Spirit listener

I read a commentary on Black Panther scathingly criticizing T'Challa as a weak sell-out of a character, with Kilmonger being the only real hero and revolutionary in the movie.  I thought long and hard about this criticism, and used other four comic book characters and movies to shape my conclusions. What do Superman, Wonder woman, Thor, and T'Challa have in common? They are all comic book characters. Obviously, right? But think about the implications of taking a comic book character and making him or her as real as possible, in a kind of historical fiction.  Think of the problems that come from pressing reality on these characters, and of putting these four heroes in our  real world histories.  We'll start with The Man of Steel himself. SUPERMAN Some people had a problem with Henry Cavill playing the role superman because he's British.  Why?  Because, by some, this Kryptonian was conceived as a good ole' American.  Maybe even a Republican....

T'Challa's character seems to  have something to prove that neither Superman nor Thor have to even think about.  So does Wonder woman.  To some, T'Challa has to represent all of Black History, and to others, Wonder woman overcomes all of feminine oppression.  Or so some think. These two heroes, Black Panther and Wonderwoman, touch on serious political issues that Thor and Superman don't.  Superman doesn't represent British or American people.  Thor doesn't represent Celts or Anglo-Saxons.  But T'Challa is supposed to carry black people on his shoulders, and Wonder woman is supposed to be the icon of women everywhere. But why? Let's go back to Superman for a moment. To a certain extent, Superman did carry America on his shoulders.  At least the old Superman did.  Henry Cavill's Superman doesn't do so as well.  But the old Superman represented America, for some reason, even more than Captain America himself.  America.  Th...

The day after Barak Obama became president, something happened to me, and I believe to many black people in America.  I remember looking out of my window, and the world literally and physically looking like a new world.  I can't stress this enough.  The way I literally saw the physical world, with my physical eyes, completely changed.  I've had that feeling many times before...like when I went to Israel, or to London, or the Philippines.  The feeling you get when you are seeing a world completely new and unlike your home. Having Barak Obama as president of the United States felt literally like living in a new and foreign country. I'm not saying that I, or black people in general, agree with everything that came out of the man's mouth or head.  I'm saying he embodied something we needed to see and experience.  He symbolized something.  So does T'Challa in the movie "The Black Panther." If you put aside all of the so called political issues ra...

"For this reason I tell you:  When you pray and ask for something, believe that you have received it, and you will be given whatever you ask for.  Mark 11:24 GNT I've been learning something significant about praying, something that will change your life, starting today.  This is how I learned it. Once I needed a job.  Not just any job, mind you.  I job that pays at least 17 dollars hour for 40 hours a week.  So I would follow the prayer formula Jesus gave in the following verses: "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds;  and the one who knocks, the door will be opened."  Matt. 7:7-8 I asked God in prayer to give me a job that paid at least 17 dollars an hour for 40 hours a week.  Then I sought this job through job searches until I found it.  I then knocked on the doors of these jobs by applying...

"Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.  Could this be the Messiah?"  John 4:29 One day Jesus met a woman at a well.  Though this was their first conversation, their first time meeting, he said something to her that was very piercing and personal; her response was even more personal: "He told her, 'Go, call your husband, and come back.'  'I have no husband,' she replied.  Jesus said to her, 'You are right when you say you have no husband.  The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.  What you have just said is quite true.'  'Sir,' the woman said, 'I can see that you are a prophet.'"  John 4:16b-19 Think about what Jesus was saying to her.  He was bringing up not only five failed marriages, but he was doing this in a culture where this would be intensely more shameful than it would be today.  Yet he must have said these words with not only power, but with compassion. ...