and inflectional morphemes after the reduction procedure is complete in order to be presented. After completing the processes, the researcher confirmed the data in accordance with the study's objectives and draw conclusions from the already-analyzed data. Categorizing the data into certain types of morphemes is based on Booij, who classified type of morpheme into free morphemes and bound morphemes. Further data classification whether the data is included in free morpheme or bound morpheme is based on Booji, Salzmann, and Yule. This study found 341 free morphemes and 76 bound morphemes in Black Panther Movie, which the number of inflectional morphemes (56 data) are more than derivational morphemes (20 data). Most of the data found in this study are free morphemes, because in the black panther film they talk more about the problems of people who are doing war.

Unmasking Currents: Thinking Power and War with Foucault and the Black Panthers

Cet article porte sur la relation entre Michel Foucault et l’organisation Black Panthers (Black Panther Party). Il s’intéresse plus précisément à deux points d’intersection : la fin de l’année 1968 d’une part, lorsque Foucault prend connaissance de la littérature produite par le BPP ; l’année 1971 d’autre part, lorsque le Groupe d’information sur les prisons (GIP) produit une brochure sur l’assassinat de George Jackson, célèbre prisonnier politique et membre du BPP. Plutôt que de faire l’hypothèse d’un lien causatif entre ces deux événements, cet article tente de démêler les éléments qui ont pu faire converger la pensée de Foucault et celle du BPP sur les questions de pouvoir et de guerre, parmi lesquels les écrits de Nietzsche, Mao, Clausewitz et de certains mouvements militants révolutionnaires. Notre hypothèse est que c’est la répression violente des révoltes sur les deux rives de l’Atlantique qui a conduit Foucault à se tourner vers la guerre comme paradigme des relations sociales dans ses cours au Collège de France. Dans un contexte de guerre, l’assassinat, le procès et la détention, entre autres tactiques politiques opérationnelles, se dissimulent sous l’apparence de la procédure juridique.

Representation of Anti-racism and Reconstruction of Black Identity in Black Panther

The black superhero film is an important research object for anti-racism development. Under the White supremacy framework, Black people and culture have been devalued and neglected for a long time. The all-Black lead Marvel film Black Panther, directed by Ryan Coogler in 2018, employs a well-defined system to present the appeals on anti-racist and reconstruct the filmic Black identity. This study explicitly analyses the approach through which the images of Black people and Black culture are represented, and it attempts to understand how this film reconstructs Black people’s sense of self-identity. This study focuses on the physical appearance of Black superheroes and material culture, the spatial narrative of Black Panther’s fictional spatial world Wakanda, and the Black spirit depicted in the film. Cultural identity, cinematic representation theory, and social identity theory are used to interpret how Black Panther reconstructs Black identity and represents Black culture. This study discovers that Black superheroes are portrayed as powerful, justice, and wise as White people, and Wakanda provides a utopia for a non-racist world. Meanwhile, Black culture is depicted elegantly and proudly to reconstruct Black people’s recognition of cultural and social identity.

Cynthia Erivo attends the European premiere of 'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever'

Cynthia Erivo attends the European premiere of 'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever'

Review: The Dreamer and the Dream: Afrofuturism and Black Religious Thought, by Roger A. Sneed

Review: <i>The Dreamer and the Dream: Afrofuturism and Black Religious Thought</i>, by Roger A. Sneed

K2 전차 흑표의 수출시장 다변화를 위한 수출경쟁력 평가 지표의 가중치 산정에 관한 연구

Considering that the K2 tank black panther tank export contract with Poland in recent days is a prime mover to advanced defense countries, it is a point of great interest for the future. The K2 tank black panther tank shows the highest export performance as a single type among Korea’s main export weapon systems. In addition, the localization rate of parts and production is very high, so stable supply chain management is also possible. To diversify potential export markets, it is necessary to evaluate the factors that enhance the export competitiveness of the K2 Black Panther from multi-dimensional perspective. This study is to recognize the potential export market diversification through export competitiveness analysis in Porter’s five forces perspective of the K2 black panther tank. Analytic Hierarchy Process(AHP) method was used in considering the factor’s weights. The survey of 14 members who participated in DAPA(Defense acquisition program administration), KRIT(Korea research institute for defense technology planning and advancement), and academic experts. The result of this study showed that the Consistency Ratio was under 0.1 in evaluation items and factors. This study implies a conceptual framework for evaluating the export competitiveness of the K2 tank black panther and provides a guideline for strategic priorities of K2 black panther on export competitive improvement factors.

