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He joins Whitehead and Jemisin as leading proponents of ade Thompson, a British-born Yoruba writer, became only contemporary Afrofuturism, at a time when that movement is going mainstream – the film Black Panther took more than the second writer of black African heritage to win the Arthur C $1bn at the box office last year, and some of the world’s Clarke award for science fiction. Three out of this year’s six biggest recording artists have adopted Afrofuturist stylings, shortlisted titles were by writers of colour, a reflection of the from Rihanna and Beyoncé to Janelle Monáe. fact that some of today’s most exciting SF and fantasy writing comes from non-white authors. Recent high-profile examples include Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, which won the Pulitzer prize in 2017, as well as that year’s Arthur C Clarke award and is being made into a TV series by Barry Jenkins; and NK Jemisin, who last year won a third consecutive Hugo award for best science fiction novel with the final part of her Broken Earth trilogy. Yet as Tom Hunter, award administrator for the Arthur C Clarke prize, points out, of the 124 submissions from 46 different publishers and imprints, only 7% were by writers of colour. He is unambiguous about what this means: “Diversity in science fiction needs action now.” Thompson’s Rosewater was a worthy winner: a complex and fast-moving novel that expertly balances weird alien incursion against thriller action, zombie scares and a vividly rendered future Nigeria.
In fact the movement, and black engagement with sci-fi, go back a long way. Samuel Delany has been writing sci-fi from the black experience since the 1960s (he’s still going), Funkadelic were hymning their outer-space mothership in the 1970s, and the much missed Octavia Butler wrote some of the most powerful sci-fi of the 1980s and 90s. What’s happening today is a shift in focus: a black African rather than African American sci-fi phenomenon. Writer Geoff Ryman, a former Clarke winner himself, points out that Thompson’s success marks “the first time an African not living in the US has won a major sci-fi/fantasy award”. Rosewater is a distinctively African example of Afrofuturism: a portrait of Nigeria in 2066, extrapolated from the bustling and expanding society of today, but with its own distinctive flavour – intricate, sometimes hectic, spacious. Where white western cyberpunk tends to isolate its characters, gloomily alienated individuals moving through hi-tech future cities, Thompson’s characters exist in vivid networks of kinship and friendship groups. The novel is as interested in protagonist Kaaro’s love life (he is believably gauche in relation to his various objects of desire) as in his superhero skills. The far-fetched and the mundane rub shoulders in a distinctive and agreeable manner. Kaaro has employment as a kind of telepathic James Bond, but he also has a dull job in a bank. The alien incursion, around which the novel’s titular city has been constructed, combines magic and science: healing the sick and bringing the dead back to zombie-life, but also provoking a hi-tech evolution in science. Next Page
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Thompson is the UK spokesperson for the Nommo awards, set up to recognise excellence in African speculative fiction. He sees the current diversification of genre as driven by two main factors. “SF is looking for new stories because of progressive thought, but also the need to avoid stagnation. Finding new ideas to feed audience appetites means looking everywhere, which in turn improves career prospects for marginalised creators. So [the Nigerian-American writer, Nnedi] Okorafor happens, Jemisin happens, and Black Panther breaks the box office, because when you go looking, you find gold.” Okorafor, award-winning author of the Binti trilogy, has recently had her work picked up for TV adaptation by HBO. “We persist not to entertain,” says Thompson, “but because of an enduring love of genre, hence the Nommo awards, hence magazines like Omenana and Fiyah.”
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or Wells or the pulps, is with white and predominantly male writers. We need new perspectives. That’s part of the process of estrangement and familiarisation that great SF engages in.” In 2015, Thompson took part in the discussions that established the African Speculative Fiction Society. It is now a body of 170 published African writers, editors and publishers who nominate and vote for the Nommos. Ryman, who administers the awards, says the African Science Fiction and Fantasy reading group on Facebook has 3,500 members and is growing. “In the wake of the success of Black Panther, and the success of Africans like Thompson and Okorafor, almost every publisher now wants to be able to say they are open to speculative fiction by Africans. That can only be a good thing.” But he qualifies his optimism: “If African writers are to end their dependency on being published in the west – and develop a big audience on the [African] continent – publishers here should consider hiring in African editors with experience in African Englishes and lives. Then their efforts really will build on the success of people like Tade to provide a platform for African stories told by Africans.”
