By Stephanie Shonekan, Art, Music, and Pop Culture Contributing Editor

“The wise build bridges, the foolish build barriers,” King T’Challah tells the United Nations at the end of Black Panther. This sentiment resonated with me throughout the film. I was not thinking of the different world powers coming together on an equal footing to help each other and share resources. This is improbable and untenable in a hierarchical world where we still consider some countries third world and some first world. In this light, T’Challah’s statement is simplistic and cheesy. But as I thought about the relevance of this statement for the chasm between Africans and African Americans, it grew in profundity.  (more…)