If you’re black and nerdy — or simply nerdy, or simply black — you’ve likely been planning a mid-February trip to the movies since you first glimpsed the “Black Panther” trailer last October. Rahzie Seals was no different: Seals had been toying for a while with the idea of renting a theater for the film’s premiere when she showed the trailer to her 5-year-old nephew.

“My nephew loves ‘Avengers,’” Seals said. “He has all the Avengers on his little book shelf, and everything is (in) a particular order. He just got really excited, and I was like, ‘OK. Maybe we can take kids.’”

The highly anticipated film hits theaters Friday. This weekend, Seals and Black Lives Matter Syracuse aim to give local young people that same joy. Along with organizer Herve Comeau, BLM Syracuse will take 425 kids and teenagers to see “Black Panther” at Destiny USA, Comeau said. For the group and for members of the Syracuse University community, the superhero action flick provides the black community with some much-needed empowerment.

The BLM chapter set up a YouCaring campaign to raise $3,500 for popcorn, drinks and movie tickets by Feb. 5. Now, inspired by Frederick Joseph, the group is looking to drum up $10,000.

Joseph started a GoFundMe with a goal of $10,000 to take 300 kids from the Boys and Girls Club of Harlem to the movies. He ended up pulling in more than $40,000. He invited community organizers to take on the #BlackPantherChallenge by raising money to take children to see “Black Panther.”

Seals accepted the challenge in late January. As of Wednesday, BLM Syracuse has raised more than $7,300. The more research Seals did about the film, which stars people like Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong’o and Michael B. Jordan, the more convinced she became of its significance.

“It’s Black History Month,” Seals said. “We have a predominantly black cast, which we normally don’t get. We have a black director (Ryan Coogler). Even though it’s fiction, we’re talking about a country (that) is highly advanced. We’re talking about royalty.”

The pieces started to fall into place for her.

“The Dora Milaje are a group of strong, black, women warriors. We’re talking about a country that was never affected by colonialism,” Seals said. “You start asking that question: ‘What happened if they never came to colonize Africa?’ We could have been like Wakanda.”

The film follows T’Challa, also known as Black Panther, as he returns to the African nation of Wakanda. His father is dead, and T’Challa is next in line for the throne. Little does he know that Killmonger, a Wakandan exile, is waiting in the wings to destroy the kingdom. T’Challa teams up the with the Dora Milaje warriors and CIA Agent Everett Ross to save Wakanda from ruin.

“Black Panther” has already broken Fandango’s record for most advance tickets bought for a Marvel film, a crown last held by the 2016-released “Captain America: Civil War.” This could be the case for several reasons: Marvel-mania is high, the film’s cast boasts A-listers and Kendrick Lamar has effectively riled up fans with his soundtrack.

Chadwick Boseman at the #BlackPanther World Premiere ? pic.twitter.com/c7zlQTA6JF

— MEFeater Magazine (@mefeater) January 30, 2018

But Anne Osborne, an associate professor at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, points to how comic book adaptations have “traditionally been a very whitewashed genre.” More than that, “Black Panther” comes at a critical point in the United States’ tense relationship with race, she said.

“It’s not that the racial conflict is new, but it’s much more visible and part of a larger discourse,” Osborne said. “To have a movie like this that has a black superhero is really necessary.”

Likewise, Comeau, the other BLM Syracuse organizer working on this project, referenced President Donald Trump’s comments about Haitian immigrants and those from African countries. Now more than ever, Comeau said, the narrative around blackness needs to change.

“This is empowering blackness,” Comeau said. “This is seeing blackness as brilliance, as regality.”

Comeau noted how “Black Panther” belongs to a wave of films definitively changing the idea of race on the silver screen. “Get Out” was one of them.

“We’ve seen a series of movies over the past year that aren’t just about sports teams, that aren’t just about black slaves, that aren’t just about drug addicts and criminals,” he said.

Comeau’s only question: What took the film industry so long to get here?

“Why is it so late in the game that we’re discovering that black people are people?” he asked.

Charisse L’Pree, an assistant professor of communications at the Newhouse School, pointed to the bits and pieces of black superhero representation before “Black Panther” — Luke Cage, for example. The unbreakable Cage got an eponymous Netflix show in 2016, and he makes his way through other Marvel TV shows like “Jessica Jones” and “The Defenders.”

L’Pree brought up The CW’s latest DC vehicle, “Black Lightning,” which started airing this year, and also the 2015 reboot of “Fantastic Four,” which also features Michael B. Jordan. Apart from the latter film being a flop, Jordan’s character, Human Torch, was on the periphery. Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa, on the other hand, is front and center.

It’s important for children’s psychological well-being, L’Pree said, to embody characters whose physicality matches up with their own.

“Children can pretend to be whoever they want. Black, white — it doesn’t matter. But in gender- or race-swapping, that practice?” L’Pree asked. “You’re simultaneously asking that child to ignore their own identity.”

For example, a little girl could be Darth Vader or Spiderman, and that would be fine, she said.

“But at the same time, it reinforces the idea that only men change the world — good or bad, with my Darth Vader example,” L’Pree said. “Men change the world, and you need to learn how to repress your womanness if you want to change the world.”

Comeau spoke to this as well. He addressed those who felt as if his and Seals’ efforts to prioritize children of color at the screening would be a form of discrimination.

“I would urge them to think about what it means when every movie isn’t about you. When, as a kid, you have to say, ‘I’m black Harry Potter or black Wolverine,’” Comeau said. “Instead of just Wolverine. Instead of just Harry Potter. Instead of just Katniss.”

With children in the audience, L’Pree said, it’s important that “Black Panther” is framing blackness as valuable.

“If there’s a frame around an image,” said L’Pree, “that image is important enough to be framed.”

Published on February 14, 2018 at 11:15 pm