WEBVTT - How Afrofuturism Works 0:00:00.920 --> 0:00:03.360 Hey, everybody, we're coming to your town, so you better 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:05.920 get ready, put on your best duds and come out 0:00:05.960 --> 0:00:07.720 and see us. But first buy some tickets. 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:10.480 That's right, we are finishing up. These are the last 0:00:10.480 --> 0:00:12.720 shows or our twenty twenty three tour. We're gonna be 0:00:12.720 --> 0:00:17.200 in Orlando, Florida on August twelfth, Nashville, Tennessee on September sixth, 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:19.960 and wind it all up here in Atlanta on September ninth. 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:22.680 Yes, and you can get all the info you need 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:25.320 and links to tickets which are on sale now at 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:28.240 our website Stuff youshould Know dot com on our tour page, 0:00:28.480 --> 0:00:30.840 or you can go to linktree slash SYSK. 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:40.280 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:46.480 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:49.360 Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:53.720 should know. No, no, no, yes, yes, yes. 0:00:56.920 --> 0:01:02.080 You should have said this CoA and welcome to the podcast, right, 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:04.760 because I want to issue a CoA on this one. 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:05.360 Okay. 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:11.080 This is one of those that is so broad and 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:17.200 dense and awesome that like I almost feel bad doing 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:20.280 it as a you know, forty five ish minute episode 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:25.640 of podcasts. Yeah, because afrofuturism is so vast. It's like 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:29.640 it's hard for sometimes these to not feel like we'll 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:31.760 explain what it is and then just like list a 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:36.200 bunch of awesome people. Yeah, you know, but this, you know, 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:40.000 this one is of all of our episodes, this one 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:43.280 is meant to wet the appetite more than most. I think, 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:47.360 as an introduction to what afrofuturism is, so you can 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:49.640 go check out lots and lots of stuff yourself, because 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:50.520 that's all I've been doing. 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:55.080 Yeah, we should title it Afrofuturism one on one. 0:01:56.440 --> 0:01:58.440 Maybe not even what's what's below one on one? 0:01:59.040 --> 0:01:59.640 Ninety nine? 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:01.760 Okay, ninety nine, that won't make it. 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:04.600 I can't remember. There's actually a number for it, and 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:07.720 it's like remedial college courses that you have to take 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:10.799 to catch up. Man, I can't remember, but we'll look 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:12.120 it up and maybe that'll be there. 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:15.360 Yeah, because we will get email saying how could you 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:18.760 not mention so and so? How could you not mention 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:22.160 so and so's other thing even though you mentioned them. 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:24.720 It's just one of those things. There's just too much. 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:27.760 But hopefully this will just introduce people to this idea 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:32.079 and this concept of this cultural aesthetic in philosophy. 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:35.400 Yeah, and this is definitely one of those episodes that 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:38.360 we should try to define what we're talking about first, which, 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:42.400 by the way, we took guph for not telling people 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:47.480 in depth who Milli Vanilli were. I was so taken 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:50.440 aback by that, Like, you know, it just didn't even 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:53.920 occur to me that we needed to go further into 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:56.600 defining Milli Vanilli from the outset. 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.320 I know, I thought even our younger listeners, I thought 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:01.840 that was such a big cultural thing that you know, 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:04.120 like I know about things before I was born. 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:08.679 Nope, nope, Well this is not Milli Vanilli. This is 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:12.919 what we're talking about. Afrofuturism and afrofuturism. Like you said, 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:17.040 it's a huge, big thing that has a lot of 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:22.960 different definitions, but probably the most succinct way I can 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:27.480 define it, and this is me defining it, is that 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:32.680 it is the visions of the future or fantasy worlds 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:36.720 or alternate realities, which all fall under the umbrella of 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:46.080 speculative fiction or speculative literature. Yeah, through a African American lens, right. 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:50.320 Yeah, and I'll just drill down a little bit and 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:57.920 say that incorporates obviously literature, but music and dance and 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:03.240 every kind of art you can think of, movies obviously 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:08.120 in television, really kind of anything that has this cool 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:09.720 sort of sci fi bent. 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:13.480 Through the lens of African Americans. 