His father was right. Watching the sunset, Erik felt a wave of peace wash over him. Wakanda was really the most beautiful place on earth. The warm pink of the light warmed his very soul.
He always knew he would die before he grew old. It was practically written the moment he was born in Oakland. Whether he was murdered by a gang member, assassinated by the police, or killed by diabetes or heart disease, the chances were greater than not he would die before his time.
But watching the sunset, Erik knew he had put his whole body, soul, and life into his pursuit of freedom and peace. He had no regrets except that he didn’t fulfill his vision. However, looking at T’Challa, he saw the beginning of a spark in the man’s eyes.
T’Challa was the type of person to make change within the system, rocking the boat just enough to change direction. Looking at the sympathy in T’Challa’s expression, Erik believed that T’Challa was finally ready to commit to change, which was better than nothing. A small deviation – a small choice – could mark a major change in trajectory. And Erik would have to be content with that, for his plan had failed.
In Erik’s mind, there were two ways to make change. T’Challa, and others like him, make slow steady change, like a river slowly eroding rock away over millions of years.
But Erik wanted the second way to make change. Erik was a radical.
***
Erik first formally learned about radicals in Algebra. Math was a subject that came naturally to him, a subject that he excelled at, and finding the roots of any number was strangely cathartic. Math remained a reliable constant within the turmoil of his life, through the chaos of his grandmother’s apartment, the unreliable letters from his mother in prison, and the pain of his father’s death. However, Erik wouldn’t be caught dead admitting his affinity for math. To others at Oakland Tech, he was the captain of the basketball team. Tech took great pride in their sports, and Erik wasn’t about to let his school down. Fortunately for Erik, the combination of basketball championships and stellar testing scores (thanks to mathematics) resulted in admission to the US Naval Academy and he left comfortable California for the stuck-up pretentiousness of the east-coast.
In California, no one gave a shit what family you came from. Fame or money gave you status; if you earned it yourself, you were even more respected. But on the east coast, it was all about who you came from. Were you descended from the Mayflower? Was your daddy a senator? Was your great-great grandfather some rich slave-owning governor?
Though Erik was descended from royalty, he hated the nepotism and pseudo-aristocratic privilege flaunted by these rich white people. Fuck monarchies and oligarchies. When he remade the world, it would be in the hands of people who actually knew what the world was like-- the poor, the oppressed, the weak. If he was going to be a leader, he was going to earn his place.
To others at the Naval Academy, he was the clean-cut hard-working soldier who took orders like a pro. Erik tried to keep his head down and stay out of trouble, so he could prepare to make trouble like they’d never seen before. While his fellow students went out, he stayed in, reading and watching speeches and books by Black activists.
And that was where he found the second meaning of radical. Before his father was murdered, Erik couldn’t help the adolescent welling of mortification whenever he was in public with his father. His father was different from other kids’ parents, which was bad enough, but given the chance his father would also launch into deeply impassioned speeches about school-to-prison pipelines and acknowledging the land of the Ohlone people. However, as an adult reading texts, watching footage of the civil rights movement, Erik was grateful for his father’s radical passion. He only wished he got to share this passion with him.
Erik felt that the issue is that the non-marginalized see unprovoked violence. Unless black people point it out, they don’t see the deaths and brutal beatings from police officers or armed angry white men. They don’t see that the system of law has sent fathers, sons, mothers and daughters to prison or to death row for crimes that do not match the punishment. They don’t see the microaggressions in the workplace about black bodies and black culture. Just like they are oblivious to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, they are oblivious to the war happening in their very own country, where black men and women must fight to live.
But Erik sees the violence. If another country had done to white people in America what America has done to black people, America would annihilate that country and the victory against hate would be celebrated throughout the world. But like the rich kids who insist their Harvard admissions are purely due to hard work, white people don’t acknowledge the privilege they hold.
Erik stumbled upon a quote by Robert F. Williams, the president of the Monroe, North Carolina, NAACP, that resonated deep within his core. “ The Afro-American militant is a militant because he defends himself, his family, his home, and his dignity. He does not introduce violence into a racist social system- the violence is already there, and has always been there. It is precisely this unchallenged violence that allows a racist social system to perpetuate itself. When people say that they are opposed to Negros ‘resorting to violence’ what they are opposed to is Negroes defending themselves and challenging the exclusive monopoly of violence practiced by white racists .”
And what troubled Erik about Wakanda is that the entire country perpetuated the silencing of violence on black lives. By not responding to the violence, they silenced it and perpetuated it. By not speaking out, they continued to silence the narrative of violence that black people faced.
Judith Lewis Herman said it another way: “ It is morally impossible to remain neutral in this conflict. The bystander is forced to take sides. It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. ”
When Erik read each new passage, Erik felt as though his father was still with him. Through the turn of each page, new memories rose to the surface of his mind.
He remembered when he was a kid, a group from Tech got Martin Luther King Jr. Day to be signed into law in California. Lots of folks were excited - he was excited - but when he went home to his father, his father shook his head and scoffed.
“This country was founded on genocide, slavery and hate. If you build your house with a rotten foundation, the whole house needs to be rebuilt. Otherwise the whole house will come down eventually,” his father told Erik. “Wakanda has the power to rebuild, but they do nothing. We need radical change, change from the roots.”
When he was a kid, he just nodded along, jittering with impatience until his father told him he could go outside and play. After his father died, he wished he had listened more.
