I am a nerd I must admit I am also
Believe It or Not black these two things
are surprisingly not as mutually
exclusive as you might imagine as
popular entertainment might lead us to
believe but I find that each of them
helped me to mutually inform the other
each of them helped for me to gain a
deeper kind of understanding of Who I am
as an individual being black helps me
gain deeper insights into nerd culture
being a nerd helps me to have a very
unique and quirky sensibility of being
black and I like that I like that
dynamic back and forth as has been
indicated I will be talking with us
today about science fiction and I think
in order to do this in order to
facilitate the conversation about
science fiction I’d like to pose two
questions to you all as an audience two
questions and a corollary these will
require you to think and visit your
inner self the first question is rather
simple rather straightforward what is
science fiction what is science fiction
I asked this question to my students all
the time many of them will pose
responses based on what they imagine
science fiction is about they’ll tell me
science fiction is about aliens it’s
about the future it’s about a high
school version of dystopia visions of
understandings allow the Hunger Games
and divergent and what-have-you
fascinating depictions of things to come
and yet they’re there they’re not
necessarily wrong about this science
fiction can be about very many things
that’s one of the things that makes the
genre so fascinating it is a genre that
is deeply invested in the speculative
imaginary it helps us to imagine the
future now arguably though science
fiction is also very much about the
present it’s very much about the here
and now one of the things that I use to
help my students understand this is that
it is in many instances also looking
further back the past made present by
means of the future and we’re going to
revisit this in just a moment but I
promise two questions
the second question can you remember the
very first science for
work that you ever encountered as you
think back perhaps you maybe recall your
first time sitting down to watch Star
Wars maybe the first time you sat down
to watch Star Trek hopefully if you
watch Star Wars for the first time it
was the original trilogy and not the
prequels that we don’t talk about but
yes and as I think back on these futures
of days past one of the things that
comes to my mind of course is my father
being the Trekkie that he is being the
og nerd of Clan brick ler that he is is
is is sitting us down to watch Star Trek
Deep Space nine this is you know
certainly it has its merits and has its
values and you know I will always say
ds9 over generations and the og Star
Trek also but what really struck me
about science fiction actually goes to
my own personal experience I am a child
of the 80s I am an 80s baby and the 80s
are sort of the Golden Age of science
fiction style Saturday morning cartoons
anything that you turned on between 8:00
a.m. and 10:00 a.m. on a Saturday
morning was guaranteed to have lasers
and robots and all of these wonderful
things that help make your childhood so
magical so me also being rather unique
one of my favorite versions of these
Saturday morning cartoons was Robo tech
I know this is taking somebody back the
coolest thing about Robo tech was not so
much that it was just the usual brand of
saccharine laser fire and alien
invasions or whatever but as we can see
in the center of the little triptych
that we have up here it is the giant
robot and not only a giant robot but a
giant transforming robot truly amazing
and
this is actually one of the other
fascinating things that I would find out
later in my life this is a version of
what we would call anime it’s it’s it’s
a Japanese form of animation and more
specifically even within the genre of
anime it’s what’s known as a mecha
series in e CH a mecha and this would go
on to be one of my most favorite and
shareist science-fiction touchstones
watching Robo tech as a child watching
Gundam as an adolescent watching Neon
Genesis Evangelion
to really blow my mind and really just
finding all of these instances of giant
robots and seeing the way in which they
help tell very compelling stories now I
want us to continue to think as to what
science fiction might mean as I
indicated to us very early on science
fiction is again the past made present
by means of the future for me personally
one of the reasons that I enjoy anime so
much is that it allows us to gain access
and insights into Japanese culture it
allows us to see a very different brand
of past articulated through the future
looking back in this regard to see
forward and to me as it helps me
understand and unpack these notions of
identity as it allows me to unpack and
understand notions of history the way in
which just the giant robot serves as
this vehicle for technology in and of
itself it becomes rather compelling it
becomes a really helpful means for
critical engagement with the future
