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Afrofuturism Reflection

Afrofuturism is an all encompassing genre that speaks to themes relating to and affecting Black history, Black culture and presence today, and the lives of Black people in the future. In light of this course coming to an end, I will use this blog post to reflect on some common themes in Afrofuturism and how I think they are relevant to the present we live in. 

The environment: I think this was best represented in Pumzi, Nnedi Okorafor’s works, and WHITE. Climate change and environmental issues have been the hot topic of debates for the last decade or two, with good reason of course. Though to be honest, environmental activism has been an irrationally sore spot for me for reasons I find hard to explain. I think that what gets me boiling whenever I see baseline environmental activism is that it NEVER feels intersectional to me; I think that people have kind of lifted up climate change to be this very non-human centered issue, and for that reason there are a lot of people who are able to dismiss it entirely and for others it makes it easy to slap a plastic bag ban or a save the bees initiative on the entire issue and call it a day. I feel like I hardly hear people talking about the effects of Western nations sending all of their garbage to the global south (and those countries being blamed for high waste rates), the exploitation of African bodies for lithium mining in order to build “sustainable” technologies, the lack of accessibility for healthy and vegan-friendly goods for marginalized groups/countries (who are again, the ones who are blamed the most for the crimes of the mega-corporate meat industry). I think that the works we discussed in class helped alleviate some of the frustrations I had in regards to talks about the environment, as we NEED to pose it as a humane issue that necessitates revolutionary and anti-capitalist action. 

Technology. Of course a lot of works discuss different kinds of technology. I think that Janelle Monae, Nnedi Okorafor’s works (again) and Robots of Brixton showcase this the most. Artificial Intelligence is SCARY and has too many implications for our world and lives to think about. For one, it could contribute a lot of valuable resources to our lives that may not necessarily be accessible to some groups; I’m thinking of accessibility to education and information, accessibility to certain services like therapy that would normally cost money, the potential for intelligence that could aid people with physical disabilities, etc. BUT on the other hand, perhaps the overall laziness of AI is contributing to the social degradation of our society and may lead to an ultimate loss of empathy and want for real human connections and critical thought! I saw someone post an ad for a long text-summary application and caption it with, well Fahrenheit 451 started off with the demotivation of reading and information consuming due to growing technologies that made it unnecessary in the first place! And that was really scary. Yes accessibility could be a real benefit, but how long that accessibility stays true to helping people and not to manipulating it is very fraught and up for contention. Also, not to mention the real environmental damages that AI processing centers are causing (which again, disproportionately affects marginalized populations especially in the global South)!!Revolution. This was most prominent to me in Walking Awake and Parable of the Sower. It’s pretty obvious in the former, and still prominent yet more subtle in the former. Revolution is necessary to overturn power structures that continue to oppress us, and oftentimes revolution is not capable without violence. As much as I hate conflict and war, I think that remaining complicit only breeds more violence and unrest amongst the people who are most vulnerable. Revolution can also be inherently nonviolent, as community and alliance are things that oppressive systems seek to destroy because they can threaten their power. I think Octavia Butler portrayed that very well, as though even though she herself is not religious she saw the value that religion may bring in terms of creating the motivation for community.

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Walking Awake

Walking Awake by N.K. Jemisin portrays the story of a protagonist whose role and complicity in an oppressive system that feeds off the lower class comes into question. Sadie, the main character, acts as a “caregiver” who raises and cares for the children in her community only to send them off to be destroyed and exploited by the ruling class of “Masters.” Sadie, evidently, feels immense guilt and pain at seeing the children she lovingly named be slaughtered one after another, their bodies masqueraded around as new vessels for the Masters to use both to maintain their power and for their own leisure. However ultimately, Sadie remains a bystander in this system of aiding the oppressor because of her fears at becoming the oppressed. Yes, we as the readers can blame her, but if we were in that situation would we act any differently?

