Using the panel discussions of the most
recent World Science Fiction Convention in Spokane, August 2015, I will jump
off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION
given in the pdf copy of the Program Guide. This is event #3105 (page 72). The
link is provided below…?
AfroFuturism in Comics & Science
Fiction
“Afro-futurism is a new field in academia
and science fiction themed media…the philosophical and artistic expression of
alternative realities relating to people of African descent. We will explore
what it means to be identified as “alien” or “other” as seen through the black
cultural lens of various comic art/sequential art speculative milieus…As we analyze
the thematic development and expression of Afrofuturist
phenomena in comics, the discussion will
descend into the realm of African mythology…We will discuss the notion of having
the world’s most technologically advanced society—the Kingdom of Wakanda—on the
continent of Africa. The presentation will remix historical perceptions and re-imagine
racial identity. Ajani Brown…”
I am NOT a comic
book geek, though my daughter and future son-in-law are, so I won’t be
discussing this from a comic book POV. The session description sparked in me a
recollection of books I’ve read in this vein, and that’s what I’d like to talk
about here – and my “question to the Universe”: Can I write stories that have
black characters in them?
First to look at
Afrofuturist books and stories with which I am familiar.
Octavia Butler’s
novel (pictured above in the edition in which I read it), SURVIVOR, was my
first of hers and though it wasn’t explicitly an African-based future AND was
repudiated by her (“Butler repudiated the novel and refused to allow it to be
reprinted: ‘When I was young, a lot of people wrote about going to another
world and finding either little green men or little brown men, and they were
always less in some way. They were a little sly, or a little like “the natives”
in a very bad, old movie…People ask me why I don’t like Survivor…it feels a
little bit like that. Some humans go up to another world, and immediately begin
mating with the aliens and having children with them. I think of it as my Star
Trek novel.’”), it was an introduction to her work. This led eventually to
Samuel R. Delany’s DHALGREN and others in my “new wave” phase. Eventually I
came back to Butler’s XENOGENESIS trilogy passing through Nancy Farmer’s THE
EAR, THE EYE, AND THE ARM and on to Steven Barne's sadly incomplete INSH’ALLAH series, the
rest of Butler’s work, and finally into Nalo Hopkinson (BROWN GIRL IN THE RING;
I wrote her after I read that, asking what she thought about me using black
characters…she never answered) and finally Nnedi Okorafor (I voted her first
book, THE SHADOW SPEAKER, on to the Norton Award ballot…it didn’t win…) and
Alayna Dawn Johnson (THE SUMMER PRINCE, which I voted on to the ballot and ALSO
didn’t win…).
My own work
reflects my belief that SF needs more people of color: “Mystery on Space Station
COURAGE” and “The Penguin Whisperer” feature the same young lady, Candace
Mooney, as well as Dejario Reynas. A conversation with a Latina student of mine
about fiction revealed that she has NEVER seen herself reflected in YA
mysteries she’s read. HEIRS OF THE SHATTERED SPHERES: Emerald of Earth’s main
character is a Latina named Emerald Marcillon. The main character of a novel I
have in submission now is Noah Bemisemagak, whose ancestry is Ojibwe. The next
novel I have coming out (contemporary YA) has a biracial boy’s POV…
Am I right or
wrong to be writing from other ethnic backgrounds? I do the research; I talk
regularly to people from whichever background I write; oftentimes I ask them to
read and comment on my work in progress…Or should I cut it out and stick to
what I know – the life of a big, fat, old, white guy?
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