Florence Kasumba, Chadwick Boseman, Danai Gurira, and Lupita Nyong’o in Black Panther. (Photo: Disney / Marvel Studios)
How much do I know about Wakanda? Not a lot, but I’ll bet they have really good sex.
When I decided to write about my reaction to Marvel’s Black Panther and the nation of Wakanda from my perspective as a first-generation Nigerian immigrant, sex wasn’t the first thing to come to mind.
But the more I saw of this hidden nation — free of the historical scars of colonialism, as well as the movie’s unambiguously Black and sexy cast — the more I realized that one of the most exciting aspects of Wakanda was as a world where Black people were free of the baggage of racial hierarchies about desirability.
Sex and desire often feel like the last taboos within the social justice space, too intertwined with feelings of guilt, self-hate and ambiguity for many people to begin to broach. And while there is a new willingness to dismantle European standards of beauty, there is still a real reluctance to discuss how the shadow of colonialism rises in our intimate relationships.
This reluctance is all too familiar to me.
Growing up, I was raised to be proud, if not borderline arrogant, about my heritage. However, as a child of Nigerian immigrants and grandparents, the deep imprint of colonial rule on the modern African identity was difficult to escape.
Below the layer of pride, the scar tissue of white supremacy was all too visible.
As a child, it materialized in compliments about my medium-brown complexion from relatives, and the monthly ritual of chemical perms. Today, it is seen in the global market for skin lightening — a practice prevalent throughout Africa, Asia and the Caribbean — that is projected to grow into a $23 billion industry by 2020.
In recent years, it’s reared its head in our romantic interactions online. Indeed, Black women and Asian men are consistently rated on dating sites as less attractive than people of other races and ethnicities.
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