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:17.080 And we'll get into more definitions, because you know, it's 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:18.920 one of those things that people can really pick apart 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:21.560 as far as what counts and what doesn't. And then 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:24.159 after it's around for a while, like should we even 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:25.120 be calling it this now? 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:26.080 And should we call it this? 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:29.080 And we'll get into all that, but suffice it to 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:31.520 say that, like all of this stuff is just really 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:35.039 cool and awesome and serves and has a title because 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:39.719 it is serving people that has been underserved when it 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:41.160 comes to science fiction. 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:44.680 Yeah, so it's kind of evolved in parallel as its 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:50.640 own thing, but it grew out of originally science fiction writing. 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:54.039 So when most people think of afrofuturism, they think of 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:58.280 sci fi novels essentially. Yeah, but once you start to 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:01.000 look into afrofuturism and start to understand what it is, 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:03.200 you see it popping up all over the place, like 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:05.039 it was right there in plain sight for me and 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:07.800 I never really realized what I was looking at. I 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:09.279 was just kind of taking all of it as like 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:13.800 individual like artistic things rather than a part of a collective. 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:17.600 So it's cool to see that there is one giant 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:20.760 movement that it's a part of. But like I said, 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:25.080 it does definitely have its roots in science fiction, which 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:28.679 is pretty appropriate because as far as any literary genre goes, 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:33.480 science fiction has explored the themes of race and racism 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:37.680 and otherness and alienness more than any other I would. 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:41.120 Say, yeah, And I have a little stat to sort 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:45.000 of drive home my underserved point, and this was from 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:48.240 twenty sixteen in Voxo. It's a little dated and things 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:51.919 have gotten better since then, for sure, but eight percent 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:55.080 at the time, eight percent of the top grossing sci 0:05:55.120 --> 0:06:00.719 fi films of all time featured black protagonists, and four 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:02.360 percent of those were Will Smith. 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:04.200 Oh wow. 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:07.520 So aside for Will Smith, four percent of movies. 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:10.039 And then of course, if you look at you know, 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:12.640 the big two Star Trek and Star Wars. You know, 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:14.520 the Star Wars got a lot better now, but the 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:19.080 original trilogy had one black character, of course, Lando, and 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:22.200 then Star Trek, which I know nothing about, and I'm 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:24.640 sure things have changed since then as well, But at 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:26.760 the time, I think only had and all of the 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:31.279 Star Trek properties had it said less than twelve black characters. 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:34.359 And I'm not sure what that means. Why I didn't 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:37.080 say eleven unless one was on the fence. 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:37.920 I have no idea. 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:39.800 I don't know. Yeah, that is an odd way to 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:40.520 put it, for sure. 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:42.120 I bet a trick he could explain it, though. 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:45.960 I speaking of every time I read or research about 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:48.520 Star Treker, it just comes up. I have to go 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:51.800 watch that William shattn or Saturday at Live appearance from 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:52.320 the Bees. 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:53.400 Yeah, get a life. 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:58.280 He's speaking at a Star Trek convention. It's just priceless 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:00.640 every single time. If you've ever seen that, just look 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:04.800 up William Shatner Star Trek Convention Saturday Night Live and 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:06.080 you won't be disappointed. 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:10.240 Yeah, and for our younger listeners, William Shatner is an actor. 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:13.000 Right from before you were born. 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:17.800 And acting is where you perform something that you're actually 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:23.440 not on screen, any screen. That's right, So that eight 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:27.560 percent is actually progress compared to the early twentieth century. 