https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/28/17063218/chadwick-boseman-tchalla-enemy-black-panther
Chadwick Boseman says T’Challa is the enemy in Black Panther
"There have been media takes discussing how Black Panther protagonist T’Challa sends a bleak message to black viewers by killing his rival. The message, some critics say, is that black liberation is only a dream, and only obedient, peaceful folks can expect tolerance and survival. In this reading of the film, that makes T’Challa the enemy. And Chadwick Boseman, the actor who plays T’Challa, agrees.
“I actually am the enemy,” he says during a discussion with castmate Lupita Nyong’o and Marvel comics writer and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates at Harlem’s Apollo Theater on Tuesday. (The comments were transcribed and reported by The Atlantic and Rolling Stone.) “It’s the enemy I’ve always known. It’s power. It’s having privilege.” He characterizes T’Challa as “born with a vibranium spoon in my mouth.”
..."Boseman, who hails from South Carolina and graduated from Howard University, says that like Killmonger, he’s felt the same sense of not fully connecting with African culture and history. He had to search for his own heritage like Killmonger did, and going to Africa for the film had been a chance for him to “reconnect to what I lost.”...
...
To many commenters, the sides in Black Panther aren’t so clear cut. Both Killmonger and T’Challa are simultaneously heroes and villains. But Boseman’s acknowledgement that he sympathizes more with his character’s adversary is still a startling admission for a leading man in a superhero movie...
...“I don’t know if we as African-Americans would accept T’Challa as our hero if he didn’t go through Killmonger,” he says at the event. “Because Killmonger has been through our struggle, and [T’Challa hasn’t].”"
