EMANICIPATION VS. FREEDOM PT. 4

I had hoped that I had said all I needed to say about the politicization of the CW superhero universe in the previous essay in this series. Unfortunately, thanks to the BLACK LIGHTNING episode "Just and Unjust," broadcast on 2-5-19,  I’m returning to the CW well once more.

I don’t watch BLACK LIGHTNING for entertainment, since I don’t generally get entertainment out of any sort of art that puts politics ahead of poetry. Despite my having been accused in some benighted bailiwicks of being an arch-conservative, I find conservative soapboxes just as flimsy as liberal ones. But in the 2010s there's not nearly as many venues where conservatives can may fools of themselves as the ultraliberals like to pretend.

I won’t attempt to analyze the complicated plot-lines of BLACK LIGHTNING's two seasons here. The show's posture was made clear from the first episode. Racist white cops gratuitously pull over school principal Jefferson Pierce and humiliate him for “driving while black”—and in front of his teenaged daughters Anissa and Jennifer, no less. This incident looms large in Pierce’s return to his earlier role as the vigilante superhero Black Lightning, and when his daughters also develop powers, they too become equally involved in fighting against “the Man,” as an earlier generation called it. To be sure, most of the hero’s opponents are the minions of the albino-black gang-boss Tobias Whale, against whom Black Lightning nurtures an old grudge. But even the presence of black cops in Pierce's mostly-black community of Freeland doesn’t anneal the general sense that all Black Americans live in a state of constant victimization. Even the predatory actions of black gangstas, by implication, are ultimately the responsibility of America’s system of “institutionalized racism.”

Nothing signals this unrelenting depiction of constant victimization more than what I’ll term “the Khalil plotline.” Khalil, a fellow student with Jennifer and Anissa at Freeland’s fairly upscale high school, is an up-and-coming track star with a bright future ahead of him, the more so when he and Jennifer fall in love. But Khalil's dreams come to an end when one of Tobias Whale's minions tries to kill a local organizer, resulting in Khalil being crippled by a stray bullet. 

Tobias Whale, though indirectly the author of Khalil's predicament, then plays the role of the Tempter. Using cyborg-like technology, Tobias gives Khalil the power to walk again, as well as super-powers, so that Khalil will function as Whale’s enforcer. Khalil makes this devil’s bargain in full possession of his faculties, and one of Whale’s plots involves Khalil storming his former high school and creating havoc. The students, most of whom are black, flee in panic from Khalili’s powers, though, conveniently for later plotlines, he doesn’t kill any of them.

Jennifer Pierce believes in her beloved and turns him away from serving Whale. So far as this goes, this is pretty standard for the CW, having a sympathetic character commit criminal offenses but finding some way to redeem him so that he never goes to jail for them. However, in season two, Khalil meets his reward for rebelling against the gangsta life, and he dies by the order of Whale.

As “Just and Unjust” begins, the mourning Jennifer returns to her school, where incidentally, Jefferson Pierce has been demoted to vice-principal due to his mysterious absences (caused by his superhero sideline), and an unfeeling white guy takes Pierce’s former job. This of course is one of the nightmares of Afro-American culture: the fear that at any moment even those with rewarding, respectable community positions will simply have their advancements ripped away by the white hierarchy. Since Unfeeling White Guy is not a developed character, I’ll just call him UWG for short.

On Jennifer’s first day back at school, she’s pleased that many of the students have evidently forgiven (or forgotten) Khalil’s rampage, for they’ve created memorials for the former track star. However, UWG has the memorials taken down.

Jennifer doesn’t make any attempt to meet with the principal or anyone else to contest this dictate. Instead, she assembles her own memorial in one of the school hallways. UWG quotes the school handbook, calling the display “inappropriate student art.” Though I don’t recall UWG having done or said anything racist in previous episodes, Jennifer immediately tasks him with bigotry.

“You can hide behind the handbook and all your rules. But the fact of the matter is, you just don’t like [Khalil]—or any of us, do you?” She also inducts Khalil into the ranks of “black lives that matter,” and outright calls UWG a racist. All of the student witnessing the exchange—not just some of them, but ALL of them—completely agree with Jennifer and apparently don’t care that Khalil’s rampage might’ve killed or injured some of them. Once a white guy’s in charge, he can be nothing but a representative of the white hierarchy, even though I believe most principals in a similar situation would have a lot of problems with honoring a gangster’s enforcer. Somehow, Khalil’s injury becomes the injury that all black people suffer at the hands of white people, for Jennifer, before being removed by security, preaches that “every person standing here is just one step away from becoming something they never meant to be.” And it’s totally the fault of the hierarchy: black people are  “trapped by a system, that doesn’t give a damn about us-- run by people like you.”

UWG then has a student rebellion on his hands, and his vice-principal’s only concern is his daughter’s welfare. When Pierce is told that finds his daughter called UWG a racist in front of other students, Pierce re-interprets this direct insult into liberal-speak:

“Jennifer is just questioning whether you have the perspective or the sensitivity for this community.”

Uh, not quite. She wanted to have a memorial to her gangsta-boyfriend on school property, and thought she could get it by picturing him as a victim of institutionalized racism.  The script, not willing to recognize Pierce’s bullshit, then loads the dice further by having UWG express resentment for the fact that he believes he’s had a harder life than Jefferson Pierce. Pierce’s response is practically boilerplate Leftism:

“you get the benefit of the doubt that even a rich black man will not get.  That’s what these kids are facing.”

If Khalil had been framed by the cops or the KKK, this “benefit of the doubt” argument might hold some relevance. But there is no “doubt” that Khalil committed criminal acts, and it would be a peculiar principal of any race who would think it a great idea to memorialize a gangsta in a high school. The idea that Khalil is instantly forgiven all of his sins because he’s had a hard row to hoe, being black in America, summarizes BLACK LIGHTNING’s total investment in victimization politics, and makes clear that the show endorses only the credo of “justice for the oppressed alone.”