Iconic 21st Century Activist "T-Shirt and Tote-Bag" Combination Is Hard to Miss These Days!

Iconic 21st Century Activist "T-Shirt and Tote-Bag" Combination Is Hard to Miss These Days!

The Black Panthers of Israel and Ya’akov Shofar’s Musrara Photographs: Taming and Politicisation (1978–83)

In 1971, men from Musrara, an impoverished Jerusalem neighbourhood, formed the Black Panthers in protest against institutionalised discrimination against Jews from Muslim countries (Mizrahim). This article examines Born in Israel, a photography project by Ya’akov Shofar that appeared as a photography book in 1984 and as an exhibition at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in 2017, to unpack the differences between these two instances. Shofar’s 1984 project portrayed young Mizrahi Musrara men while being interviewed by a Jerusalem municipality social worker. This collaboration had political potential but only fragments of these interviews are reproduced in the book. Although the men participated in the Black Panthers’ protests, the book underscores their ethnicity and avoids mentioning this movement. My study explores the visual and discursive elements that depoliticised the book due to the Black Panthers’ perceived threat to the hegemonic social order and in relation to local developments in photography as fine art. I show that, unlike the book, the 2017 Israel museum exhibition promotes Born in Israel’s relation to the Black Panthers, but also had limitations and contradictions. Finally, I argue that accounting for the unabridged interviews uncovers hegemonic Israel’s patronising attitude towards the marginalised photographed men, and compensates for lacunas in this project’s presentations.

Review: Rap and Politics: A Case Study of Panther, Gangsta and Hyphy Discourses in Oakland, CA (1965–2010), by Lavar Pope

Review: <i>Rap and Politics: A Case Study of Panther, Gangsta and Hyphy Discourses in Oakland, CA (1965–2010)</i>, by Lavar Pope

A People's History of Detroit

A People's History of Detroit is that rare book that is both richly detailed and compelling written. Authors Mark Jay and Philip Conklin first approached the questions animating this text as community members trying to make sense of the “twin spectacles of downtown boosterism and the high-profile SWAT raids” in the Motor City (p. 6). As they read deeper in search of the origins of this urban crisis, they discovered that their starting point continually had to be rolled back. From Detroit's 2013 bankruptcy filing, to the rise of neoliberalism, to the Great Rebellion of 1967, finally rewinding back to the reign of Fordism. In this reverse march through time, they identified that each era became a collision course between those in power and those without, due to the faulty logic of capital, specifically, a capitalist logic powered by the dialectical relationship between creative destruction and mythology.Modeling their volume after Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, Jay and Conklin seek not only to celebrate activists and those who struggle against injustice, but also to comprehend the social, political, and economic structures that create the context of these people's lives. In this endeavor, they are quite successful. Through detailed documentation of Detroit's “creative destruction” they convincingly demonstrate that the city in its quest towards “progress” is constantly being “re-everything: revitalized, rebuilt, reborn, renewed, refurbished, revamped, restored, redeveloped,” at the expense of marginalized citizens (p. 11). More importantly, their description and exposure of capitalist myths offer a unique contribution, separating this text from other narratives of urban decline.Jay and Conklin argue mythologies are ideologies deployed to shift blame away from the wrong-doers and onto specific scapegoated groups. In the case of Detroit, the ensnared included Blacks, immigrants, union members, and Communists, depending on the context of the creative destruction. In arguing that “myths tell stories that map on to our desires about how the world ought to be rather than how it actually is,” the authors convincingly argue that these tales are needed to smooth over the dislocation and exploitation inherent in capitalism (p. 13).Chapter 1 critically establishes the political economy of the city, challenging the oft-repeated claim that there are “Two Detroits.” Rather, the significant racial, classed, and geographic disparities in the city are the intentional by-product of uneven development. A hefty sixty-five pages, this chapter powerfully demonstrates that “capitalism continually destroys the landscape it creates in order to make way for a new regime of accumulation” (p. 72). The remaining chapters support this thesis, each undertaking a significant moment in Detroit's history: the golden era of manufacturing (1913–1960); the 1967 rebellion; radical labor organizing (1967–1973); and the neoliberal Black urban regime (1974–2013), braiding creative destruction and mythology together.In each era, the capitalist class blames community members to justify their own actions. Under Fordism, it is black workers and immigrants, unwilling to assimilate and take up their patriotic duty by demanding equal wages and better working conditions. In the aftermath of the Great Rebellion, key stakeholders chose to present the uprisings as a battle between good and evil, moral and amoral, obscuring the years of significant organizing that occurred before, during, and after the rebellion. In the final two chapters, the authors document how corporate elites, federal and local government, and the new highly militarized police unit STRESS (Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets), conspired together to subvert the resistance of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, the Black Panther Party, and other less well-known community organizations such as the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization in their quest for parity in the city.A People's History of Detroit is a wide-ranging history tracking a quintessentially American city through the tumult and changes of the twentieth century. Yet it cannot document every struggle, and the authors demonstrate great self-awareness in acknowledging this limitation, offering reading suggestions for more in-depth exploration of the episodes they discuss. The significance of this book, however, is not in the details, but rather in the transferability of the critical interventions they are making in relationship to capitalism, creative destruction, and mythology. Centering on the concept of “resilience,” the authors poignantly lament the frequency in which that term is employed to reference differently abled individuals, trauma survivors, and post-Katrina New Orleans, opining in fact this is a back-handed compliment, meant to romanticize poverty and suffering. Jay and Conklin assert that we must collectively move away from the idea of resilience as an attribute as it exists solely in a system that “reproduces crises and continually asks the working classes to pay for the cost” (p. 224). In this call to action, the authors implore readers to see the illogic of capitalism in hopes of demythologizing and building toward a more just future.

