Afrofuturism

A term coined by journalist and pop culture critic Mark Dery is “Speculative fiction that treats African-American themes and concerns in the context of 20th-century techno-culture 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.”

As with science fiction, history, belief systems, and popular culture; this definition has broadened in the last 30 years as Black people have rightfully taken hold of it and morphed it to meet Black knowledge of history, navigation of the present and, forecasted needs more appropriately with greater Black existential context.

Current Afrofuturism through the work of BSAM (the Black Speculative Arts Movement) has expanded Dery’s original thinking into Afrofuturism 2.0 from 2016 through the covid 2019 era.  BSAM established a foothold in the virtual covid quarantine years, establishing a globally collaborative presence exiting the covid era with Afrofuturism 3.0.

As an interdisciplinary artist I am invested in ideas and beliefs that work to solidify future agency for Black people. I believe any place; whether in adjacent universes, past, present, and future spaces, or alternative realities, these place where Black people practice liberation, freedom, and agency is Afrofuturism.

Within Dery’s definition I comfortably situate myself at the point where he states, “for want of a better term.” This “situation” broadens Afrofuturism and allows for more malleability.

I define Afrofuturism as simply as “Black people in the future.” Yet according to most science-fiction Black people are barely present. My Afrofuturism bypasses asking how Black people become almost extinct within the White imagination of the future to ensuring that we are present within the futures we create for ourselves.

With the historical consistency of derogatory and dismissive depictions of Black people, the frequency of media controlled and disseminated imagery of Black people, and the probability in which science-fiction becomes science fact, this is evidence that Afrofuturism must be progressive in establishing a groundwork for liberation that utilizes the vast acceleration of knowledge with intentionality, multiplicity, and dexterity.  

For distinction, I have chosen to establish some tenets for my Afrofuturism practice in which some, or all these ideas can be visited.:

Tenets of Afrofuturism

Black people win in the end.

Black people are self-sufficient.

Black people reconcile our past traumas.

Black people establish self-governance.

Black people secure sovereign land.

Black people militarily defend our sovereignty against threats foreign + domestic.

Black people have our own forms of commerce.

Black people communicate through our own language systems.

Black people worship God(s) that look like us and reflect our interests.

Black people are not locked out of the culture we create and give to the world.

By foregrounding these tenets, Afrofuturism looks like, and operates with a unique sensibility that ensures freedom for Black people.

Chasing You Through Cosmic Waterfalls.