I'm honestly amazed at how many fellow white people I've met who are put off by the Black Panther, though I notice they dodge the matter of race as a reason. They usually say things like "Space Africa" disparagingly, or complain that he's a super hero AND a ruler of a country, which they think defeats the purpose of super heroes. Those are the only specific complaints they will cite for the fact that they think it will be bad and are not interested in it. My brother, however, said this, and this is why I love him: He admitted that he saw the trailer and could not connect with the culture or the musical choice, thus having a knee-jerk negative reaction that surprised him, so he stopped to think about why he felt that way and it made him realize that black people must feel this way about practically every movie that's released that caters to whites, so he concluded that black people need movies like the Black Panther. Personally, I just think it'll be a fun and fresh movie, and the representation is important.
@BrianL: These are the sort of egocentric people who believe that anything that doesn't cater specifically to them is a slight against them, despite the fact that whites (and males in general) are still well-represented. Regarding the misogynistic outcry against new Star Wars movies having female protagonists and women in power, if you tally up the male:female ratio, you will still hit on more male characters. In Rogue One, Jyn was virtually the only woman, everyone else in her party was a man, and her father and adopted father played bigger roles than her mother...and the main villain was also a dude. Wow, what a slight against men, how terrible for them, to have a film dominated by complex men (and, yes, male PoC) but pitch a fit that the main character is a complex woman. And in the sequel trilogy, men get: Poe, Finn, Kylo Ren, Han Solo, Luke, Chewbacca, Snoke, Hux, DJ, as opposed to Rey, Rose, Leia (who will probably be dead next movie), Maz (who shows up for like 2 seconds in TLJ), Phasma (who hardly has a role and is probably dead), Rose's sister (again, short screen-time before her death), Holdo (also dead). So in terms of living characters with a decent role in the new trilogy, we have six dudes and two women. TFA and TLJ are much better at equalizing the male-female ratio, particularly TLJ, which puts an effort into showing equal parts men and women in supporting roles, but there's still loads of dudes with main roles. Dudes who whine about this are babies, especially considering Solo (main male character and mostly-male cast) and the rumors of Boba Fett, Yoda, and Obi Wan movies (all dudes).