Race, Representation, and the Black Diaspora: A Very Special "Black Panther" Themed Episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show

There are two guests on this week's special fundraising month all things Black Panther episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show.

Adilifu Nama is an Associate Professor of African American Studies at Loyola Marymount University and the author of the new book Super Black: American Pop Culture and Black Superheroes. Adilifu and Chauncey discuss the cultural politics surrounding Black Panther, what the movie and graphic novel are trying to communicate about the Black Diaspora, and how the white gaze will be challenged by Black Panther's depiction of black folks' humanity.

Ramzi Fawaz also stops by the virtual bar and salon. He is an assistant professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the author of The New Mutants: Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American Comics. Ramzi explains how questions of inclusion and representation are central to comic books and graphic novels and the rich history of mutants in the genre. Ramzi also shares some powerful stories about the role that the "Letters to the Editor" page played in creating a sense of community for comic book fans--especially black and brown folks, gays and lesbians, women, and those readers who are not white, straight, and male.

In this week's episode of the podcast Chauncey offers an extensive meditation on why Americans love guns more than their children and how the gun god Moloch was fed new bodies and blood by the mass gun murder Nikolas Cruz this week in Parkland, Florida.

And at the end of this week's special fundraising month installment of the podcast, Chauncey shares his review of the movie Black Panther.