Obama, T'Challa, and Black People in America (Part 3)

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.  That's the issue.

America.

After all, Wonder woman mostly represents American feminism, it seems.  More specifically, white American women's feminism, because in fact, it was primarily white women resisting oppressive white men in power in the suffrage movement.  Black men weren't keeping anybody from voting because they themselves couldn't vote.  Black women weren't in the position to blatantly challenge the oppressive white men.  So what would a black woman's wonder woman look like or be like?  Or a native american's wonder woman, for that matter?  It's possible that their wonder woman would not be an Amazon, if we press the issue.

There were no feminist Zeus created Amazons sent to oppressed women everywhere.
There were no Wakandans empowered by a meteor to fight the oppressor. 
There was no Black Panther.

Yet T'Challa could represent black men, and Wakanda black people, in the Marvel Universe. But did Stan Lee, and the creators of Black Panther and Wakanda, have that in mind?  Or did William Moulton have black and native women in mind when he created Wonder Woman?  Though Wonder woman is powerfully politically impactful, what I've said shows the possible limits of her impact that are not present for T'Challa.

Whether Stan Lee thought of black history or not when he created Black Panther, T'Challa intensely affects the minds of many black people today.  This super hero can show black boys and girls in America, and on the continent of Africa, something they've never seen before, just as Obama showed African-Americans, Africans, and the world, something they had never seen before.

What T'Challa represents is mind changing, reality changing, and life changing, especially if we don't press black history too far on what he represents.