Chadwick Boseman Is A Poster-child for Creative Resilience
Let me explain what I mean.
It came to me in a powerful weekly co-counseling session as I supported a Sistar in feeling all the grief feels over the unexpected death of superstar Chadwick Boseman. If you somehow, by this point don’t know who he is, I don’t know how you found me, (and I don’t know if I believe that!) but I’m glad you did. This concept of Creative Resilience is universally powerful and the time to apply it is like Wakanda — FOREVER.
I’m corny but it is true y’all.
Chadwick Boseman, among many things, is OUR KING! King T’Challa of the most recent iconic, #ForTheCulture, billion dollar film — Black Panther. This film did crazy numbers, broke all kinds of records, and was directed by Oakland’s own Ryan Coogler! The facts of the impact on paper are easy to find and would make anyone proud to know, but my own memory of the experience is validation enough. Do you remember where you were when you saw Black Panther? Who were you with, and was that the first time or second? If you’re like me & any of my Bay Area folks, you have a connection story to Black Panther, with pictures and Instagram posts to prove it.
This film incited a cultural culmination of celebration everywhere it was played. Instagram was popping then like it is now, but with Black folks doing what we do when we get excited and inspired — expressing through fashion, dance, hilarious clips and creating challenges. If you scroll back far enough you’ll be reminded of the way all shades, intersectional identities and aesthetics of Blackness spilled forth in theater lobbies. In his stand-up special Contrarian, D.L. Hughley captures this hilariously! Yes, some extra woke thinkers may have criticized the adoration and pointed out that Wakanda was an imaginary place. I understood and I am here for questioning anything Hollywood sponsors for us. Yet, we are Hollywood too. We are creators with and without Hollywood and we always have been. The impact of Wakanda’s images and actual possibilities (for the most part) gave us something huge. I know this because something that seems as small as representation becomes real magnified in its lived outcomes. Something as small as a role becomes magnified in its legacy and one-of-a-kindness, knowing it can never be replicated or done again the way it was in that moment. Nearly 2 and a half years later, we are here in our various outlets of connection and those same hashtags, with an expression of a collective grief.
This grief isn’t an isolated collection of pain, but another layer. An addition to all that 2020 and beyond has piled onto us as a people. For this reason, I have been getting most of my news from my family text thread or my partner when I dare ask what he’s reacting to while he’s scrolling. For me, the impact of scrolling, listening, or watching anything I didn’t thoughtfully curate for myself has led down many rabbit holes and unwanted mood shifts. So when I heard Chadwick had died, I was shocked and expecting a tragedy closer to what happened to Kobe or Aaliyah, not colon cancer! That wasn’t at all a part of the connection story that I had to The Black Panther himself! My Black Panther took me to the intersection of Ancient Reverence, Black Power and AfroFuturistic Freedom.
In breaking the news, my Lola sent me Jemele Hill’s tweet:
“Chadwick was diagnosed with colon cancer four years ago, per reports. During that time, he gave us Civil War, Marshall, Black Panther, Infinity War, Endgame, 21 Bridges and Da 5 Bloods. Lord only knows what he was going through on a daily basis”.
How could all this be and he be suffering? Well, consider where we come from. A long line of ancestry, legacies and icons who have demonstrated an intense and persistent resilience, and risen to incredibly high heights in all arenas in life that we occupy. Our newest ancestor Chadwick is no exception to this truth. This is why he is the Poster-child for Creative Resilience. He had every reason to give up and give in to his diagnosis. He had certain death on his horizon. Yet he resolved to act all the way out and push out an incredible catalog of work as a prolific theater artist. He allowed himself to become Our King, the Black Panther. He also made sure to give back in personal ways, as I witnessed in his commencement speech at his alma mater, Howard University. (Thanks to my Aunty Venetta for sharing this with me). On top of this, he also spent his time being a partner to his queen Simone, who, my Lola reminded me, was my cousin’s childhood friend. And while being a dedicated, creative, persistent and resilient creator, he was quietly surviving cancer.
I am inspired and incited to share. I created an instagram story that led me here, finally. My instagram story was powerful for me, but the profound idea I was connecting to needed more than a 24-hour, followers-only story. I had been planning to start sharing my writing here and this idea of Creative Resilience as embodied by my reflections of Chadwick Boseman was the thing to actually connect me to the doing. So, as I write these things down, I want to share a design that my partner, Najee Amaranth, created back when we were tapped into the celebration of Chadwick Boseman as our King T’Challa. I want to reaffirm the possibility of it as an act of Creative Resilience, even in Chadwick’s earthly absence, that helped me craft this story.
Our best-selling T-Shirt is inspired by Black Panther. I wear it often because it is my favorite Oakland Mind design. It was as important when it was designed as it is now. It was as worthy of conceptualizing and contributing to the culture of Black Power, Pride, Black Business, and East Oakland when it was designed as it is now. I am pleased with myself for not immediately hearing about Chadwick’s death and thinking “let’s sale our Wakanda shirt”, but for finding that this connection for us has always existed, and though we may serve the people who want to look Wakanda Fly with our design, we don’t create for sales. We are also creators who found ourselves and one another through Creative Resilience. In that spirit, and in honoring this legacy that Chadwick does so well, I challenge you to do the same. I define Creative Resilience as all calls to actions that inspire, manifest, and build toward a creative vision — specifically in response to adversity, struggle, and discouragement. In other words, when you see a world offering you destruction and despair, you see that offer and raise it what your unique imagination can visualize, and you give it tangible shape.
I know folks get it. It isn’t new. So, here is my IG photo story to simply show what it has meant to other artists I found in the #WakandaForever hashtag, and what it means to us…
I hope you get it and take it with you.
PS: You know who else gets it?
This beautiful group of youth zooming and blooming in Philly.
Nothing new under the sun.
LOVE