The worldbuilding of Walking Awake reminds me of a few stories that have a similar power structure. One obvious one to me is the animated show The Promised Neverland that features a similar set up of children being raised in orphanages by a caregiver or “mother” who takes care of them until they are adopted. It’s later revealed in the first few episodes that in reality, adopted children are killed so that they may be eaten by otherworld monsters who enjoy feasting on human flesh. Sadie’s character arc is incredibly similar to that of Isabella, the mother of the main characters in the show, in that she is posed as a kind and compassionate figure who cares deeply for her children while remaining complicit in their exploitation. Like Sadie her motivations for being a caregiver are because she does not wish to meet the same fate as the rest of the children, but also because she has deluded herself into thinking that the best role she can play in this system is to give her children good lives so that their deaths are less heartbreaking. Though she eventually realizes the flaw in this kind of thinking, and eventually uses her station to sacrifice herself so that her children can be free of the system entirely.  

Sadie and Isabella both represent the classes of people in real life who are aware of the unjust systems they have a role in but who also ultimately possess some amount of privileges that prevent them from seeking to overturn the system entirely. Walking Awake is a cautionary tale that seeks to warn us about the harm of complicity, and the necessity of revolutionary action even at the expense of our own comforts.

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Like Daughter

Like Daughter by Tanarive Due shows a tragic and bittersweet portrayal of the ways in which childhood and generational trauma can affect the decisions we make throughout our life, the relationships we keep and lose, and the hope we hold onto for a better future. The short story portrays the protagonist Paige, reflecting on her and her childhood bestfriend’s lives after receiving a call from her asking to come and take her daughter away from her. We learn that the friend, Denise, was the continued recipient of abuse from her elders all throughout her childhood and that that trauma she received from those experiences still very much haunted her into the present day. We also learn that as a sort of means to reconcile the trauma she received from her parents as a child, Denise opted into a self-cloning program to impregnate herself with a daughter that would be her exact genetic match. However over the course of time, when Denise fails to heal her wounds through her child and when she is abandoned by her husband, she finds herself unable to bear the reflection of her past that is ever present through her daughter. 

Children are more often than not a reflection of their parents, not just in appearance but in the ways in which they go about their lives and view the world around them as a whole. I think with my generation, we’re a tad more contemplative and paranoid about what potential things we could pass down to our own children, and if it would even be worth it to have them in the first place. When speaking to my friend who shared similar childhood experiences to Denise, they said that they really would love to have children in the future, to prove that they could be a loving parent and that it was possible and easy to give a child a loving environment. Thinking back now, I wonder if he wanted to prove that to their family, to society, or maybe even to themself? Perhaps, similar to Denise, they want to reconcile their past wounds through their future child. In my case, I think that me having a child would be a terrible misfortune for both myself and that kid. 

I think that Denise’s story is especially tragic because her decision to have a daughter was rooted in her inability to look away from her past, rather than her hope for the future. Even with the nature-defying technology that is present in the story, those events and those memories could never be written out entirely. As much as I wish I could give my child-self a hug, as much as I regret my decisions and wish I could rewind time, those opportunities will never come to me in this reality. So, instead of living off the nostalgia and grief of the past, the only thing we can do is focus on ourselves in the present so that we can be better in the future. And the past, as painful as it may be, is ultimately the most important tool we can harness for that potential future.

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Daughters of the Dust

As the first theatrical release directed by a Black woman, Daughters of the Dust stands as an incredible display of Black womanhood, culture, and history. Daughters of the Dust centers on the Peazant family, part of the cultural Gullah community living on an island along the American South in the early 1900s. As several family members prepare to migrate north, the film explores the tension between preserving cultural traditions and assimilation/adaptation for the hope of a better life. At the heart of the story is Nana Peazant, the elderly matriarch who is deeply rooted in African traditions and adamantly opposes the migration, fearing the loss of the family’s heritage. Her spiritual wisdom and connection to the ancestors serve as a grounding force for the family.

One of the main characters is Viola Peazant, a devout Christian who represents the more assimilationist mindset, having already embraced values from her time on the mainland. Yellow Mary on the other hand acts as a sort of foil to her cousin Viola, as she returns to the island after years of living in the North. Once shunned for her past as a sex worker, she brings with her female lover named Trula and challenges the family to reconsider what redemption and identity mean. Other key characters include Eli and Eula Peazant, whose marriage is strained by trauma, particularly Eula’s past sexual assault that left her pregnant. Their unborn child serves as the film’s narrator, symbolizing continuity, memory, and future hope.

