Black Panther came out in February of 2018, just over a year after Donald Trump was voted into office in January of 2017. Trump’s presidency immediately followed Barack Obama’s, who was America’s first non-white president, and who stayed in office for two full terms. Obama belonged to the democratic party, meaning while he was in office more socially progressive policies where passed, a lot of them aiming to improve the lives of black Americans. Then came in Trump, who was a far-right republican with much less progressive views.
Despite being a republican following a two-term democratic presidency of the first black president, Trump has claimed, on numerous occasions, that “I have done more for black Americans than anybody, except for the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln.” However, under the Obama Administration in 2015, black unemployment fell faster than it had any year since 1999. Contrary to this, in February of 2020 – before the Covid-19 pandemic and under the Trump Administration – black unemployment was at an all-time low for the country. However black Americans where concentrated in lower quality jobs, which did not have adequate healthcare or paid sick leave and would often not provide them with enough money to provide for their families. During the pandemic this led to them becoming disproportionately disposed to covid-19.
When Trump was campaigning in 2016, hate crimes increased by 200% in places he was holding a campaign rally. In 2020 he would go on to refuse to denounce white supremacy in a debate against the democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, showing his true stance on racism in America. In the same year he would also go on to call the Black Lives Matter movement a “symbol of hate” and to retweet – and later delete – a video including a Florida supporter shouting “White power”.
In his presidency, Trump appointed the most Appeals Court judges since President Carter, and not one of them was black. This was directly following Obama’s appointed judges, where 19% of the President’s confirmed judges where African American, compared to 16% under Clinton and 7% under Bush. Trump’s appointed judges where largely conservative, and many of them continued to affect judicial outcomes on topics of critical importance to African Americans, including policing, sentencing, voting, healthcare and racial equity.
Under the Trump Administration 90% of Black-owned small businesses that applied for Pay Protection Plan (PPP) funding where denied, leading to over 40% of Black-owned small businesses being shuttered during covid, showing an unequal distribution of resources amongst black and white owned businesses. This is contrast to the Obama Administration, which saw a 38% increase in minority-owned firms since 2007.
Despite all this, Trump continued to parade the “fact” that he had improved the lives of black Americans.
This was tweeted just days after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police officers on the 25th of May 2020.This pushed the Black Lives Matter movement into mainstream public attention, with the most eyes on it its ever had since its founding in 2013, during Obama’s presidency. It was formed in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman after his murder of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old boy, calling for racial justice and the end of anti-Black systemic racism. The movement aims not just to improve the lives of Black people in America, but also to remember and honor the lives of every black person who was killed by state-sanctioned and vigilante violence.
Though the Black Lives Matter movement started in 2013, it wasn’t until 2014 that it became fully developed in response to the unjust killing of Mike Brown by a Ferguson police officer. Independent of the movement, there were demonstrations against this going on in the local area. The movement responded to this, bringing 600 people to St. Louis to support the demonstrators.In wake of this, the movement began to gain national traction, calling for justice and systemic change across America. This led to the forming of the Black Lives Matter Network, which quickly became global, with aims reaching far outside of just America.
Around the time of Black Panther’s release, and despite the best efforts of the Black Lives Matter movement, police violence towards black people was on the rise. From 3.3% of black encounters with policing involving the use of force in 2015, to 3.8% in 2018, and even after the film the number kept growing to 4.3% in 2020. Black people are also among the top two racial groups who are at most risk of fatal police encounters, with 7.08 fatal police shootings per million of the population from 2013 to 2023.
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