Lessons Learned from Building Lessons: “Teach It” and the Development of Digital Primary-Source Classroom Activities

Lessons Learned from Building Lessons: “Teach It” and the Development of Digital Primary-Source Classroom Activities

Parent–child communication about gender and race through the films Black Panther and Wonder Woman: The roles of parental mediation and media literacy.

Parent–child communication about gender and race through the films Black Panther and Wonder Woman: The roles of parental mediation and media literacy.

Basotho blankets: ownership and appropriation

AbstractThis article examines claims of ownership and appropriation of Basotho blankets. Ingrained in the ritual and mundane reproduction of life among the Basotho people of Lesotho, the luminous blankets and their story have enticed many to deal in them. The blankets are manufactured and trademarked by Aranda Textile Mills, and in recent years they have been adapted by Basotho fashion designers, foreign private entrepreneurs, and the Louis Vuitton fashion house and depicted in Marvel's Black Panther film. The diversity of the actors involved has created a complex field of entitlement claims. The article develops a theoretical framework for understanding the processes through which actors claim, appropriate, and transform the value of ‘heritage’ items. This is done by viewing the actors’ efforts as ‘scale‐making projects’ across ‘regimes of value’ that aim to expand their ‘spatiotemporal control’ and by viewing the actors themselves as ‘brands’ posing as originators of value.

‘The half I keep’: John Berger’s Booker Prize speech fifty years later

Fifty years after John Berger’s controversial acceptance speech for the Booker Prize in 1972, in which he highlighted Booker McConnell’s involvement in the colonial exploitation of the Caribbean and announced that he would donate half of the prize money to the British Black Panthers and use the other half to research the situation of European migrant workers, the author reflects on the implications of the speech for anti-racist struggle in the 1970s and today, as well as the direction of Berger’s work after this pivotal intervention.