Through a poetic, nonlinear narrative, the film captures a day of reflection, conflict, and celebration as the Peazants face an uncertain future—torn between preserving their unique Gullah culture and stepping into a new world. Between Nana, the three main characters, and Eula’s unborn child, the generations of Black mothers and daughters serve as an enduring reminder of what it means to survive and persist in a life of hardships and trauma. Struggle is not a foreign concept to the Peasant family, though despite this they manage to survive. Surviving here means remembering your roots, but being welcome to change. The film creates a beautiful blend of African, Islam, Christian, and even Indigenous American ideologies to portray the ways in which Black diaspora have collected their identities and others to adapt to their circumstances. The role of Black women in cultural preservation and community remains at the core of Daughters of the Dust and the movie’s impact on art and popular media years down the line. Beyonce’s Lemonade is a testament to that, showcasing further the power of Black matriarchs and of the love that Black women can create.

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WHITE by A. Sayeeda Clarke

In an era where the impending doom of climate change only continues the grow stronger and stronger, A. Sayeeda Clarke’s short film “WHITE” feels all the more impactful and poignant. The premise of “WHITE” is one of the most creative concepts I have seen for a film aiming to make social commentary about race, the environment, and capitalism as a whole. The imagery of winter in New York being paired with oversaturated yellow tones as the sun beats down on the characters serves to convey the imminent urgency that accompanies climate change and its effects. The film also goes to portray how climate change disproportionately affects people of color and already marginalized classes. What is most terrifying of all is the notion that in the world of “WHITE,” melanin has become a physical commodity that a person can be deprived of in order to survive.

When his wife goes into labor, our protagonist Bato starts to scramble for ways to make enough money to pay for her to give birth in a clinic. The idea that in one of the most populated cities in the country that a pregnant woman would not be entitled to her and her baby’s safety while giving birth is incredibly telling, and truthfully speaks on the maltreatment and neglect of Black women in healthcare. The fact that in the end, Bato has to resort to selling his melanin in order to pay the costs speaks to the commodification of Black men and Black bodies. The world of “WHITE” already has a system in place to extract the melanin from Black people to sell to their wealthy, White counterparts which protects them from the growing health effects of climate change. Essentially, a white person can protect their health while directly endangering Bato’s, all while the system makes a profit out of it. “WHITE” is not a horror film, but the potentiality of it all is very horrifying indeed. 

“Blackness” today has been commodified to the extreme, even with the lack of melanin-extracting-devices. Mainstream media around the world is built off the back bone that is Black culture, though Black people hardly ever reap the benefits of this. While corporations love to steal aesthetics from hip hop and other forms of Black art, they don’t hesitate to call the same art “ghetto” when it is being enacted by the originators. Colorism is still very prevalent within the small modicums of Black representation we do get in mainstream media, though tanning is very popular amongst White populations. So are lip injections, body enhancement surgeries, and Black protective hairstyles amongst non-Black people. In every facet that it possibly could be today, Blackness has been commodified and sold out to non-Black masses to the detriment of Black individuals. It is in this vein that while Bato’s sacrifice of his melanin is reminiscent of the commodification of Blackness, it is additionally reminiscent of the systemic stripping of identity, history, and heritage that Black Americans underwent. Bato has essentially lost a piece of his identity–and his ability to identify with his community– because of this process.