incidentally though again and I want to
reiterate the significance of this
because this question of the past as
allegorized through the future begs a
lot of questions there’s a lot of
questions inherently bound up in this
primary amongst these is whose past are
we articulating through the lens of the
future is it simply you know a
Eurocentric
Anglo American style future grounded in
an understanding of empire imperialism
Age of Discovery rhetoric and pushing
boundaries is that simply it or can we
look at a Japanese perspective and gain
deeper insights into what the atop the
beginning of the Atomic Age and
militarism might mean in that context
now of course as I indicated to you all
very early on I am black and that is
something that I find to be very proud
of and african-american when I’m feeling
professional as I may have indicated
right one of one of the things that also
is very cool about blackness is that it
is it has its own very deep-rooted
historical context being black is to be
a product of larger traditions
traditions that cross oceans traditions
that cross time traditions that
transcend simply the narratives of
slavery in the American South and in the
Caribbean histories that also encompass
cultures belief systems ideologies
epistemologies of the African continent
now I keep talking about this past and
future thing those of us who may be in
the know will know that I’m sort of
signifying on this notion of Sankofa
which is as a West African idea gram it
helps us to look back in order to move
forward I bring up Africa I bring up
African America I bring up what we would
call the African Diaspora to help us get
situated for a different take on science
fiction there is a term that is gaining
a lot of cachet recently this is a term
that some of you all may have
encountered it’s a term called
afrofuturism now this term is one that I
really want to try and unpack really
briefly for us today it is a term that
has had a host of scholars doing very
good and productive work whether it’s
Alondra Nelson whether it’s koto Asian
whether it’s a host of scholars who are
investigating this notion of what a
black future might mean but the term
itself derives from mark Terry’s 1993
essay and you all are gonna maybe cringe
or grown at this title but it’s it’s
become de rigueur amongst a frou-frou
this was a 1993 essay that dari put
together and it was a way of situating a
conversation series of conversations
that he had with a number of black
science fiction writers in it dari
creates that our coins the term
afrofuturism and the definition is a
little bit dense but we’re going to get
through it and we’ll unpack it
momentarily dari defines afrofuturism as
speculative fiction that treats with
african-american concerns and addresses
african-american ideas within the
context of twentieth-century
technoculture or african-american
signification that appropriates images
of a technological future and through
the use of prosthetics excuse me a
prosthetic Lee enhanced future might for
want of a better term be called
afrofuturism and this is dense and this
is very academic eise so let’s parse
this one of the things that dari does
that he does very well is investigate
how we might consider prosthesis in the
future and many of us we also know that
prosthesis in the context of science
fiction is often rendered in
conversation with notions of the cyborg
to put a new body part on you right if
you lose your arm you are given a
mechanical prosthesis this is very
cyberpunk this is very sort of notions
of the body is not necessarily being
entirely hermetically sealed however and
this we’re gonna come back to this in
just a moment also the biggest thing
that dairy doesn’t quite get at in his
definition is the notion of African
Diaspora he describes it solely in terms
of African American experience the
African Diaspora for those of us who may
not know is the forced dispersal of
peoples from the African continent as a
result of the primal severance of
slavery and bondage
this act of severing people from the
continent leads to their dispersal
amongst the Caribbean amongst North
North America South America and various
places around the world
so afrofuturism inherently takes on a
rather global dimension and it also
allows us to continue to look back to
look forward you might know the term
afrofuturism or might have heard it in
passing in relationship to perhaps its
most visible and most profound and
profitable iteration that we’ve seen
forever
Black Panther works as afrofuturism
because it engages with these notions of
the future through the traditions of the
African continent it invests a deeper
understanding of what it means to be
African what it means to be a person of
African descent and it allows us to look
forward into the future through those
traditions without the interruptions of
colonialism without the and I say
interruptions of course and this is not
to make light of it honestly the
invasions of colonial domination
