Using the theories and methods of anthropology we have learned in class, analyze the film Black Panther and try to explain the symbolism behind the fight between Killmonger and T’Challa.
Think of all the themes of the class. Issues of egalitarian and non-egalitarian societies.
Issues of ritual warfare, the History of Colonialism, Slavery, and ideas of revolution and Decolonization.
Analyze the historical debates that the film portrays. More specifically, who represents the ideas of Toussaint Louverture (Haitian Revolution), Nat Turner, Frederick Douglass, of WEB Dubois, and who represents the ideas of Booker T Washington? How is that related to the History of the Civil rights movement, and to the local history of the Black Panther Party of Oakland?
Also think of the life and ideas of Malcolm X his conversion to Islam and Martin Luther King Jr., and how both of these leaders were murdered and the relationship to the issues we are still living today with the movement of Black Lives Matter.
You can also refer to the recent cases of Ahmaud Arbery, in Georgia and George Floyd in Minneapolis. And how that is related to the local experience in Oakland with Oscar Grant and the film about his murder by Bart Police in the Fruitvale Station.