Wakanda isn't an ideal utopia for Africa

am thrilled to feature this guest post from Magatte Wade, author of the newsletter Africa’s Bright Future (which I highly recommend!). Her new book, The Heart of a Cheetah, outlines how Africa can overcome poverty and get on the path to human flourishing. I hope you enjoy her analysis of Wakanda, the African techtopia featured in the film Black Panther.

—Elle Griffin

In one sense, Wakanda is a wonderful utopia for Africans.

As an African, I’m acutely aware that almost all Western representations of Africa focus on poverty, disease, civil war, or, at best, charming tribal primitivism (Go National Geographic!). In essence, we are degraded even by the “pity porn” that most well-intentioned NGOs use to raise funds for African-focused charities. Every time I walk through an airport and see a huge larger-than-life image of a starving African child with an inflated belly and flies in his eyes, I’m reminded of how the world sees us.

In this context, the utopia of Wakanda as portrayed in Black Panther was an amazing gift to the pride and dignity both of Africans and black people everywhere. We were portrayed as prosperous innovators with cutting-edge technology. There was no foreign aid, no NGOs, no barbaric Africans, no starving Africans, no white saviors in sight. Indeed, the primary white people were the bad guys whom the African good guys defeated. Africans were strong, beautiful, confident, noble—it was as if we were the real heroes of our own story! Imagine that!

This is one of the reasons why Black Panther was a hit movie—globally there was a longing on behalf of Africans, black people, and I suspect many non-white people to see a heroic story centered on Africans. Moreover, although there were white villains, the film was not gratuitously anti-white. It was a humane film with a real sense of human heart.

So why not simply celebrate Wakanda as an African utopia?

Wakanda isn't an ideal utopia for Africa

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