certainly become a global tragedy we
also look at the way in which slavery
becomes another tragedy that for Stahl’s
african development and african techno
genesis and african futures makanda the
futuristic nation that sits at the heart
of black panther is as a as a film
presents in africa without that and we
see a lot of technological marvels we
see elements of mechanical prosthesis we
see elements of the future and it
becomes a wonderland it becomes an
almost utopia just landscapes where and
we see we can celebrate the future as
articulated through the traditions of
the african
and I find that to be really compelling
the film’s director Ryan Coogler
situates the thesis of black panther in
a sight of tension between tradition and
innovation here again between past and
future now this tension functions to
help us see all over again right the way
in which the African Diaspora can be re
and reimagined reinterpreted re
articulated we see the character of the
antagonist Eric kill monger who is a
diasporic citizen he is someone who is
living in America and yet must come back
to Africa in order to claim his
birthright and not only does he come
back to Africa he comes back to Africa
and engages with the technological
prosthesis and technological
enhancements of the black panther suit
the powered armor that he wears so in
this regard to travel back to Africa to
heal the primal wound of diaspora you
must be healed through technological
prosthesis a prosthetic Lee enhanced the
future I find this to be really cool but
also it’s important for us to bear in
mind black panther didn’t emerge xme
hello from the imaginations of you know
the creators black panther has had by
virtue of its relationship with
afrofuturism many antecedent works many
antecedent works that have been have a
quite long and storied history
so my work and my scholarship deals with
the afro-futurist literature i
investigate novels that in that explore
science fiction from the perspective of
black folks on a sort of global scale i
have a couple of example texts for us up
here just in case you leave the TED talk
and you want to go find some books on
black science fiction the first of which
is black no more which is one of the
older articulations of black science
fiction afro-futurist literature George
Schuyler the author writing in 1931
describes a scenario
an alternative way of adapting
technology we’re in black folks can
scientifically and mechanically and and
and technologically turn themselves
white and then that ends racism and
everybody lives happily ever after of
course not and the the novel explores
all of the tensions and problems that
exist as a result of this it is an
investigation of technology and its
relationship with the black experience
in America whatever that might be and
how that makes itself manifest through
the possibilities of the future
I have also up here Octavia Butler’s
novel wildseed Octavia Butler as an
author is someone who is well recognized
within the science fiction community she
is one of the most prominent black women
writers of science fiction and has been
for some time writing as far back as
1980 and even further back in terms of
some of her more early works wildseed
situates itself within a series of
novels the pattern Asteria that
investigate what how technology and its
relationship with people of color black
women and black men as well helped to
create a narrative of immortality right
long life psychic powers and
what-have-you it’s a fascinating work
this one in particular is invested in
exploring the transatlantic slave trade
exploring slavery itself and looking at
alternate ways that this might have been
experienced and understood the last
novel up here this this one is the most
fun I think my dissertation research is
dealing with Stephen Barnes as an author
Stephen Barnes began writing in the
early 1980s writing parallel with the
science fiction literary movement known
as cyberpunk I like to think he writes
cyberpunk put some soul on it right
and in this novel Barnes investigates
the notion of what as a cyborg black man
looked like what does that mean what are
the implications of taking a black body
and investing it with these prosthetic
enhancements these augmentations and
what have you so again this ties back in
with our understanding of what we see in
black panther right the lead character
in the novel firedance which I just was
on the slide previously the lead
character in this must undergo
cybernetic augmentation to go back to
Africa he goes back to the fictional
state of pan-african as part of a
military operation and as such he
becomes a part of that nation-state he
comes back and reverses the trajectory
of the diaspora now this allegory this
kind of allegory is certainly one that’s
very very meaningful to me given my own
foundations with Japanese anime and
mecha so looking at cyborgs looking at
black powered suits looking at black
enhancement I find that to be a really