“Wakanda is not a perpetrator, but it is not a hero either,” his father often preached. “To stand by and watch a crime be committed when you have the strength and agency to intervene is just as bad as committing the crime yourself. Your silence and your inaction is an action in itself.” His father shook his head again. “Wakanda has the power to protect the children who die in America and in the world. They are like the townspeople in the world war who let families be gassed to death, who stood aside and did nothing.”
His father took a deep breath. “N'Jadaka, if you have the power to do so, you should not be a victim, a perpetrator or a bystander. You should be a hero.”
Erik wanted to be a hero. But first, he needed power.
***
Power in physical strength is where people’s minds first go when talking about power. Erik recognized that he had to be physically able to take on the role to fight. But more importantly, Erik also understood that power lay in knowledge, in tactics. Having the biggest gun in the room or the most imposing figure would gain you immediate power, but that strength was often wielded or manipulated by the smartest in the room.
Erik knew that power lay in infamy. The best pirates didn’t have to do any killing or fighting at all -- they were the ones that had the worst reputation, a reputation that meant it was better to surrender than to fight back at all. Erik carefully crafted an image of ruthlessness. His name - Killmonger - and the scarification marks on his body created an image of ruthlessness.
Killmonger concocted some bullshit story about his scarification marks, but really, the marks were punishment. To gain battle knowledge and physical strength, he knew it would be massively beneficial to understand how to kill. There was no better way to learn those skills than in the US military. Though he put all his effort into his deployment, he didn’t agree with his role in Afghanistan and Iraq. In his opinion, the military was an extension of the colonialist mindset and the manifest destiny that America rested its power upon. While the military ran on the assumption that white is right and therefore knew best to meddle in other affairs, the military was run by the wealthy elite. He knew that the military fought under the facade of American safety to make rich white men even richer.
Therefore, his marks were a reminder of each life he had taken for the greater good. That he carried their memories with him, that they would not be forgotten. It was for the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, the elderly and the children who were killed in the name of white freedom and power.
But to others, he told a different story. A story that painted him as fearsome, malicious, and mean. A story that fed into their stereotypes of the black savages that feel less pain than white folk. But he didn’t care. He wasn’t in this for his image, or to be revered or remembered on a pedestal, like the Avengers. He could go down as a villain in history as long as the oppressed were free.
***
Besides the power of his mind and body, Erik knew that he had to obtain wealth. To Erik, this was the scariest part. Erik was afraid he would lose himself. After all, racism in its current American incarnation was birthed from the bowels of inequitable wealth. (Think of it this way. How does a minority (wealthy white) steal from the entire country and get away with it? The answer: make themselves a majority. Instead of the 99% against the 1%, shift the focus to white against black. Though racism existed before Bacon’s Rebellion, race was codified into law after the fact, sharpening inequities and eroding the rights of black men and women. Erik knew that this dynamic had never changed in the hundreds of years to follow.)
Wealth had a corrupting influence that bred complacency and hatred. Being comfortable meant that justice could wait. The people who believe that peace, conversations, and slow change, by working your way up to those in charge, to persuade and sway those in charge were those who were born into the privilege, who could afford to wait another hundred years for freedom, because their peace was at the expense of exploitation of others.
But like the sleazy car manufacturer that proclaims that instead of paying $25,000 upfront, you only have to pay $125 every week, there are hidden costs to waiting. While 700,000 or so died in the Civil War, compare that number to the thousands of slaves who died during the passage to America or who died during enslavement on American plantations or while escaping from slavery. The Civil War caused thousands of deaths but it put an end to de juro slavery in America, preventing the death of thousands of more people.
Significant chance could only occur when power came from the people - the voices of those who suffer the most should be heard and acted upon. A monarchy was the opposite of that - in a monarchy, it is easy to delay change because privilege breeds complacency. Change can wait, and thus change never happens.
Erik recognized that he had to topple the existing monarchy in Wakanda for that reason. But he also knew that he had to seize Wakanda’s wealth to distribute it to the people. And that taste of power was the most terrifying part.
But not the hardest part.
Two ethical theories - utilitarian theory and deontological theory - are often evoked in moral dilemmas. In an extreme example, the trolly problem, a thought experiment, can be used to demonstrate the two theories. In the trolly problem, a trolly is set on a path to run over five people. You have the power to pull a lever and divert the trolly to a different path on which one person will be run over. In utilitarian ethics, the ends justify the means; you would pull the lever to save more lives. In deontological ethics, the actions themselves must be moral. In pulling the lever, you would kill one person, which would be immoral.
Utilitarianism made sense to Erik. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.” He emphasized that to his team. His life, their lives, were insignificant in the magnitude of global good. They had to be prepared for that.
Erik nearly wasn’t prepared for that.
In all of the death’s Erik had caused, Linda’s hit him the hardest. In the trolly problem, no one discusses the feeling of your stomach falling clean out of your body as you pull the lever to divert the trolly. No one moralizes over the pain in your chest crushing your heart into dust as you watch the trolly change tracks. No one writes philosophical prose about the way your soul screams as you watch the life fade from the eyes of your girlfriend and knowing that you were responsible. And in the moment, it doesn’t matter that you are going to save the lives of millions and liberate the lives of billions. It matters that you pulled the lever to change the path of the trolly.
And looking into T’Challa’s eyes, Erik has to believe that his choices resulted in the most good for the entire world. He has to believe it for Linda and for every man, woman, and child represented on his body in scarred flesh. He has to believe it for his father.
But he had one last card in his hand. T’Challa must remember this moment and - as martyrdom demonstrates time and time again - a death is unforgettable. The sun was setting and all he had to do was close his eyes for it to be night.
" Bury me in the ocean, with my ancestors that jumped from the ships, because they knew death was better than bondage ."