Module 12: The Black Panther, Wakanda, and Rare Earth Minerals

The Resources of the Great Wakanda

Afrofuturism When we discussed precious or rare Earth metals, I think about the natural resources abundant in African countries and the colonizing forces that come in and mine those resources with the labor of the indigenous population and to the detriment of that nation's welfare. Thinking of this and the ranting and raving of Ulysses Klaue, a South African man who—in Black Panther (2018)—makes it his mission to steal vibranium from Mena Ngai, the Great Mound, to sell it and use it for his own purposes, the ties to the real-world issue of disastrous resource-mining are direct and intentional. Klaue calls the Wakandans "savages" and claims that they don't deserve what they've had the good fortune to be built upon. This mentality—that the indigenous people of a land don't know what they have and should therefore have it stolen from them—is a tale at least as old as the first European ships showing up in the Caribbean and certainly older than that. 

Black Panther demonstrates what happens when an Afrofuturist society is the target of such colonizing efforts (which do ultimately fail). An Afrofuturist society like Wakanda isn't concerned with colonization—or medical inequality, poverty, hunger, etc—because it transformed the mound of vibranium that it's built upon into a highly efficient resource that gives them everything that they need. Wakanda is a Black Utopia and operates as such. I think part of Afrofuturist art, though, is imagining that such a future—one free of oppression and filled with multi-disciplinary advancement—could be possible for Black people at large and not just a specific group. I feel like that's why the plot of the 2018 movie ends with T'Challa buying N'Jadaka's old apartment building and others on the block and turning them into resource centers. Without a hopeful note to a bloody story, it loses the element of future necessary for it to qualify as Afrofuturist.