really cool concept and one that I my
dissertation research I’ve identified as
black Mecca
again this MB CH a black mechanical
prosthetic enhancements and futures so
this is something that I’m continuing to
do more research on continuing to look
at as a fascinating way of alig arising
connections between African America and
Africa the continent as well seeing how
these connections can be created because
to me at the end of the day the biggest
question is what is most important about
afrofuturism why is afrofuturism such a
big deal to me if we want to be very
cynical we can certainly say that
something like black panther making over
a billion dollars at the box office
making over in doing so well
internationally if it makes dollars it
makes sense right and if it is going to
show the green perhaps it also sort of
can help us to handle this black and
white dynamic also right
that’s me being cynical but if I want to
look at it from a more optimistic and
idealistic standpoint black panther
matters because it helps us to see that
black futures matter which again helps
us to see how black lives matter and I
think that this is a really important
concept for us to be aware of it’s a
very important issue for us to be
cognizant of that blackness is not
always inherently reflective blackness
is not always grounded in notions of the
slavery past it’s not always grounded
within the sort of complicated
situations of urban living in the
contemporary American landscape we might
imagine alternatives we might imagine
ways beyond those pasts and without
necessarily sort of cutting those pasts
off because again afrofuturism as such
allows us to see and appreciate and
understand the past by projecting it
forward into the future so there’s a
there’s a little thing I’d like to close
out with y’all know Richard Pryor right
Richard Briers kind of awesome he’s a
great stand-up comedian and it was a
great stand-up comedian one of his
important kind of sketches that he did
was a remark or a riff on the film
Logan’s Run science fiction film Logan’s
Run Richard Pryor goes up and he says
yeah seeing this movie Logan’s Run but
no black people in it set in the future
I guess they won’t plan around us to
stick around and fortunately for us
afrofuturism exists as an alternative
afrofuturism exists as a means for us to
see how we can persist into futures how
we can thrive in the futures how we can
engage our past and utilize that to help
us imagine brighter futures thank you
very much [Applause]
Believe It or Not black these two things
are surprisingly not as mutually
exclusive as you might imagine as
popular entertainment might lead us to
believe but I find that each of them
helped me to mutually inform the other
each of them helped for me to gain a
deeper kind of understanding of Who I am
as an individual being black helps me
gain deeper insights into nerd culture
being a nerd helps me to have a very
unique and quirky sensibility of being
black and I like that I like that
dynamic back and forth as has been
indicated I will be talking with us
today about science fiction and I think
in order to do this in order to
facilitate the conversation about
science fiction I’d like to pose two
questions to you all as an audience two
questions and a corollary these will
require you to think and visit your
inner self the first question is rather
simple rather straightforward what is
science fiction what is science fiction
I asked this question to my students all
the time many of them will pose
responses based on what they imagine
science fiction is about they’ll tell me
science fiction is about aliens it’s
about the future it’s about a high
school version of dystopia visions of
understandings allow the Hunger Games
and divergent and what-have-you
fascinating depictions of things to come
and yet they’re there they’re not
necessarily wrong about this science
fiction can be about very many things
that’s one of the things that makes the
genre so fascinating it is a genre that
is deeply invested in the speculative
imaginary it helps us to imagine the
future now arguably though science
fiction is also very much about the
present it’s very much about the here
and now one of the things that I use to
help my students understand this is that
it is in many instances also looking
further back the past made present by
means of the future and we’re going to
revisit this in just a moment but I
promise two questions
the second question can you remember the
very first science for
work that you ever encountered as you
think back perhaps you maybe recall your
first time sitting down to watch Star
Wars maybe the first time you sat down
to watch Star Trek hopefully if you
watch Star Wars for the first time it
was the original trilogy and not the
prequels that we don’t talk about but
yes and as I think back on these futures
of days past one of the things that
comes to my mind of course is my father
being the Trekkie that he is being the
og nerd of Clan brick ler that he is is