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:30.400 And most people don't think that there were any black 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:32.360 sci fi writers. If you think about that, kind of 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:34.520 thing at all until the sixties, really, when a guy 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:38.040 named Samuel Delaney came along. He's often credited as the 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:42.040 first black sci fi writer. He made a huge splash 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:45.120 in the sixties, kind of almost single handedly taking the 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:48.200 genre of sci fi out of the realm of Martians 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:53.920 are invading an Earth outpost to let's explore sexual irritation, 0:07:54.320 --> 0:08:00.560 gender fluidity, race in really like high handed manner, producing 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:04.320 books that were over eight hundred pages long in some cases. 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:07.360 But he really moved things along. So not only was 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:11.680 he one of the first African American sci fi writers, 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:14.880 he was one of the first to take sci fi 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:17.160 into much deeper directions. 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:18.400 Yeah, for sure. 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:21.560 But he's also a guy that when you see interviews 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:24.200 with him, and I watched quite a few, super cool guy, 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:26.960 but he's one of the first ones to say no, no, no, 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:32.200 I had people before me. It never became hugely popular, 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:35.520 probably for obvious reasons. But there was a guy in 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:39.960 eighteen fifty seven named Martin Delaney who was a kind 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:41.600 of a jack of all trades. He was a doctor 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:45.360 and a journalist and an author and abolitionist. He wrote 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:48.240 a book, a novel called Blake or the Huts of America, 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:51.760 which was as a lot of these are alternate histories 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:56.120 that kind of suppose, like what would life be like 0:08:56.480 --> 0:09:00.720 had either slavery not happened or slave rehappened in a 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:04.160 different way, or what if, you know, the white people 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:08.280 were enslaved and black people were on top. And it's 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:10.920 just sort of looking at kind of a lot of 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:14.480 things through the lens of the diaspora. And you know, 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:17.680 I'm not into sci fi books, I never have, but 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:19.559 a lot of this stuff it made me want to 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:21.200 read sci fi for the first time just because it 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:21.840 sounds so cool. 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:23.920 Because I love alternate history. 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:26.880 Yeah, for sure, and that's definitely a part of speculative 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:31.640 fiction alternate history in general. But yeah, Martin Delaney's Blake 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:35.000 or the Huts of America was written in eighteen fifty seven, 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:38.480 and it wasn't until I mean, I think that another 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:41.520 couple decades things would come out sporadically. But there was 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:45.560 a guy named Edward Johnson who wrote Light Ahead for 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:49.440 the Negro in nineteen oh one, and he imagined a 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:53.880 black man who was transported to a socialist version of 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:56.240 the United States in two thousand and six, where things 0:09:56.280 --> 0:10:00.440 were much much better. So these ideas, these all alternate 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:03.200 histories are kind of coming out little by little, but 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:06.720 they are very very clearly under the what you would 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:10.560 call now speculative fiction umbrella. And they were written by 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:15.320 African Americans much earlier than Samuel Delaney, long before he 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:18.080 was even born. This stuff was happening. It just was 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:21.920 happening like almost in a vacuum. Like a black author 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:24.840 or a black leader would have a great idea to 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:29.000 get his point across by writing an alternate history, and 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:31.200 that was it. There wasn't like a genre, There wasn't 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:32.760 a movement or anything like that. 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:33.840 Yeah. 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:37.560 And Delaney also points out that the like the old 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:41.600 pulp rags, a lot of those were written anonymously and 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:45.920 it kind of was an area of literature where people 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:49.400 of color, women who you know, couldn't get published published 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:51.960 as readily at the time, they could write under these 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:56.480 pseudonyms and get their stories out in these pulp magazine 0:10:57.000 --> 0:10:59.680 articles and stuff and stories. And he's like, you know, 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.160 who knows how many you know African Americans are writing 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:03.880 this kind of stuff. 