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Beloved

When thinking of what to write about for my final essay for this class, one common theme throughout the works we read or watched was in the relationships between maternal figures and daughters. More specifically, the ways in which mothers and daughters can either perpetuate cycles of violence caused by external pains within their homes, or how they can seek to break that chain once and for all. I saw this in many of the works we went over in the class, especially those that featured young girls for their protagonist. When the horror in question is rooted from familial and generational problems, then the overarching narrative is made all the more poignant when it is an explicitly Black experience. In other words, I strongly believe that the pains Black and other marginalized diaspora have experienced throughout history has permanently warped the ways in which we view our own family dynamics and operate through them with survival in mind. When watching Beloved, I thought that this movie was the best example of this. Oprah Winfrey gives a stellar performance as the protagonist and central maternal figure Sethe. The film was riddled with shocking imagery, and while I personally think that some of it was a little too shocking at times it clearly serves to convey the horrors of Sethe’s story which very much parallels real life experiences of this time period. Overall, I think that Beloved is a story about painful truths and realizations that lead to growth and healing. Sethe’s past trauma is what holds most of the other characters back throughout the film, and while it is hard to blame her it is also difficult to see many of our own authority figures in our real lives mirrored in her image. As a daughter, I can relate my own experiences with my mother to Denver, who is similarly stuck in what I know as the “silent generation” that occurs after great traumatic events. While Beloved is still a horror film and has many horrific elements to prove it, the overall conclusion of the story leaves the audience on a more hopeful note for the future of the family being depicted. I can imagine that this movie and others coming out in recent times discussing similar narratives and themes would be deeply impactful on the communities that they depict, especially when they are being create by filmmakers from those communities.

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Beloved

Beloved by Toni Morrison is a gut-wrenching story about the trauma that can be inflicted and prolonged throughout generations, warping familial relations into something fraught and burdensome. The main character Sethe, a mother and former slave who attempts to and succeeds in killing her own children, is a character the reader is inclined to feel adverse to, but also incredibly sympathetic and pitiful. Sethe herself is portrayed for a good portion of the novel as a child herself, having been enslaved as a young child and forced to endure many violating trials. The penultimate grievance she experiences includes the instance in which the schoolteacher’s nephew violates her by stealing the milk from her body meant to breastfeed her newborn daughter. This sets the stage for how her relationship with her children ends up, essentially “stolen” from all of them because of the cruelty of the individuals who hold power over them. It is clear that after giving birth to her children, Sethe experiences some form of postpartum depression exacerbated by her worsening conditions. Sethe was never a good mother to begin with, but when she makes the decision to commit infanticide as opposed to letting her children endure the horrors of slavery, we as the readers can gather that this was an action committed out of love, as frantic and ill-concieved as it is. It is for this reason that when her older daughter returns from the dead, that she and Sethe develop a toxic codependent relationship. Sethe is wrought with guilt and shame, desperate to convince her daughter that her murder was not done out of hate but for the opposite. And Beloved, the daughter in question, is desperate for the love of her mother. Her being named “Beloved” brings about a depressing sense of irony; “Beloved” is not her real name, but the only word her mother could afford to write on her tombstone, and being beloved is what she has lacked and craved for her entire existence. In many ways, Beloved is a reflection of her mother. She is a young child in the body of a grown woman, essentially expected to fill the role of one too similar to how her mother was when she was enslaved. She has a weird sexual dynamic with Paul D who is her mother’s lover, not too different from the objectification Sethe would endure from other men as a young child. In attempting to spare Beloved from slavery, Sethe has unknowingly subjected her to many of the other pains she has experienced throughout her life. But in the end, it is hard to blame her, when we can so clearly see that her circumstances left her with little choices. Ultimately Beloved reveals to us that familial love and healthy relationships are privileges, that happen to be revoked for many like Sethe. 

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Greedy Choke Puppy

Nalo Hopkinson’s “Greedy Choke Puppy” presents an interesting commentary about maternalism, womanhood, combined with supernatural themes from Afro-Caribbean folklore. The short story is centered around the relationship between a Granny and her granddaughter Jacky, whose mother had passed away some time prior to the start of the story. It is made explicit through the dialogue and actions of the Granny that she loves and cares deeply for Jacky. We are introduced to the characters as Granny intimately braids Jacky’s hair. It is later revealed that Jacky, alongside the other women in her family including her deceased mother and Granny are Soucouyants, a type of supernatural being greedy for blood, akin to something like a vampire but exclusively female. After Jacky kills her friend’s baby and reveals her true form, she is then killed by her Granny, a parallel to how her mother died.