is is sitting us down to watch Star Trek
Deep Space nine this is you know
certainly it has its merits and has its
values and you know I will always say
ds9 over generations and the og Star
Trek also but what really struck me
about science fiction actually goes to
my own personal experience I am a child
of the 80s I am an 80s baby and the 80s
are sort of the Golden Age of science
fiction style Saturday morning cartoons
anything that you turned on between 8:00
a.m. and 10:00 a.m. on a Saturday
morning was guaranteed to have lasers
and robots and all of these wonderful
things that help make your childhood so
magical so me also being rather unique
one of my favorite versions of these
Saturday morning cartoons was Robo tech
I know this is taking somebody back the
coolest thing about Robo tech was not so
much that it was just the usual brand of
saccharine laser fire and alien
invasions or whatever but as we can see
in the center of the little triptych
that we have up here it is the giant
robot and not only a giant robot but a
giant transforming robot truly amazing
and
this is actually one of the other
fascinating things that I would find out
later in my life this is a version of
what we would call anime it’s it’s it’s
a Japanese form of animation and more
specifically even within the genre of
anime it’s what’s known as a mecha
series in e CH a mecha and this would go
on to be one of my most favorite and
shareist science-fiction touchstones
watching Robo tech as a child watching
Gundam as an adolescent watching Neon
Genesis Evangelion
to really blow my mind and really just
finding all of these instances of giant
robots and seeing the way in which they
help tell very compelling stories now I
want us to continue to think as to what
science fiction might mean as I
indicated to us very early on science
fiction is again the past made present
by means of the future for me personally
one of the reasons that I enjoy anime so
much is that it allows us to gain access
and insights into Japanese culture it
allows us to see a very different brand
of past articulated through the future
looking back in this regard to see
forward and to me as it helps me
understand and unpack these notions of
identity as it allows me to unpack and
understand notions of history the way in
which just the giant robot serves as
this vehicle for technology in and of
itself it becomes rather compelling it
becomes a really helpful means for
critical engagement with the future
incidentally though again and I want to
reiterate the significance of this
because this question of the past as
allegorized through the future begs a
lot of questions there’s a lot of
questions inherently bound up in this
primary amongst these is whose past are
we articulating through the lens of the
future is it simply you know a
Eurocentric
Anglo American style future grounded in
an understanding of empire imperialism
Age of Discovery rhetoric and pushing
boundaries is that simply it or can we
look at a Japanese perspective and gain
deeper insights into what the atop the
beginning of the Atomic Age and
militarism might mean in that context
now of course as I indicated to you all
very early on I am black and that is
something that I find to be very proud
of and african-american when I’m feeling
professional as I may have indicated
right one of one of the things that also
is very cool about blackness is that it
is it has its own very deep-rooted
historical context being black is to be
a product of larger traditions
traditions that cross oceans traditions
that cross time traditions that
transcend simply the narratives of
slavery in the American South and in the
Caribbean histories that also encompass
cultures belief systems ideologies
epistemologies of the African continent
now I keep talking about this past and
future thing those of us who may be in
the know will know that I’m sort of
signifying on this notion of Sankofa
which is as a West African idea gram it
helps us to look back in order to move
forward I bring up Africa I bring up
African America I bring up what we would
call the African Diaspora to help us get
situated for a different take on science
fiction there is a term that is gaining
a lot of cachet recently this is a term
that some of you all may have
encountered it’s a term called
afrofuturism now this term is one that I
really want to try and unpack really
briefly for us today it is a term that
has had a host of scholars doing very
good and productive work whether it’s
Alondra Nelson whether it’s koto Asian
whether it’s a host of scholars who are
investigating this notion of what a
black future might mean but the term
itself derives from mark Terry’s 1993
essay and you all are gonna maybe cringe
or grown at this title but it’s it’s
become de rigueur amongst a frou-frou
this was a 1993 essay that dari put
together and it was a way of situating a
conversation series of conversations
that he had with a number of black
science fiction writers in it dari
