Reimagining Black Futures and Pasts
You folk are so finicky about time, living it in straight lines like that.
This quote by Jamaican-born Canadian fiction writer and editor Nalo Hopkinson speaks to both oppression and freedom. We are weighted by Eurocentric histories, norms and practices that govern who we are and how we should think, move and live. Afrofuturists, steeped in ancient African/Caribbean traditions and Black identity, reimagine futures that defy normative Eurocentric conventions of all kind. Freedom is for those who name it as such and live differently.
Learn more and take action:
- Nalo Hopkinson on Why it's Radical for Black People to Imagine the Future (external link, opens in new window)
- Here's how Afrofuturism mixes sci-fi and social justice, (external link, opens in new window) Vox
- Afrofuturism Explained: Not Just Black Sci-Fi, (external link, opens in new window) Inverse
Beware, my body and my soul, beware above all of crossing your arms and assuming the sterile attitude of the spectator, for life is not a spectacle, a sea of griefs is not a proscenium, and a man who wails is not a dancing bear.