The following is the introduction to a series I’ve been ruminating over for at least year at this point. The passing of Chadwick Boseman this week shocked me and stirred up grief I did not know was there. I confess I only knew Boseman through Black Panther and have not seen any of his other films. But I cannot overstate that Boseman’s familial yet adversarial chemistry with Michael B. Jordan (under the direction of Ryan Coogler) on screen was integral to all that this movie set in motion within me that is now reflected in this project. Chadwick Boseman, may your legacy continue stir transformation.

In February of 2018, I exited my local movie theater realizing I had just watched something unprecedented: a major Hollywood blockbuster superhero movie with a cast that was vastly composed of actors of color. This film was Black Panther. 

It was evident that Black Panther wrestled with a narrative and a conversation with which, as a white male, I had little exposure. Here was American-born Erik Stevens in a demonstrative debate about responsibility, ethics, and resources with the Wakandan king T’Challa. There were discussions of slavery, riots, the Civil Rights movement, and what it meant to be abandoned by one’s own people. The whole film was a dialogue between the protagonist and antagonist, and it was one that left the protagonist King T’Challa irrevocably changed. It played like a Shakespearean drama, a royal family and kingdom imploding into chaos and civil war.

Yet I was confused. Something inside me wasn’t settling well around the film. I was uncomfortable and I was not sure why. The acting was great. The direction was great. The themes and action were a premier example of what a comic book blockbuster could offer the world of cinema. But here I was in pondering my own discomfort, and it was discomfort I did not understand.

Then it dawned on me. I could not see myself in Black Panther.

I have always had an active imagination, and as far back as I can recall, in my own mind I wrote myself into all of my favorite stories. My first exposure to table top role-playing was a Star Wars game in middle school (the game had the same mechanics a sDungeons&Dragons but with a Star Wars paint job). I was ecstatic to finally write myself into a galaxy far far away. And I’m sure I am not alone. A healthy imagination helps one explore possibilities and feeds creativity, and for some even helps them cope and survive unthinkable abuse or trauma. Emulating at first what you love is often how artists and writers develop their craft. When we see children playing house, are we watching anything beyond them writing themselves into a story they have witnessed and making it their own?

However, there was (and still is, I’m sure) a greater problem with the state of my imagination. It is the imagination of a colonizer. Some of my favorite stories from my late adolescence were stories of colonization, and of a specific variety in fact. They were stories in which a white western male adopted (or more accurately appropriated) the culture, skills, and knowledge of a a non-white people group. This “exotic” influence coupled with a western mind resulted in seemingly superhuman abilities. One need only to look at the narrative of Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs to see this exemplified. A white western child is orphaned on the continent of Africa. While being most famous for being raised by apes, Tarzan’s real prowess and skill comes from his time spent with various indigenous tribes, some of whom are more animal-like in Burroughs’ portrayal than others. Similarly, James Clavell’s Shogun (and the film The Last Samurai starring Tom Cruise) tell the story of an American man who adopts the ways of the samurai and who’s combat prowess surpasses that of Japanese samurai because the protagonist’s western training elevates what they’ve learned. Marvel’s Iron Fist in its most common iteration tells the story of a young white man who inherits an ancient mystical superpower while under the tutelage of monks who train in a form akin to kung-fu.

The narrative of a white man who is made into a sort of superhuman through appropriating other cultures is the more extreme (yet far from uncommon) example of the colonization of non-white narratives. For a milder, perhaps subtler example, one need not look further than the Indiana Jones franchise. Jones’ signature line “It belongs in a museum!” is spoken as a rebuke against those other westerners who desire precious relics and artifacts for personal collections, but it is never questioned whether or not Jones has the moral high ground. And yet the very first sequence in Raiders of the Lost Ark is Indy stealing a religious object from an indigenous people group. 

These works are just a few examples of the stories that shaped my imagination to expect and feel entitled to being not only intimately involved in the story of culture that was not mine, but to assume the role of the protagonist. I loved all of these titles. To this day, I have a soft spot for Indiana Jones and Tarzan (but I am praying to be purged of the latter as Burroughs’ overt racism permeates the Tarzan stories). But they formed in me a colonizer’s imagination. The colonizer’s imagination looks at a narrative that is not of their culture and says “I can make that something better by being the hero of that story.”