creates that our coins the term
afrofuturism and the definition is a
little bit dense but we’re going to get
through it and we’ll unpack it
momentarily dari defines afrofuturism as
speculative fiction that treats with
african-american concerns and addresses
african-american ideas within the
context of twentieth-century
technoculture or african-american
signification that appropriates images
of a technological future and through
the use of prosthetics excuse me a
prosthetic Lee enhanced future might for
want of a better term be called
afrofuturism and this is dense and this
is very academic eise so let’s parse
this one of the things that dari does
that he does very well is investigate
how we might consider prosthesis in the
future and many of us we also know that
prosthesis in the context of science
fiction is often rendered in
conversation with notions of the cyborg
to put a new body part on you right if
you lose your arm you are given a
mechanical prosthesis this is very
cyberpunk this is very sort of notions
of the body is not necessarily being
entirely hermetically sealed however and
this we’re gonna come back to this in
just a moment also the biggest thing
that dairy doesn’t quite get at in his
definition is the notion of African
Diaspora he describes it solely in terms
of African American experience the
African Diaspora for those of us who may
not know is the forced dispersal of
peoples from the African continent as a
result of the primal severance of
slavery and bondage
this act of severing people from the
continent leads to their dispersal
amongst the Caribbean amongst North
North America South America and various
places around the world
so afrofuturism inherently takes on a
rather global dimension and it also
allows us to continue to look back to
look forward you might know the term
afrofuturism or might have heard it in
passing in relationship to perhaps its
most visible and most profound and
profitable iteration that we’ve seen
forever
Black Panther works as afrofuturism
because it engages with these notions of
the future through the traditions of the
African continent it invests a deeper
understanding of what it means to be
African what it means to be a person of
African descent and it allows us to look
forward into the future through those
traditions without the interruptions of
colonialism without the and I say
interruptions of course and this is not
to make light of it honestly the
invasions of colonial domination
certainly become a global tragedy we
also look at the way in which slavery
becomes another tragedy that for Stahl’s
african development and african techno
genesis and african futures makanda the
futuristic nation that sits at the heart
of black panther is as a as a film
presents in africa without that and we
see a lot of technological marvels we
see elements of mechanical prosthesis we
see elements of the future and it
becomes a wonderland it becomes an
almost utopia just landscapes where and
we see we can celebrate the future as
articulated through the traditions of
the african
and I find that to be really compelling
the film’s director Ryan Coogler
situates the thesis of black panther in
a sight of tension between tradition and
innovation here again between past and
future now this tension functions to
help us see all over again right the way
in which the African Diaspora can be re
and reimagined reinterpreted re
articulated we see the character of the
antagonist Eric kill monger who is a
diasporic citizen he is someone who is
living in America and yet must come back
to Africa in order to claim his
birthright and not only does he come
back to Africa he comes back to Africa
and engages with the technological
prosthesis and technological
enhancements of the black panther suit
the powered armor that he wears so in
this regard to travel back to Africa to
heal the primal wound of diaspora you
must be healed through technological
prosthesis a prosthetic Lee enhanced the
future I find this to be really cool but
also it’s important for us to bear in
mind black panther didn’t emerge xme
hello from the imaginations of you know
the creators black panther has had by
virtue of its relationship with
afrofuturism many antecedent works many
antecedent works that have been have a
quite long and storied history
so my work and my scholarship deals with
the afro-futurist literature i
investigate novels that in that explore
science fiction from the perspective of
black folks on a sort of global scale i
have a couple of example texts for us up
here just in case you leave the TED talk
and you want to go find some books on
black science fiction the first of which
is black no more which is one of the
older articulations of black science
fiction afro-futurist literature George
Schuyler the author writing in 1931
describes a scenario
an alternative way of adapting
technology we’re in black folks can
scientifically and mechanically and and
and technologically turn themselves
white and then that ends racism and
