A week or two ago a trailer for Avengers: Infinity War surfaced and it was one that gave me chills. Everything about it was absolute perfection, it provided the right amount of suspense as well as a nice little laugh at the end. The laugh was provided by a short conversation between Okoye, the general and leader of an all women army intended to protect the king of Wakanda, and King T’Challa. The conversation went like this:
Okoye: “When you said you were going to open up Wakanda to the rest of the world this is not what I imagined.”
T’Challa: “What did you imagine?”
Okoye: “The Olympics.. Maybe even a Starbucks”
The added Starbucks joke is what had me bent over in laughter while watching the trailer. Today I went to see Infinity War and this same joke was told. The Irony washed over me, and the joke left a bad taste in my mouth. For those who aren’t aware there has recently been a call for a boycott on Starbucks because of events that took place at a Philadelphia location. Two Black men were sitting in Starbucks waiting on their friend and the manager called the police on them for just sitting there. Something that people do everyday at Starbucks, we go there to do work meet up with friends and just enjoy the atmosphere. The manager of the store decided that this privilege was not meant for them.
So as I was sitting in the movie theater today and listening to Okoye say that she was expecting a Starbucks to be built in Wakanda, the utopian society for Black people, the uncolonized African country, literally everything the Black community dreams of and more, it left a bad taste in my mouth. I’m glad that T’Challa was opening the doors of Wakanda for something else.