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:05.880 Yeah, because you did the whole thing through the mail, 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:08.559 and apparently at the time you were more likely than 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:11.120 not to be using a pseudonym for that stuff, because 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:14.440 that was just like keeping the electricity on kind of writing, 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:17.800 you know what I mean. Yeah, so that's a really 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:22.000 great point. But I think the underlying thing here is 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:25.600 the reason that there weren't more black authors of sci 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:31.400 fi in part was because it was just writing in 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:33.960 general literature in general. There was like a general push 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:37.280 to keep African Americans out of things like that as 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:40.880 much as possible. And then as African Americans became more 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:45.880 and more integrated into American society, the thing that kept 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:50.560 African Americans out of sci fi writing actually came down 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:53.880 to one guy who was named John W. Campbell Junior. 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:57.760 And it's just slightly hyperbolic to say he was the 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:02.480 glass ceiling that that the gatekeeper that kept sci fi 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:05.000 white for decades. 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:08.439 Yeah, he was definitely one of the one of the gatekeepers. 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:12.280 He was an editor of I think back then it 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:15.640 was called Astounding Science Fiction. It went by a bunch 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:18.480 of other names, and now it's around as Analog science Fiction. 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:23.000 In fact, yeah, in fact, yeah, I said that with 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:25.880 a comma, but in fact it's a period. Actually there's 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:29.720 no period, but he was the editor, and like you said, 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:32.960 he was a guy that you know, he wrote a 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:36.760 bunch of essays in the nineteen sixties that supported segregation. 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:41.199 At one point he called slavery a useful educational system. 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:45.000 And because of guys like him that were gatekeepers, these 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:49.079 stories didn't get through and people like Delaney and Octavia 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:51.000 Butler who were going to talk about a lot more. 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:54.800 She talked about being in school and even her teachers 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:58.800 saying things like, you know, unless it's like really necessary 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:01.719 for the plot, Like you shouldn't have a black protagonist 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:04.920 unless it's like for a reason, or you know, if 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:08.960 you're going to talk about race in a way, you 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:12.920 know in science fiction, maybe like make them extraterrestrial instead 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:15.720 of black. It's sort of like a metaphor because it's 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:17.760 kind of too heavy for people to, you know, to 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:18.840 really take right. 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:21.920 Octavia Butler wrote a really great essay in nineteen eighty 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:24.960 called the Lost Races of Science Fiction, and she took 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:29.560 on that excuse for why there wasn't more black people 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:33.840 in science fiction works. And she's zeroed in on Star 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:37.320 Wars as an example, the first one. And she said 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:42.560 war okay, planet wide destruction okay, kidnapping okay, but the 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:46.200 sight of a minority person, too heavy, too real. So 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:49.120 she's pointing out that, like there's plenty of real world 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:53.640 stuff that you could consider pretty horrible. Yeah, that is 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:56.600 just fine in science fiction, but race is too distracting. 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:58.960 And that was like just kind of the drum that 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:02.320 was beaten by guys John W. Campbell. And the reason 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:05.640 why they were so powerful was because at the time, 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:08.800 if you wanted to get your novel published, basically the 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:12.080 most direct route was to have it serialized first in 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:15.560 one of those magazines that guys like John W. Campbell edited, 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:19.040 and then if you keep black authors out of black 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:23.800 sci fi, you also largely keep black readers out of 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:28.680 sci fi too, And just by preventing people like Samuel 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:33.880 Delaney from getting his stories serialized, black sci fi writers 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:38.400 were basically kept out. And as Janette Ing, who won 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:41.440 Best New Writer of twenty nineteen for science fiction writing, 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:44.880 I can't remember which award, I think it was actually 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:51.000 maybe that same award from Analog Science Fiction. In fact, 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:56.000 she said that sweet it really is. She said that 0:14:56.120 --> 0:15:00.360 John W. Campbell had kept science fiction stale, sterile, male 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:09.360 white exalting of imperial aspirations, colonialism, settlement, and industrialism and 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:14.240 she was basically just, I mean, we're not gonna harp 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:16.720 on this the whole episode, but there was a huge 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:20.200 block in this particular genre, and it was just a 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:22.920 handful of people who everybody else went along with it. 