AFROFUTURISM EXPLAINED For a long time, fictional worlds that depicted future universes lacked Black and Brown people. Afrofuturism emerged as a reaction to the lack of Black and brown people seen in science fiction books and movies. This movement combines historical fiction, digital fabrication, and Afroinspired imagery to imagine a future where problems concerning the African diaspora are solved without Western influence. Afrofuturism has its roots in music, literature, and the visual arts but has since evolved to include an infinite number of creative forms. At its core, however, the movement is about embracing the narrative that black people can be the heroes in their own stories and reclaim the narratives surrounding their existence. This research uses Ytasha L. Womack’s book Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture as a foundational text to unpack the building blocks of this movement (Womack, 2013).
22
Afrofuturism deals with the major themes of otherness, feminism, reclamation of culture, Utopian imagery, and the digital landscape. The ideas of otherness in the Afrofuturism movement stem from the belief that the way that Black people are treated in America could be comparable to how alien abductees are treated. The Transatlantic Slave Trade illustrates the narrative that black people were stolen from their land and now are forced to assimilate into American culture while still being othered because of their race. For this reason, the earliest onset of the Afrofuturism movement saw black creators trying to formulate spaces where they could feel safe. They looked beyond planet Earth to find these spaces. This fascination with Black people trying to carve out space for themselves be it on Earth or as “aliens” on other planets, led critic Mark Dery to investigate the reasons why there were only a few African American Science fiction writers.