everybody lives happily ever after of
course not and the the novel explores
all of the tensions and problems that
exist as a result of this it is an
investigation of technology and its
relationship with the black experience
in America whatever that might be and
how that makes itself manifest through
the possibilities of the future
I have also up here Octavia Butler’s
novel wildseed Octavia Butler as an
author is someone who is well recognized
within the science fiction community she
is one of the most prominent black women
writers of science fiction and has been
for some time writing as far back as
1980 and even further back in terms of
some of her more early works wildseed
situates itself within a series of
novels the pattern Asteria that
investigate what how technology and its
relationship with people of color black
women and black men as well helped to
create a narrative of immortality right
long life psychic powers and
what-have-you it’s a fascinating work
this one in particular is invested in
exploring the transatlantic slave trade
exploring slavery itself and looking at
alternate ways that this might have been
experienced and understood the last
novel up here this this one is the most
fun I think my dissertation research is
dealing with Stephen Barnes as an author
Stephen Barnes began writing in the
early 1980s writing parallel with the
science fiction literary movement known
as cyberpunk I like to think he writes
cyberpunk put some soul on it right
and in this novel Barnes investigates
the notion of what as a cyborg black man
looked like what does that mean what are
the implications of taking a black body
and investing it with these prosthetic
enhancements these augmentations and
what have you so again this ties back in
with our understanding of what we see in
black panther right the lead character
in the novel firedance which I just was
on the slide previously the lead
character in this must undergo
cybernetic augmentation to go back to
Africa he goes back to the fictional
state of pan-african as part of a
military operation and as such he
becomes a part of that nation-state he
comes back and reverses the trajectory
of the diaspora now this allegory this
kind of allegory is certainly one that’s
very very meaningful to me given my own
foundations with Japanese anime and
mecha so looking at cyborgs looking at
black powered suits looking at black
enhancement I find that to be a really
really cool concept and one that I my
dissertation research I’ve identified as
black Mecca
again this MB CH a black mechanical
prosthetic enhancements and futures so
this is something that I’m continuing to
do more research on continuing to look
at as a fascinating way of alig arising
connections between African America and
Africa the continent as well seeing how
these connections can be created because
to me at the end of the day the biggest
question is what is most important about
afrofuturism why is afrofuturism such a
big deal to me if we want to be very
cynical we can certainly say that
something like black panther making over
a billion dollars at the box office
making over in doing so well
internationally if it makes dollars it
makes sense right and if it is going to
show the green perhaps it also sort of
can help us to handle this black and
white dynamic also right
that’s me being cynical but if I want to
look at it from a more optimistic and
idealistic standpoint black panther
matters because it helps us to see that
black futures matter which again helps
us to see how black lives matter and I
think that this is a really important
concept for us to be aware of it’s a
very important issue for us to be
cognizant of that blackness is not
always inherently reflective blackness
is not always grounded in notions of the
slavery past it’s not always grounded
within the sort of complicated
situations of urban living in the
contemporary American landscape we might
imagine alternatives we might imagine
ways beyond those pasts and without
necessarily sort of cutting those pasts
off because again afrofuturism as such
allows us to see and appreciate and
understand the past by projecting it
forward into the future so there’s a
there’s a little thing I’d like to close
out with y’all know Richard Pryor right
Richard Briers kind of awesome he’s a
great stand-up comedian and it was a
great stand-up comedian one of his
important kind of sketches that he did
was a remark or a riff on the film
Logan’s Run science fiction film Logan’s
Run Richard Pryor goes up and he says
yeah seeing this movie Logan’s Run but
no black people in it set in the future
I guess they won’t plan around us to
stick around and fortunately for us
afrofuturism exists as an alternative
afrofuturism exists as a means for us to
see how we can persist into futures how
we can thrive in the futures how we can
engage our past and utilize that to help
us imagine brighter futures thank you
very much [Applause]
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