Black Panther left no room for such imaginative fan fiction. T’Challa was the lead protagonist, locked in a conflict of ideologies and ethics that I had no place in, and certainly not as a white savior come to tell a king how to lead his people. 

If there is any doubt that this film refutes the colonizer’s imagination, I suggest we look at CIA agent Everett Ross, played by Martin Freemen, and Ulysses Klaue, played by Andy Serkis. Klaue is a colonizer on his face. He’s a villain who’s only aim is to exploit Wakanda’s resources for his own financial gain. Like the industrialized military in James Cameron’s Avatar who are looking to profit from unobtanium, Klaue sees the people of Wakanda as nothing more than what stands between him and his personal prosperity. Then Erik Stevens, son of a Wakandan prince and cousin to T’Challa, kills him without hesitation before the second act even begins. Make no mistake, director Ryan Coogler wants us to know that this story is not about the colonizer, even when that colonizer is the bad guy.

The story is also not about Agent Ross. Ross is a white ally who, like Klaue, is shown his place in the story early. Not long after he meets Wakandan princess and STEM genius Shuri, she says to him “Don’t scare me like that, colonizer!” after being startled by him. It is the first thing she says to Ross in the whole film. The white American CIA agent will not be the hero here, because he too is a colonizer like Klaue. And this is reinforced as Ross explains that Erik Stevens (AKA Killmonger, a title given to him during his career in the US military), is using techniques he learned while serving the country that trained him: the United States. Ross recognizes that the very tactics Stevens uses for war are the tactics of a colonizer. When T’Challa is told by his mother that Stevens has burned the sacred flowers that grant the Black Panther his power. Ross says “Well, of course he did. That was what he was trained to do. His unit used to work with the CIA to destabilize foreign countries.” It is not hard to conceive that Agent Ross has participated in coups similar to the one that has displaced T’Challa. 

When Shuri calls Ross a colonizer, I hear it as a title laid upon me as well. Even the best intentioned white guy in Black Panther is still a colonizer. And any white guy who would insert themself into this narrative is one too. The colonizer’s imagination has no place here.

Black Panther became the start of a personal project for me. I wanted to read more creators of color. I wanted to de-colonize my imagination.  Black Panther exposed me to Afrofuturism, a sort-of science fiction wholly different from the western sci-fi heritage I’ve loved for years. It exposed me to discussions that at best I had been naive to, or at worst I had actively avoided. And most importantly it exposed my colonizer imagination.

Make no mistake, to have my colonizer imagination exposed was scary. Here was something that was part of my identity, yet was not inherently good, and in fact quite evil. The righteous thing to do was now to crucify this part of myself. And it is an ongoing act of crucifixion, an act of letting beloved portions of myself die. I say ‘beloved’ because like many people I have used my imagination as a refuge in challenging or traumatic seasons of life. I believe this was often a good, necessary thing, and might continue to be. But out of it grew this imaginative habit of imposition and appropriation.  My responsibility is to read or watch stories which teach me to be comfortable being an observer, being a student even when I don’t see myself in the story. To let it not be merely “okay” that there are stories in which I am not the protagonist, but to celebrate that the wide breadth of the human experience gets to be told through story, be that in fantasy lands, far off galaxies, or secret kingdoms hiding in obscurity. 

Friends, it is work that is both heartbreaking and joy inducing, often occurring at the same time. To resist the act of decolonizing of one’s imagination is to rob oneself of all the magnificent adventures God has in store. And more to the point, to resist is to continue to inhibit ourselves from seeing the Image of God in other human beings.

For the coming weeks, I will share different works of fantasy and science fiction by authors of color. I hope you will find copies at your local book store or library. I invite you to pay attention to what what your body experiences as you read, what emotions are stirred in you. Let this be an adventure.

Any titles you think I should be sure to read and add to this project? Have insightful questions or things to be aware of within one’s self in this endeavor? Comment below or shoot me an email at thepilgrimgeekblog@gmail.com.