ii. Afrofuturism storytelling

Broken Earth trilogy N.K. Jemison

N.K. Jemison’s trilogy, the Broken Earth series is a speculative fiction narrative that tells the story of a group of people called the orogenes who are systemically oppressed because of their ability to control the kinetic and seismic energy of the Earth. While this superpower is useful to control climate episodes, their otherness leads to them being excluded and enslaved. The setting for this story is a world that has seen multiple human extinctions after plantetary exploitation. The current world exists in the ruins of past natural and technological destruction. The people in power rule with the established narrative that render

orogenes as dangerous, and therefore need “ to be enslaved and controlled. The orgones are captured and “trained” to control their powers to aid the “State.” Those who do not comply are put in a coma and their powers are Image Source_gq.com siphoned and used through technology while their body is left lifeless. The orogenes are derogatorily called “roggas”—a word Some worlds that was established historically in the story to dehumanize them. are built on a fault Jemison draws parallels with the histories and the line of pain, held up present of oppression, dehumanization and othering of Black bodies to establish social reality as a foundation for fiction. The story is also told through multiple temporalities and time by nightmares. Don’t lament when those periods, decolonizing the concept of time and allowing the readers to understand the characters, story and the struggle worlds fall. Rage that non-linearly. The story is told through the eyes of three women but is later revealed that they are one person—multiple they were built doomed identities across different temporalities—navigating through injustices, on a planet that is alive and layered with histories in the first place.” 89 of injustices but is constantly seen as an object, much like the orogenes. Jemison forces her readers to be in conflict with their pre-conceived notions about geology, history, identity S t o n e S k y, N.K. Jemisin and the relationship between them, all while telling a story about “a” future that simultaneously was, is and could be.

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89. N. K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky (Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2018).

By reading past this point you agree that you are accountable to the council. You affirm our collective agreement that in the time of accountability, the time past law and order, the story is the storehouse of justice. You affirm that the crime was an era of refused understanding and stunted evolution. We believe now in the experience of brilliance on the scale of the “ intergalactic tribe. Today the evidence we need is legacy. May the public record show and celebrate that Alandrix consciously exists in an ancestral context. May this living textual copy of her digital compilation and all its future amendments be a resource for Alandrix, her mentors, her loved ones and partners, her descendants, and here detractors to use in the ongoing process of supporting her just intentions. We are grateful you are reading this. Thank you for remembering.

With love and what our ancestors called “faith,” the intergenerational council of possible elders 90

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Evidence Alexis Pauline Gumbs

Evidence is a short sci-fi piece by Alexis Pauline Gumbs and the story is in the form of a report that collects the legacy of Alandrix, a descendant of Alexis. The report establishes Alexis’ existence before and after the fall of capitalism and the time prior to this collapse is called Before Silence Broke period. The text above is the introduction to the story. It grounds the reader into the world they are about to enter, and validates the fight against oppression by saying that the fight has been won and the future is a kinder, more just world. The project of collecting legacy contains a letter Alandrix writes to her ancestor Alexis at the age of 12, thanking her for her participation in the Revolution and for being brave. This letter paints a picture of a world, five generations from today, where a twelve year old Alandrix is doing a report about the time the silence broke and the world became a braver place. She speaks of how the words of love spoken by Alexis and her comrades were hummed, sung and breathed by the next generations as people moved towards a world where silence became an unncanny phenomenon. The report also contains “research notes” from Alandrix’s dissertation where she is analyzing a photograph of a stained subway “cave.” which according to the researchers at the time is the only evidence of the time that the silence broke and the writings are by people they call “underground” people. A part of the writing says— “We have been wrong all along. Blood is not money. Money is not food. The anyonymous prophets were right. We cannot afford our own blood.” 91 This study of capitalism as an artifact of the past through research notes and photographs allows the reader to view the phenomenon as temporary and therefore, as oppressive systems of the past, capable of being dismantled. The report also contains an email from Alexis post-capitalism to Alexis during capitalism. She writes from the future to congratulate her past self and to validate her fight, and to tell her how beautiful life is in the future. She writes—”Here in the future we have no money. We have only the resources that we in our capitalist phase did not plunder to work with, but we have no scarcity. You can reassure Julia we have plenty of technology; technology is the brilliance of making something out of anything, of making what we need out of what we had, of aligning our spirits so everyone is on point so much of the time, that when one of us falls, gets scared, or caught up, the harmony of ‘yes, yes, yes, we are priceless’ brings them right back into tune with where they need to be.” 92 This story is, therefore, a reminder to think about the world through shifting temporalities—to think of the future through the past, and to view the past as a reminder of what the future could and should be. Alexis’ words about technologies reveal the discourse of modernism and technological determinism that dictate the arguments for capitalism. But technological futures can exist without technology being used as a tool of oppression. It can become an aid to build a more loving world.

90. Walidah Imarisha, Adrienne M. Brown, and Alexis Pauline Gumbs, “Evidence,” in Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements (Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2015). 33. 91. Gumbs, 37. 92. Ibid, 39.