"24" Season Premiere: A Cunning Black Villain Finally Emerges

Do you like it so far? I thought Part I last night was alright. I wasn't blown away, but intrigued enough to watch Part II tonight.

I've commented about the lack of cunning black villains in the show's previous six seasons. If Arab and white terrorists, white businessmen, Asian governments, and Hispanic drug dealers and former government men can well-organize and execute sophisticated plans against American interests, why can't black folks? It was as though there was an unspoken belief that that black folks are incapable of being sophisticated villains. I had commented that the ragtag group of Sangalan rebels shown in the "24: Redemption" pre-season show during Jack Bauer's fugitive stint in Africa didn't count. Neither did former First Lady Sherry Palmer from earlier seasons, since half the stuff she did was to protect her husband.

Progress on the equality front dictates that not only a range of positive black characters be shown on television, but also a range of black villains that goes beyond the usual array of not-too-bright drug dealers, thieves, pimps, gangbangers, and African dictators that reinforce racist stereotypes. Black folks are diverse, and thus our media portrayals should reflect it.

Well, "24" has partly answered the call. It turns out that the African rebels have a more complex operation than shown in "Redemption". There is a cunning, black baddie in Colonel Iké Dubaku (played by Hakeem Kae-Kazim, pictured, a South African actor who was in "Hotel Rwanda"), the second-in-command in Sangala. He has secretly entered the U.S. and possesses a device that can break into Homeland Security's firewall, crippling America's air traffic control, water supply, and power grid. Colonel Dubaku's main grievance against America: "your government will pay a high price for interfering with our affairs". He has vowed to avenge his brother's death by Jack Bauer and the attempt on his life.

I was surprised to see Colonel Dubaku alive, as I thought Benton (Jack's friend) had offed him with that land mine in "Redemption"?! There's also a black guy who is part of Tony Almeida's rogue technology crew. However, neither guy is the HNIC, as far as we know. However, if Colonel Dubaku is plotting, then Candyman (who portrays General Benjamin Juma, Sangala's new dictator), to whom he is loyal as far as we know, will be in the mix.

While this Colonel Ike Dubaku still operates within the African-dictator-as-baddie framework since he is the dictator's right-hand man (can we see a black tech guru baddie for once?), it is a nice counterbalance to the almost superhuman black characters in previous seasons working hard to save America from destruction. Apparently this new development on "24" is part of a larger trend in American entertainment in reinventing the black villain, started by Denzel Washington.