
Why a Black Captain America changes everything
CNN
'The Falcon and the Winter Soldier' is a long overdue revolution in popular culture, says Peniel Joseph - one that challenges conventional ideas about America exceptionalism and reminds him why his own love of superheroes and his passion for Black history have always been linked.
As a lifelong comic book fan, I see a Black Captain America as a long-overdue revolution in popular culture -- one that recognizes, rather than runs away from, the centrality of the struggle for racial justice to the larger American project.
More than two decades ago, on January 24, 2004, I landed in Baghdad as a legal adviser, assigned an office in what was then known as the Green Zone. It was raining and cold, and my duffle bag was thrown into a puddle off the C-130 aircraft that had just done a corkscrew dive to reach the runway without risk of ground fire. Young American soldiers greeted me as we piled into a vehicle, sped out of the airport complex and then along a road called the “Highway of Death” due to car bombs and snipers.












