So why do we need a Black Panther

Black Panther

“So why do we need a Black Panther?”

By Glenn Peppers          2-19-2018

Over the past two days, I've been reading and seeing video clips of white people protesting and causing disturbances at movie theaters showing the film, Black Panther! One movie theater in Maryland shut down it's theater that was showing the movie, claiming technical difficulties. Whereas another theater switched movies on it's movie goers. Showing instead that new 50 Shades of Gray sequel!

I hate to say it but, things like this is perfect proof that there is a good portion of white america out here that is just not happy unless it is vexing or terrorizing black folks, in some way shape or fashion! It's like there's some perverted need to do so!  

As Author James Baldwin once said...

"What white people have to do is try and find out in their own hearts why it was necessary to have a nigger in the first place, because I'm not a nigger," 

                                                                                            James Baldwin

Even if it's just a movie (so I’ve heard it put), such a movie like Black Panther essentially will and does boost black pride! It's as if the whites who oppose a positive movie like Black Panther are saying, "How dare you have any sort Pride about yourself! How dare you know, believe and realize that are intelligent! How dare you believe that you are unique, and are cultured, and majestically beautiful!

In the minds of many racist in america, black folk are not, and were not suppose to be anything but slaves and mindless work-horse punching bags, and sex slaves! Thus again the James Baldwin quote noted above!

Hollywood for far too long has depicted black folk in such a dull dim light! And also for far too long we've tolerated it! The barons of hollywood have from the start of cinema's history in america projected a boatload of negative and demeaning images upon us; showing us to be a people, and a culture that was never really us... At ALL! 

Further more, I know personally, I've never known anyone in my family, nor any of my friends, or any black adult in all my cultural lexicon of human spirits around me who looked or acted anything like any of the negative characters hollywood created as their idea of what black people were and are and should be to them, during and before the Jim Crow era of america!

Stepin Fetchit Jim Crow era actor

All the while, at the same time, hollywood was socially engineering black culture to be just what racist hollywood, and all those in power who shaved this country a drunken goatee wanted us to be! Many times in the process, Violently Holding us Down and Back when and if necessary! Never missing a turn at Pulling the Raines of Power, and flexing their muscles by revealing their cruel nature through all manner of punishment and pain! Even to the point of killing us! Can you say Greenwood, Oklahoma, 1920?

Greenwood, Oklahoma. Black town destroyed by Whites

If this one movie of Black Panther (based on a comic book character) can make anyone this angry and resentful that black people are (and have most always been) aware that we are intelligent and cultured, worldwide. Then hold on to your seats!... There's more to come!

Look around you! See the many achievements and the advancements (that barely get an honorable mention in media) of my brother's and sisters, despite constant discrimination, and the endless abject cruelty and all the untold murders; along with all the untold decades of denial of our basic Human Rights! Yet despite all this, "Still we Rise!"

Some may see Black Panther as a small accomplishment in the raising of black pride and awareness, saying “It’s Only a Movie!” Though in essence, in being a movie, Black Panther in all actuality is a huge step forward in Self-Awareness through media! Especially for our youth, and for our culture.

Afrocentric, Poised, Confident  

It is a movie that shows us in a much truer light than the one that rest just outside of hollywood's century long string of bullshit treatment of blacks in cinema! This longtime negativity in mass media concerning blacks is one of the main reasons america has remained so polarized! So defiantly divided! We reflect what we see and hear in Media! We all become and are what we see and hear on TV, in the movies, and by the music we let into our heads!

Despite the monsters who sit upon their butts in these divisive record and film companies, releasing this endless array of sensory overloaded garbage. Chock full of negative stimuli; calling what they produce, music and cinema. Our children watch and listen to this rot for the better part of the day and night. 

Positive film-works like Black Panther is a start as far as how the world should be viewing us as a people! And how we should being viewing ourselves! It is a Turning Point!

Black Panther in action

Film projects like Black Panther is that very starting place on a heritage road map that can lead to a clearer direction, and more defined path for other film makers to follow. Reverting and/or turning our children's brains from pulp brain drain, into Great Thinkers!

Hey, I'm like this! If it takes a Sci-Fi comic book hero come to life to raise the consciousness level of Black America, than so be it!

Two Jewish guys did the same thing, around 75 years ago at DC Comics with Superman! In 1933, Writers and artist, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster still in high school created a comic book hero they named, Superman! In 1938, they sold the Superman concept to DC Comics (Then Detective Comics)!

Superman from the 1950's TV show

And as the intro dialogue to the Superman television series in the 1950‘s goes, as read by expressive voiceover man, and former actor from the 1930's and 40's "Bowery Boy's and Eastside Kids" movies; and former Detroit afternoon movie host from the 1960’s and 70’s, actor Bill Kennedy read these lines, which became iconic.

