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Black Panther: political context

Updated: Dec 9, 2019

In 2014, Obama launched a program that helped minority youth stay off the streets and help provide them with education and skills to be a functioning member of society.The program was named My Brother's Keeper, and the idea was endorsed by philanthropic groups like the Annie E. Casey foundation and The Ford Foundation.They pledged at least two hundred million dollars over the course of five years to develop programs on early childhood development, parenting and school discipline, as well as other critical areas.

Since Donald Trump's inauguration into the White House, My Brother's Keeper has merged within the Obama Foundation as the MBK Alliance, which focuses on building safe and supportive communities for boys and young men of colour.


Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, has had his fair share of controversy over the past 10 years regarding his racial views.Trump launched his 2016 presidential campaign with a speech in which he made a statement about Mexican immigrants: "They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people". When Trump became president, he stopped the government funding of My brother's Keeper.




Trump has revoked and/or overwritten many regulations that came into action during the Obama-era. These include, but aren't limited to:

  • Rescinding a proposed Obama-era rule that would have required more justification for public housing agencies seeking to demolish public housing projects.

  • Reversing a three-year-old Justice Department policy that protected transgender workers from discrimination under federal law.

  • Revoking 72 policy documents that outline the rights of students with disabilities.

  • Banning transgender people from serving in the military in any capacity.

  • Banning transgender people from serving in the military in any capacity.

  • Guidance says states can decide whether to accommodate transgender students

Despite none of them really having a direct impact to people of colour and other minority groups, Trumps past has shown that he could easily revoke more civil rights introduced in the Obama era.


In 2012, during Obamas ruling as president, a 17-year-old African American boy named Trayvon Martin was walking home in the evening to his father's fiancée's house from a nearby convenience store. A man named George Zimmerman spotted the young man and reported him to the local police as suspicious, for he was a member of community watch. Moments later, there was conflict between the 2 men, and it ended with Zimmerman fatally shooting Martin. Zimmerman didn't get any time in prison for the altercation, as he claimed he shot the boy in self defense. This one event is the reason that in 2013, the Black Lives Matter movement was created.


The whole movement was born out of the oppression that black youth and the black society in the USA have to live with everyday from the injustice within the justice system. The Black Lives Matter movement ranges from posts on social media to national rallies.


The unfortunate reality is that on the 4th of

December 2019, Zimmerman sued the family

of Martin for $100 Million.



Many celebrities have endorsed the Black Lives Matter movement, one in which being rapper Kendrick Lamar. With his prior altercations with the law and his own opinions about the problem with police brutality, Kendrick spent a good amount of his career talking about the problems black people live with in modern day America, with his critically acclaimed album 'to pimp a butterfly' acting as his magnum opus. It is for this reason that Kendrick composed the Original Soundtrack for the movie Black Panther

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