The “Greedy” within the title with this context should most literally be a greed for blood or human flesh. But in the cultural context, we can view this greed as a greed for male love and a nuclear life, followed by the punishment greater society assigns women who fail to meet this standard. Jacky’s downfall is that she is too greedy for a partner and to settle down, so much so that she ends up pushing potential prospects away. Because of this, a Soucouyant is then drawn to feed on the young/babies in a sort of recompensation to the way in which they themselves are being “aged” out of their value as women. So for their actions they are demonized and punished accordingly. But why does this happen?

While the story’s inclusion of a supernatural premise provides explanation for the Granny’s actions in killing her daughter and granddaughter, the audience reading surely has to question why this could not have been avoided in the first place. Perhaps the Granny is a parallel for the older generation in real life enforcing oppressive standards on their younger counterparts despite having endured the same consequences of such hardships in the past. Maybe Jacky would have been more conscious of her greed had she known the repercussions it would have, had it gone too far. Granny is an internal figure in this coven of demonized women, however she is also the only enactor of punishment we witness throughout the story. This cycle of silence and lack of communication, combined with violent punishment for misdeeds that were never fully explained reflects the traumatic cycles we see perpetuated throughout generations in many of our homes and communities.

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Tales From the Hood

Blog Post #3

Tales From the Hood is a masterful example of how horror, comedy, and social commentary can be woven together into a single work that effectively conveys the benefits of all 3 genres. The film covers an array of issues that “haunt” African-American individuals and culture, now both in a figurative and literal sense. It’s a great demonstration of how adding supernatural elements can in a way, help us understand real life issues more personally.

The first short story “Rogue Cop Revelation” sets the tone well for the rest of the movie. It futures police violence, unjust incarceration and drug planting, and most interestingly to me, a Black cop. The premise has the Black cop, Clarence, be haunted by another Black man Martin after he had witnessed Martin’s death at the hands of his colleagues. While they both succeed in enacting revenge against the White cops, Clarence too gets his due punishment as a bystander in an oppressive system. I feel like this inclusion of a Black cop works to undo the “Copaganda” that is popular in Hollywood, aka hiring Black actors to play the role of cop protagonists to shift the focus of police brutality against real Black people away. I’m thinking specifically of the roles Will Smith and Jamie Foxx have been shuttered into. Black cops promote the “good apple” idea of policing, but in reality Black cops are still cops at the end of the day.

“Boys Do get Bruised” was probably my favorite of the stories presented. While I as a non-Black individual probably have less of a stance to comment on what problems the story reflects for the Black community, there’s something very satisfying about seeing a seemingly helpless young boy take action against his abuser in a ridiculous and gorey way. 

“KKK Comeuppance” represents corruption in politics and the idea of White guilt. What happens when there are no reparations, when one cannot even respect the spirits of the wronged as the bare minimum. Well another R probably, aka revenge. It’s very symbolic that the politician attempted to hide behind the American flag while trying to save himself from the dolls containing the souls of murdered slaves. It shows that this country cannot escape the misdeeds of the past forever.

Lastly, “Hard Core Convert” is another interesting interpretation of internal problems plaguing the Black community, especially ones that are exacerbated by systemic racism. Here, the film displays street violence and equates it to violence committed by a member of the KKK. After all, what is the difference when the outcome is the same: the lives of innocent Black people taken. This comes into play at the end where it reveals that the 3 drug dealers are actually dead, and that they’ve been sent to hell for their crimes.  

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THE BLACKENING & The Humanization of Tropes

What I found especially profound in THE BLACKENING was its depictions of the main ensemble cast, who are very diverse in personality and in ways, reminiscent of old tropes that were typically used to stereotype and minimize Black people. Dewayne Perkins, who co-wrote the film, mentioned that the intention with these characters was to humanize them, aka take tropes meant to demean Black individuals and turn them into real people who possess depth and nuance. 

Dewayne himself said that his character was supposed to be a play on the “gay best friend” trope often seen in media. He commented on how his character reflected how he had often been typecast in the industry as a queer Black man himself. It was refreshing to see his character break out of the mold, as Dewayne in the movie establishes boundaries to Lisa and successfully furthers their relationship rather than be relegated to the sideline as she prioritizes her boyfriend instead.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, the character of King and Nnamdi represent the thug and hyper-athletic womanizer tropes Black men have continuously relegated to. Hollywood has had a very recent and prolonged history of casting Black actors only in roles that require them to exert some form of aggression and hypermasculinity for a largely White audience. 