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:27.320 Seems like, for sure, I think that's a great initial 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:32.440 fifteen minute overview, and we'll come back and talk just 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:34.480 about the term itself and where it came from right 0:15:34.480 --> 0:16:12.040 after this. All right, So afro futurism, it's kind of 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:14.920 hard to say quickly sometimes. It was coined by a 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:18.120 white writer named Mark Dairy in the early nineties and 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:21.840 nineteen ninety three and a piece called Black to the Future. 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:25.600 And in that piece he interviewed a few writers, Delaney, 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:29.800 a music writer named Gregory Tait, and Tricia Rose, who 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:33.360 was a sociologist, and basically was like, the whole point 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:39.479 of the essay was why are there so few working novelists, 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:43.520 African American novelists working in this genre? What happened to 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:46.440 get us here? Why aren't there more now? And what 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:48.880 can we do about it to change this in the future. 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:53.240 And he's like, especially like science fiction seems especially suited 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:56.520 for people of color because and this is a great 0:16:56.560 --> 0:16:59.440 quote he said, in a very real sense, they're the 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:03.000 descendant of alien abductees, and like, when you think of 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:05.439 it like that, it makes a lot of sense that 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:08.119 sci fi would kind of be, you know, something that 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:08.720 really fits. 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:11.000 Yeah, and he was right. It turned out to be 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:14.320 a great fit for African American sci fi writers. But 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:17.040 still at the time there were basically four that he 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:21.720 could think of, including Samuel Delaney and Octavia Butler. Then 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:25.840 also a guy named Steve Barnes who's written basically everything 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:29.160 that has anything to do with science fiction, and then 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:33.280 another fantasy author named Charles Saunders. And that was basically it. 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:35.439 And this was the mid nineties that this guy was 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:39.120 writing this essay and doing these interviews. But he hit 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:41.359 it right on the head that it is a really 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:46.359 great basis or springboard for black writers to kind of 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:50.119 explore the past and the future. But he defined it 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:53.800 as a speculative fiction that treats African American themes and 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:58.919 addresses African American concerns in the context of twentieth century technoculture. 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:05.360 And he took what was already happening and firmly labeled 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:07.880 it and put a lot of constraints on it. When 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:10.760 he coined the term afrofuturism and then defined it like that. 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:17.040 Yeah, and that's where there is some I guess debate 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:21.200 over whether or not it should be strictly limited through 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:25.679 the lens of African Americans and the diaspora or just 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:30.280 Black culture worldwide as a whole. And you know, well, 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:31.960 I think at the end we'll talk about some of 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:35.560 the some other more inclusive names that kind of encompass all, 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:37.879 you know, kind of worldwide black culture. 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:43.520 But there are people that kind of are on both 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:44.280 sides of the fence. 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.560 And I mean, I guess for me, you know, I 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:51.679 just I just think it's all great, So nitpicking about 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:56.000 you know, the exact definition is not for me, but 0:18:57.119 --> 0:18:58.960 we have to point it out that that it's out there, 0:18:58.960 --> 0:18:59.919 and then there is a debate. 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:02.800 Yeah, and one of the big things is whether it's 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:08.159 specifically African American, because there's a lot more black communities 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:11.320 out there than just African Americans. They're one of many. 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.320 You've got the entire continent of Africa and all of 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:18.480 its various groups. You've got the diaspera, like you said, 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:22.639 African American descendants or African descendants living in Europe, and 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:25.040 Asia and all around the world. Then there's even like 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:30.359 sub types as well, like the African American diaspora is 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:34.920 made up of people whose ancestors were enslaved in America 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:38.080 and then once they were free, moved out of America 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:42.919 into Mexico, Canada, wherever. So there's a lot of different groups. 