Actor, Voiceover man, and former Detroit TV Movie host of "Bill Kennedy at the Movies." Bill Kennedy

Bill Kennedy made it sound like Superman was a really big deal! And to be honest about it. For many people back then, Superman was a really big deal!....

The Superman Intro Voiceover:

"Faster than a Speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to Leap tall buildings with a single bound!...

...Look, up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a Plane! It's Superman! Yes it's Superman, strange visitor from another planet who came to earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Superman, who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel in his bare hands. And who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, fights a never ending battle for truth, justice and the American way!"

During a most oppressive time for Jewish folk in America, and in Germany back in the 1930's, on into the 1940‘s, this intro on print, and then later on made famous on the television show in the 1950's, and in the movies. The Superman Intro became somewhat of a mantra, and apart of americana! 

The very idea of a Superman was something Siegel and Shuster fantasied about! So they created him! And in so doing, this built their pride and set a precedence with themselves, and with people!

Superman made two young Jewish high school kids feel inclusive with an america that didn't look favorably upon Jew's, Italian’s and Irish folk, as well as many other immigrants coming into Ellis Island, looking for their american dream!

Be it only a comic book. Superman was someone on a dream and fantasy level that Siegel and Shuster, and eventually their children could believe in! Someone who could be impervious to pain! Someone who could fly! A Superman who was also someone who could by just putting on a pair of dark rim glasses, hide in plain sight, and at a moments notice, turn into a Superhero hero all at the same time!

First edition of Superman under Action Comics in 1938

Superman was someone who'd make a difference in not only Siegel and Shuster’s lives, but the lives of other Jewish kids and many other people of all walks of life, worldwide who felt left out, yet dared to believe that they could be more than what society told them they could be! Even if it was all only on the pages of a comic book! 

Black Panther brings this same sense of Cultural Valor and Pride to black folk that Superman did for those two young disenfranchised and seemingly powerless Jewish youths back in the 1930's!

To Siegel and Shuster, and Especially to Stan Lee, and that wonderful Marvel Artist who first created (along with Stan Lee), and actually drew Black Panther back in 1966, Jack Kirby I say thank you!

Wakanda Forever!

And to everyone reading this article I say to you, Wakanda Forever!... Long Live the King!

Glenn Peppers              2-19-2018

“So Why Then Aren’t People from the Netherlands Migrating to America?”

“So Why Then Aren’t People from the Netherlands Migrating to America?”

(I just Wonder!)

By Glenn Peppers

Dear good people of the Netherlands. The man who in charge of our country here in America, Donald Trump wants to know why more people from the Netherlands and that region of the world aren’t migrating over here to our America! I haven’t talk to anyone from the Netherlands, so I am assuming that there is a reason why there isn’t a giant onslaught and influx of people from the Netherlands flocking over here to the United States! Here’s just a few reasons that I can think of off the top of my head as to why! Now I could be wrong though! So please correct me if I am in fact wrong!

Personally, I don’t think that the average Netherlander would want to give up their clean public drinking water for poisoned, and  possible lead laced municipal drinking and potable water that so many of our cities and communities are suffering with (can you say Flint, Michigan for starters?)! 

I assume the average Netherlander would not, or could not sleep well hearing gunshots and ambulances and EMS units running all night, every night in the city. I’m also guessing that would depend on where it is you’d live within or just around the city though, wouldn’t it?

I wouldn’t think any of you folks from that region would appreciate working a job that pays far less of a minimum or average wage than what you are use to being paid back in the Netherlands! I’m guessing that you wouldn’t want to give up your free healthcare and medical treatment either, huh? Neither all those many weeks of job holiday, and vacation time, as well as that good amount of sick and maternity leave!

Hmmm, I wonder how would the newly migrated Netherlander would deal with living in a place where the murder rate is worse than living in say, Beirut! Would you fancy living in a place where the gun violence rate is so high that it is like that of some war torn regions in the middle east? Not to mention all the domestic terrorism and the many possible school shootings, and all the possible random movie theater, and open air concert shootings by angry and visibly disturbed white men on a mission!  

I wondered if you’d appreciate living in a place whose public school system’s clandestine goal appears to be one of preparing their youth more for imprison than for college! I don’t think the average Netherlander wants their children involved one bit with the public school, minority Prison Pipeline Population!... Fresh from school, and onto Jail! 