Furthermore, Shanika is reminiscent of the Sapphire trope that depicts a larger, loud, outspoken, and often aggressive Black woman. This is a trope that similar to the two above, seeks to hypermasculinize Black women who simply have enough confidence to speak out on mistreatment when it occurs. We see this with Shannika, who speaks plainly to people who are actively trying to murder her.

Allison is also another interesting character, who depicts biracial people in the Black community who while accepted, are still often relegated to their White halves oftentimes. This representation calls back to stories from old Hollywood, specifically the “tragic mulatta” trope which placed biracial women in trials testing either their “whiteness” or “blackness” to determine whether or not she should be accepted or ostracized by society depending on the context. This is juxtaposed by Clifton, who despite being fully Black is also questioned on his “Blackness.” To me, this trope occurs in real life quite often when a family who has experienced systemic racism over generations finds the means to socially mobilize upwards. Though by moving upwards, that oftentimes means removing oneself from their community and placing themselves in the space of the majority. Clifton could be someone who grew up largely around White people, and as a result is effectively rejected from both Black and White spaces. Perhaps I’m looking into this too much. Just because a person of color is raised around White people, doesn’t mean they are going to turn into a Trump supporter!

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Get Out and Modern Commodification of Black Bodies

AF AMER 112A Blog Post #1

Jordan Peele’s Get Out is a revolutionary work of film and social commentary for a number of reasons. Despite having an ultimately unrealistic premise–tldr: an underground cult comprised of the White upper elite performing hypnotic rituals and surgical operations in order to transfer the minds of their own members into the bodies of unsuspecting Black victims–the themes of the film still remain incredibly haunting for those who have been “racialized” and thus “objectified” by White supremacy as the ridiculous premise harkens back to fears from lived daily experiences from many oppressed individuals. 

One theme I appreciate about the film is its parallels to how Black bodies are commodified by larger society in a number of ways. Of course, hopefully everybody is keenly aware of how Black bodies and Black labor were used in the development of the United States of America following the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Though Jim Hudson in the movie claimed that race had nothing to do with how Chris’s body was chosen, it is clear to everybody in the audience that this is absolutely not true as Peele adds allusions to slavery in America when Chris effectively frees himself by picking cotton out of the armchair and stuffing it in his ears. But slavery aside, the modern setting of Get Out speaks to the relevance of how Black bodies are still exploited by capitalist enterprises today. 

I’m thinking specifically of how Black athletes are commercialized, and the ways in which young black men are often closed off from many opportunities for social mobility that don’t largely rely on their physical traits/abilities. While I am not the best person to speak on this, it is clear that Black men have a unique socioeconomic position that pushes them to athletics as the best means of escaping poverty, as opposed to other avenues like higher education. Even when they become highly sought after as star players, Black athletes are often extremely fetishized and objectified as “freaks of nature” as opposed to their White counterparts who may possess the same physical attributes. Many may think that praising Black people for athletic excellence is progressive, a compliment even, but in reality stereotypes seek to dehumanize the population they’re describing. This issue extends to Black women as well, who may also be praised for their physical abilities but have historically been barred from specific sports that emphasize “elegance” and “grace” in ways that White institutions hardly expect from Black women. Gymnastics comes to mind for this, as despite having always been a physically taxing sport, historically has labeled Black women as too abrasive to succeed in it. 

Now going back to Get Out, when Chris mingles with the friends of the Armitages, more often than not does Chris experience microaggressions from the White folks. People make comments about his body, his physical strength, and even on things like his golfing stance. Jim Hudson later reveals that he himself chose Chris’s body because of his eyesight. One can assume that all the other victims were similarly sought after for their physical abilities. Jordan Peele reveals through his incredible screen work that despite the intentions of others, marginalized individuals and Black people specifically cannot escape the repercussions of being commodified and reduced to the traits they are perceived as, rather than the person they truly are.