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:47.680 And what Mark darry did was situated exclusively in the 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:51.040 realm of African Americans. That's a big that's a big 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:52.479 point of debate still today. 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:56.520 The other thing Womack points out in that book, which 0:19:57.320 --> 0:19:59.800 you know is very easy for like a middle aged 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:03.080 one guy to overlook, is the fact that these afro 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:07.199 futurist themes are a way of she talked about a 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:10.760 method of self liberation, self healing. So you know, to 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:13.680 imagine a future for your race is a hopeful thing. 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:18.240 So if you're in a hostile world, it's probably very 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:22.240 easy to have a very bleak depiction of the future 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:26.800 of your people. And these stories like they're sure it's 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:29.399 science fiction, and it's you know, science fiction is always 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:29.920 just sort of. 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:33.400 Not light. 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:35.240 It's actually very heavy in a lot of cases, but 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:38.960 maybe not to be taken seriously by some people. 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:41.359 But you know, I just I don't think it's like that. 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:44.600 I think that it can offer very heavy commentaries and 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:47.280 it can offer hope to people that like, hey, if 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:49.880 we can write about ourselves in the future, that means 0:20:49.880 --> 0:20:52.119 we can imagine ourselves like thriving in the future. 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:56.480 Yeah. And similarly, it's a way for African Americans and 0:20:56.920 --> 0:21:01.520 people of African descent in general to stake a claim 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:04.200 of the future too, right, because if you think about 0:21:04.200 --> 0:21:07.840 the future, and I think Mark Darry made the point like, 0:21:08.040 --> 0:21:12.159 if you look at Tomorrowland from a Disney World in Disneyland, 0:21:12.160 --> 0:21:15.120 it's super white, and the future in general is just white. 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:19.840 It's like a projection of current times. And afrofuturism says, nope, 0:21:19.920 --> 0:21:22.280 there's a different way of looking at it too, and 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:26.120 that this was the one that kind of triggered them understanding. 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:32.080 For me, the distinction between afrofuturism and just any other 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:36.960 kind of say sci fi that features like a black 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:41.280 character is that you're not just taking like an African 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:46.280 American and making him or her them an astronaut in 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:50.520 the structure of the current imagined future, which again is 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:56.280 super white. The basis of afrofuturism is completely reimagining the future, 0:21:56.720 --> 0:22:01.520 completely reimagining the past through a black lens, kind of 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:05.639 like if you if black people were in charge of 0:22:05.680 --> 0:22:08.280 producing the future. This is a vision of what it 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:10.600 could be like kind of thing. Yeah, rather than just 0:22:10.680 --> 0:22:13.680 following along the current trajectory that we've been on all 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:16.719 this time in America, which is a super white trajectory 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:20.320 that includes other people, but the basis of everything, the 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:23.159 structure of everything is through the white lens. This is 0:22:23.160 --> 0:22:26.480 taking it through a black lens. And it's I saw 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:30.720 it puts defamiliarizing what we think of as like the future. 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:32.400 Oh I like that term. 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:34.280 Yeah, I thought so. I thought you would. 0:22:34.840 --> 0:22:35.840 Yeah, that makes sense. 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:39.000 There's one guy who we have to mention who is, 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:44.280 you know, a complicated guy to say the least, and 0:22:44.320 --> 0:22:47.720 that is one of the first sort of twentieth century 0:22:48.440 --> 0:22:52.920 afro futurist writers, who is George Schuyler. And he wrote 0:22:53.240 --> 0:22:57.639 generally for black publications, but he wrote all these books. 0:22:58.240 --> 0:23:00.760 He wrote novels and essays and shorts, stories and things. 0:23:01.600 --> 0:23:04.959 Sometimes there were pulp stories, and they were exactly what 0:23:05.000 --> 0:23:07.080 we've been talking about. That was one in the thirties, 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:12.719 these serialized pulp stories about a global black uprising against 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:17.639 white colonialism. But he wrote these under pseudonyms, the pseudonym 0:23:17.760 --> 0:23:25.440 Samuel I. Brooks and Skuyler himself in IRL would write 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:30.160 essays kind of slamming stories that he wrote as Brooks. 0:23:31.080 --> 0:23:33.680 He wrote he said it was hokum and hack work 0:23:33.720 --> 0:23:36.880 in the purest vein and was a very conservative guy 0:23:37.440 --> 0:23:42.320 in his real life, and like backed Joseph McCarthy's campaign 0:23:42.400 --> 0:23:47.600 against communists, and he was sort of opponent of the 0:23:47.640 --> 0:23:50.879 civil rights movement. And it's just, man, I need to 0:23:50.920 --> 0:23:52.960 dive into this guy a little more and see that's 0:23:53.040 --> 0:23:55.280 some serious complication right there. 0:23:55.320 --> 0:23:57.680