The Other Black Church: Alternative Christian Movements and the Struggle for Black Freedom

The Other Black Church: Alternative Christian Movements and the Struggle for Black Freedom

Authenticity and the African story

This keynote presentation by Femi Odugbemi, titled ‘Authenticity and the African story’, delves into the intricate relationship between authenticity and the representation of African narratives in the global creative landscape. It explores the tension between maintaining the authenticity of cultural stories while adapting them to reach a global audience. Through compelling examples like the success of films such as Black Panther, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and The Woman King, the presentation examines how narratives rooted in African cultures can achieve widespread popularity even when not created by Indigenous African storytellers. The exploration of this phenomenon leads to an examination of the complex debate surrounding authenticity vs. commercial viability. The article acknowledges the challenges and risks of cultural appropriation, misrepresentation and inequality inherent in the commodification of cultural content. Balancing creative freedom and market demand, the presentation advocates for a collaborative approach, ensuring equitable compensation and involvement of originating cultures in the creative process. The discussion expands to the influence of technology, particularly AI and VR, in preserving, sharing and enhancing African narratives on a global scale. Ultimately, the presentation emphasizes that authentic storytelling involves a nuanced portrayal of human experiences, fostering empathy, understanding and economic opportunities while preserving cultural heritage and promoting a more truthful representation of Africa.

Snapshots of a Life in Flight: An Essay in Cardinal Directions

Snapshots of a Life in Flight:An Essay in Cardinal Directions Daniel Peña (bio) South Diego says we must caffeinate before the Satanic tour. In a French press, he pours boiling water over coffee grounds, grown and roasted in his village outside of Tulancingo, Hidalgo. We're sitting at his dining table in a nondescript flat in the guts of the Centro Historico in Mexico City. He says it's his apartment, but it really belongs to his girlfriend. The décor is a blending of Bauhaus and Mexican rasquache. The table is lacquered with wobbly layers of dusty red paint that complement the red corn and beige husks nailed into an altarcito above a bookshelf. Scattered pell-mell about the apartment are various alebrijes of jaguars and armadillos made of clay and wood. Next to the table, a large poster of an encuentro between the Black Panther Party and the Zapatistas. Next to that: some yellow curandero soap which, once used, is supposed to bring in money. Next to that: an actual armadillo's claw, severed from the body, that's supposed to bring in money too. On the wall above the bookshelf hangs a fake Zero Euro note with Karl Marx on it, and beside the bill, a Käthe Kollwitz print. All of this belongs to his girlfriend too, he says. As for him, he only has a few things: his t-shirt making business (appropriately named F*ck La Migra Print Shop), the Satanic tour side hustle, and the coffee, which he offers me. Diego speaks softly with a child's demeanor that belies his thirty-eight years and hard-edged persona, which fits him more like a costume than a way of being. A wispy devil's goatee, a triple six tattoo on the back of his neck, a pentagram on his bicep, a Megadeath t-shirt one size too small. He admits this persona was something built to survive his time in Mexico City, first in the late 90s as a homeless teenager, having escaped from rural Hidalgo to the big city, and then again in 2016, as a deportee from Dalton, Georgia. [End Page 129] It's mid-November in Mexico City and besides providing a jolt of warmth, the coffee will keep our wits about us. Mercados Sonora and Merced require sharp wits. The markets aren't particularly dangerous—not like Tepito, the oldest and largest black market in the world—but they're dangerous enough. There are some pick pockets, some petty thieves, some small-time crime rackets, like the selling of alligators and bald eagles. Enough danger to give white folks on the Satanic tour something to write home about, but not enough danger to kill them, which is all they're looking for when they come on this tour: some danger, some freak show, some Atlas Obscura shit to photograph and say that they survived. Diego thinks they want to see the Mexico they had in their minds before they got here: the cartel iconography, the drugs, the gringo heaven, the Mexican hell. Brown person purgatory. It isn't in the realm of their imaginations, he thinks, to conjure up something beautiful about Mexico. Like the hills outside of Tulancingo, where he grew up with the Totonac indigenous people who, like the rest of his family, migrated there from coastal Veracruz generations ago. Hillsides of corn and slash-burning fields. Blue smoke and streams full of fish. Sometimes he wonders why he traded that for Mexico City as a teenager. But kids want what they want. And it was true he was a kid once, before he was a homeless teenager. Before he was a bus driver. Before he lived with an estranged sister in Mexico City, which proved unsustainable. It was in 1999 when he went north. He paid a coyote, found himself in the west end of San Antonio after a long ride. There, a man gave him a new name, Jesse Torres, and a usable Social Security number. He found work at a carpet factory in South Carolina first, then another carpet factory in Dalton, Georgia, where he found love and found himself the father...