Leila Abu el Hawa, director of the Kitschies, a prominent British prize for progressive sci-fi and fantasy, identifies other emerging voices. “Every year I’m really excited by what we’ll find coming from established authors and the new folk on the scene: Temi Oh, Agnes Gomillion, Thompson and Justina Ireland to name a few.” But she also recognises real inertia in the system. “These voices are not always easy to find, and the lack of diversity Ryman points to “terrific novels by Africans” such as Freshwater within publishing is endemic and not just limited to genre. by Akwaeke Emezi, the story of a young Nigerian woman whose Things are changing, but slowly.” consciousness is fractured between different realities; The Raft by Fred Strydom, a high-concept meditation on memory and Chair of the Clarke judges Andrew M Butler agrees: “The way we the nature of reality; Azotus, a sub-Saharan dystopia by define SF, whether starting with Shelley or Verne Shadreck Chikoti. READ MORE www.sdmonitornews.com
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Black History Month
Disrupted Most folks know that February is Black History Month in the United States. Black History month began as in 1926 and later became a month-long celebration in 1976. As anyone who has attended a public school in the United States knows, Black History Month often celebrates famous Black Americans like Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, and Madame CJ Walker — people from the past who have made major contributions to our present-day culture. While knowing our history is important, many people are also looking beyond our past and present and celebrating Black Futures Month — a month-long observance, often held in conjunction with Black History Month, where Black people visualize the kind of world we need and want. Created by the Movement for Black Lives in 2015, according to the Daily Dot, it creates a space for art to imagine what the future may hold for Black people. Damon Davis, a self-described Afrofuturist, tells Bustle that the idea behind Black Futures Month “is to reimagine the idea of Black History Month and change the emphasis from history of people of color to our futures.” Afrofuturism is a philosophy that reimagines the world of tomorrow, which many people see as informing Black Futures Month. (You might recognize Afrofuturistic themes from Janelle Monae's
Metropolis.) Black Futures Month, which takes place in February in conjunction with Black History Month, celebrates Black joy and “imagines a joyful, free and liberated future for Black folks” through art, according to the Black Lives Matter website, which has highlighted 28 works of art on this theme, one for each day in February. Being Black in America today comes with its challenges due in large part to institutional racism. Black people make up 38 percent of the federal prison population despite being only 13.3 percent of the overall population, according to the census. And according to the CDC, Black women are 243 percent more likely to die from pregnancy- or childbirth-related causes within the first year of giving birth. Black Futures Months imagines a world where these statistics are a relic of the past. Nyanza D., an artist who was featured during the 2017 Black Futures Month, tells Bustle, “Black Futures Month to me showcases the dreams and aspirations that Black people have. Historically, Black women have not been shown in a positive light in the media and I feel that it’s my job to showcase a range of positive representations through my art. I would like to teach future generations of people that Black womanhood — and ‘Blackness’ in general — is an entire spectrum.” Nyanza D.'s art focuses on themes of body positivity. Black Futures Month celebrates the full spectrum of Black existence, including all body types. How you celebrate? www.sdmonitornews.com
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SDMNEWS Must Read SHURI We don’t need another hero, but here’s one we’ve been waiting for anyway: Wakandan princess and genius little sister Shuri has finally broken out of her supporting role in the Black Panther franchise into her own series, courtesy of acclaimed fantasy writer Nnedi Okorafor. Okorafor, whose novel, Who Fears Death, is being developed by HBO (Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin is onboard as executive producer; former Source magazine editor-in-chief Selwyn Seyfu Hinds is the screenwriter), can now add a Marvel unlimited series to her growing and esteemed resume. Her first foray with the famed comic company was last September with the release of her eightpage comic short, “Blessing in Disguise,” in the Venomverse War Stories No. 1 comic book. At the very least, Okorafor has given us a double dose of black girl magic by giving one of our favorite Marvel characters her own series—and one of the rare black women characters, to boot. Shuri is much beloved within the black universe; here’s hoping she’ll get the same love within the Marvel Universe, as well.
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CALIFORNIA LOVE CENSUS GUIDE
WITH THE 2020 U.S. Census count beginning next April 1, there's no underscoring the importance of it for California and its 39 million-plus residents. Federal programs utilize Census data to help determine funding levels for such things as roads, school programs, public health insurance and child care. But residents who are foreign-born, renters, individuals living in homes without a broadband subscription, those living close to or below the poverty line, and children younger than 5 are considered by the U.S. Census to be hard to count.
U.S. Census to be hard to count. California has the greatest risk of being undercounted, according to the Urban Institute, with projected 2020 undercounts ranging from 0.95 percent to 1.98 percent. The Golden State is trying to reduce the undercounting risk before the 2020 counts begin. "A lot of Californians have a fear of the government and that's what makes them difficult to count," says Diana Crofts-Pelayo, communications chief for the California Complete Count Committee (CCCC). Next page
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"That's why state leaders have invested in doing everything possible to help Californians understand what the Census is, understanding the importance of the Census and how it benefits the community."
Census Challenges According to the California Complete Count: Counting 2010 and Planning for 2020 report, "California is the largest and hardest-to-count state. Ten of the country's 50 hardest to count counties are in California – including Los Angeles, which is the single hardest to count county in the country‌it is unclear exactly how many Californians were missed in the 2010 count, but the consequences were significant." California's population of more than 39 million as of July 2018 is a 6.2 percent increase from the 2010 Census. The CCCC says that the main challenge facing the 2020 Census is the undercounting of the hard-to-count population groups, where more than 75 percent of residents are considered the hardest to count in the U.S., according to the League of California Cities.
Because of this, the CCCC developed the California Hard-toCount (CA-HTC) Index Interactive Map, which is based on 14 demographic, housing and socioeconomic variables that correlate with an area being difficult to count with index numbers from 0 to 136. In Los Angeles County, which has an estimated population of 3.9 million, most areas have an index number between 69 and 136. "The saying is that Los Angeles is the hardest-to-count city in the hardest-to-count county in the hardest-to-count state in the entire nation," Crofts-Pelayo says. "The bigger the index number, the more difficult it is to count." In recent Census counts, U.S. residents had to fill out the questionnaire on paper and return it by mail. The 2020 Census will mark the first time they will have the option to submit their responses online. "By filling it (the questionnaire) out, you are giving a voice to the community history and family by letting them know that it counts in California as a whole," Crofts-Pelayo says. READ MORE WWW.SDMONITORNEWS.COM
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