Would you send your children to any public schools where they boast unqualified teachers, old work out of outdated school books, and encourage an intentionally failed learning curriculum? Would your child feel comfortable being around uniformed, and plain clothes police officers, and other threatening and intimidating forces of authority all day long within their public school systems? People whose presence alone is enough to gender fear, and escalate tension among the syudents, and incite violence! 

Just the very presence of Prison Style Law Enforcement within your child’s schools, along with possible gang and other urban activities, causes disruption and impedes learning, and therefore largely prepares (in some cases) regularly ordinary disobedient children off to detention bootcamps, and jails for minor things they’d normally be sent to the principles office for! 

How would you deal with the fact that your child, and some of the more troubled youth among your children could be placed on one or more mood elevating tranquilizing drugs in order to calm them down... as the saying goes? A lot of the time, the medical end of the school system’s educational team will deem those students who act up in school as being emotionally impaired, and even criminals in need of psychotic drugs in order to contain or control them. Literally prepping them as it were for either life on the street, or for a life behind bars, in prison where they’ll probably work for free within the prison itself for various large corporations, making only pennies! Or at the very least, if they are not smart or do not stay out of trouble will end up working within the fast food industry or doing manual labor! But before you judge, mind you, this is not the case in every school public school system in America! Although this goes on in a great many of them in urban areas!

Personally, it’s hard for me to see those smiling, stress-free looking faces of you Nordics who live by lush green flowery canals, living in these beautiful little cottage style bungalows, and fairy tale homes traveling all the way over here to America in order to pay sky high taxes, and succumbing to the vicious mortgage, and 401K finance schemes!... I mean, even though you have a pretty heavy debt in the Netherlands, you've maintained the beauty and splendor of your homeland! 

I cringed just thinking about the fact that any good Netherlander would give up all that good food I read so much about that you guys normally eat on a regular basis, in order to ingest our sometimes quite substandard fowl and livestock, as well as this vast transformational inflow of GMO fruits and vegetables that is filling our supermarkets, and is largely unregulated and in most cases! Food that is sometimes recalled because of bacterias and contaminations. Or foods that have been mislabeled and/or chemically laden with every kind of pesticide and preservative know to modern science! 

I shutter to think of the looks on your faces if you had to drink some of our tap water in certain locals that are loaded with fluoride, and all those noticeable levels of chlorine, and those untraceable yet tasteless amounts of sediment and arsenic; and from what I read that is also in most city drinking water, some sort of Microbial Cyst! Hey!... Google it! It tripped me the hell out as well!

I just don’t see many of you good people from the Netherlands coming to a place where coastal cities like California, and an almost entire west coast region of America from Washington State, on down to Oregon and south into California is on Fire a great deal of the time inside of a year.... EVERY YEAR! 

California is at present suffering from some pretty significant Mudslides, Sink Holes and then there’s that ever potential threat of an Extinction Level Event, killer Earthquake or series of Earthquakes! 

I won’t even go into that whole thing about what if the Volcano located underneath Yellowstone National Park (located not very far from Los Angeles, California) erupts! 

I just find it hard to believe that people from such a beautiful, and peaceful little country would give up all that they have, and all that they are to move to places along our eastern seaboard, along the Atlantic! Just out of curiosity, would you be prepared to live in coastal areas that suffer regularly from extreme weather with Hurricanes and Tornados, and historic biblical style tropical weather, and other natural catastrophes? 

A place where from Florida to Maine, for almost half of the year there is an active  Hurricane Season! A season bringing raging high category, and hurricane winds and tropical rain storms nothing short of apocalyptic! Wiping out whole entire caribbean islands, along with their infrastructures and landmark land masses in its path!

If you live in the Netherlands, I really wonder would you migrate to a place that’s constantly under the threat of a nuclear attack from Korea’s ever bragging, and more than insane leader? A man who is always clucking about how close his finger is to the proverbial Dooms Day Button is on his desk? 

Seriously, would you really move to America knowing that our leader is also constantly threatening to Nuke Korea and its leader, and his small Asian country off the map with what he says are an even bigger cache of Nuclear Weapons! Both men squabbling like school yard twelve year olds, about whose got the biggest We-We in their pants, just about every other month or so?

Well, I left so many reason why out. I just couldn’t cover them all! In a way, trying to do so is pointless! Yet it makes for a good analogy! In seeing how beautiful and how harmonious the Netherlands appears to be to me from pictures and video clips. I’m just wondering, if you were to move here from that beautiful little country called the Netherlands. What would be the take away in it for you?... 

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Besides maybe a business deal, or an investment situation, where you’d sign a deal and then take in the sights and sounds of this whacky place where I live called America, and then fly back home to Oz! What would be the plus, the perk or the advantage for you in living here in America? I wonder!

Glenn Peppers