RELATED TERMS: Afro-Pessimism; Black Studies; Critical Race Theory; Intersectionality; Identity Politics
Afrofuturism has been defined as a cultural aesthetic that combines science-fiction, history and fantasy. It aims to connect those from the black diaspora with their forgotten African ancestry (Tate, No Date). ‘The Comet,’ a short story by W. E. B. DuBois that represents DuBois’ foray into fantasy in 1920, is said to have helped lay the foundation for the paradigm that came to be known as Afrofuturism (Ogbunu, 2020). While its beginnings may be said to lie in African-American science fiction, such as the writings of DuBois, Octavia Butler and Samuel R. Delany, it now refers to literature, music and visual art that explores the African-American experience. In particular, it draws attention to the role of slavery in that experience.
Mark Dery, while coining the term Afrofuturism, points to a potentially troubling paradox to which it gives rise. Thus, he writes,
“Speculative fiction that treats African-American themes and addresses African-American concerns in the context of twentieth century technoculture – and, more generally, African-American signification that appropriates images of technology and a prosthetically enhanced future – might, for want of a better term, be called ‘Afrofuturism.’ The notion of Afrofuturism gives rise to a troubling antinomy: Can a community whose past has been deliberately rubbed out, and whose energies have subsequently been consumed by the search for legible traces of its history, imagine possible futures? Furthermore, isn’t the unreal estate of the future already owned by the technocrats, futurologists, streamliners, and set designers – white to a man – who have engineered our collective fantasies? The “semiotic ghosts” of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, Frank R. Paul’s illustrations for Hugo Gernsback’s Amazing Stories, the chromium-skinned, teardrop-shaped household appliances dreamed up by Raymond Loewy and Henry Dreyfuss, Norman Bel Geddes’s Futurama at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, and Disney’s Tomorrowland still haunt the public imagination, in one capitalist, consumerist guise or another.”
(Dery et al, 1994: 180)
In his interview with Dery, Samuel R. Delany, points out that science fiction (SF) was by no means initially a clear choice for African-American readers and writers because of its cultural significance in the United States:
“It was fairly easy to understand why, say, from the fifties through the seventies, the black readership of SF was fairly low – by no means nonexistent. But far lower than it is today. The flashing lights, the dials, and the rest of the imagistic paraphernalia of science fiction functioned as social signs – signs people learned to read very quickly. They signaled technology. And technology was like a placard on the door saying, ‘Boys Club! Girls, keep out. Blacks and Hispanics and the poor in general, go away!’ “
(Delany in Dery et al 1994: 188)
As Ogbunu (2020) points out, when most people think of Afrofuturism today, in the early decades of the 21st century, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Wakanda comes to mind, an African country that hides advanced technology from the world. Within Wakanda, Afrofuturism, in this case, manifests most explicitly in the award-winning fashion and set design, a hypnotic blend of African traditional art and dress, cyberpunk, and space opera, as discussed by Angela Watercutter (2018).
Afrofuturism’s importance might be seen to transcend the arts and may be described as a political identity or ideology. In that context, it bears some relationship to Afro-pessimism. While Afrofuturism uses science fiction themes to reimagine historic events through futurist frameworks, the focus of Afro-pessimism is on the continued appearance of, and resistance to, forms of racism and slavery in contemporary life (Gaylord, 2018)
References
Dery, M. et al. (1994) Black to the future: interviews with Samuel R Delany, Greg Tate and Tricia Rose, in Dery, M. (ed.) Flame wars: the discourse of cyberculture. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 179–222.
Gaylord, Z. G. (2018). Afro-Pessimism And Afrofuturism | NAS. kmuw. Available at https://www.kmuw.org/new-american-songbook/2018-01-29/afro-pessimism-and-afrofuturism-nas [Accessed: 3 July 2022]
Ogbunu, C. B. (2020) How Afrofuturism can help the world mend, Wired, (15 July). Available at: https://www.wired.com/story/how-afrofuturism-can-help-the-world-mend/ [Accessed: 2 July 2022].
Tate (No Date). Afrofuturism. Tate. Available at https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/a/afrofuturism [Accessed: 2 July 2022]
Watercutter, A. (2018) Behind the scenes of Black Panther’s Afrofuturism, Wired, (1 February).
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