Afrofuturism, science fiction, and the history of the future

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Notes

1. For discussions of 19th-century British and continental influences on the development of science fiction, see especially Aldiss and Wingrove (1986) and James (1994). For discussions of 19th-century American authors on the development of this genre, see Atterbery (2002) and Franklin (1995). Finally, for more specific considerations of Mary Shelley's legacy to women science fiction writers, see Lefanu (1988), Roberts (1993), and Donawerth (1997).

2. There were, of course, a few exceptions to this rule. In a 1997 interview, Leslie F. Stone – one of the first women to publish in the new science fiction magazines of the early 20th century – notes that her popular story “The Fall of Mercury” (1935) featured a black protagonist. Significantly, however, she also notes that to the best of her knowledge neither her editors nor her readers ever commented on this one way or another. Thus it might be more accurate to say that science fiction authors sometimes imagined futures that included people of color, but not ones that extrapolated from the racial tensions of their own day. Instead, they seem to have implicitly assumed that such tensions would be eliminated in rationally-planned worlds of tomorrow.

3. For further discussion, see Delany's “Racism and Science Fiction” (2000) and Thomas's introduction to Dark Matter (2000). Indeed, as Thomas notes, this trend continued well into the 1950s, when well-meaning science fiction writers like Ray Bradbury wrote allegorical stories about the civil rights movement that only addressed race relations from the perspective of white characters. Although such stories were in some ways a marked improvement over their pulp-era predecessors, they still rendered black people silent and relegated them to the margins of social and political action.

4. For detailed discussion of Afrofuturism in jazz and other popular forms of Afrodiasporic music, see especially Kodwo Eshun's groundbreaking book More Brilliant than the Sun (1999) and John Akomfrah's equally groundbreaking film The Last Angel of History (1995).

5. See especially Suvin (1989) and the discussion of science fiction in Jameson (1991 and 2005 [the latter reviewed in this issue]). Although both authors are primarily interested in the science fiction subgenre of cyberpunk, their comments are relevant to much of science fiction in general.

6. For more information about Black to the Future, see the conference website at http://cdforum.org/bttf/. On the Carl Brandon Society, go to http://www.carlbrandon.org/.

7. http://www.afrofuturism.net/text/about.html.

8. As I have argued elsewhere (Yaszek 2005), this proto-Afrofuturist sensibility pervades both Ellison's fiction and his critical essay writing.

9. If nothing else, the basement does become a literal time machine for the invisible man. According to Patrick W. Shaw, the chronology of the novel indicates that he stays in his basement from 1931 to 1948, or 17 years (119).

10. While Schuyler remains clearly and firmly committed to women's rights throughout the Black Internationale/Black Empire serials, he treats the possibility of egalitarian race relations in a far more complex manner. Belsidus is generally portrayed as dismissive of white women; indeed, in an early installment of Black Internationale he tells Slater that “I use [white] women to aid in [white people's] destruction. As long as they succeed in carrying out my mission, I spare them. When they fail, I destroy them” (Schuyler 1991: 11). Slater, however, clearly admires Belsidus's white lover Martha Givens, and she is a key character in both Black Internationale and Black Empire. Indeed, Schuyler ends both serials with highly ambivalent images of Martha weeping because Belsidus refuses to return her love. Even as Schuyler invites readers to revel in Belsidus's world conquest, then, he seems to caution that such triumph can only come at the cost of one's essential humanity.