speculationsofthediaspora

[speculationsofthediaspora]

Blog Post #6

As expected from a course on Afrofuturism we've talked a lot about dystopias. All of the works we've explored share a commonality in the fact that their authors believe that the future will be a dark time. In some way or the other, the books, short films, and even songs we've heard forecast a future of oppression, even though humanity has progressed in so many ways. When you leave out social and humanitarian aspects, as a species we have advanced beyond the wildest dreams of our predecessors a hundred years ago. Sure, we don't have flying cars, but we do have ones that drive themselves and people with credit card chips surgically implanted in their hands walking around. 

I've always had anxiety over the way technology has been advancing. Sure, I like my iPhone and my wireless headphones, but I've always been of the mindset that just because we can doesn't mean we should. The idea that somewhere in Silicon Valley people are creating gun-wielding police dogs that are powered by AI is unnerving. Why would the world need that, except just to further empower the police state. Inventions like that are not for all of humanity, but rather for specific groups who are looking to control the rest of us. 

Octavia Butler's choice to set Parable of the Sower in 2024 is terrifying. I'm convinced she was a time traveler who wrote the tale to give a warning that unfortunately fell on deaf ears (sadly, governments don't listen to artists). She was right, dystopia is now, RIGHT NOW. Every time I look at the news I can't help but feel like I'm living in some twisted, absurdist joke. It's as if Octavia herself took over the scripting of the universe just to make her point or something. 

Apple has just released a VR headset that lets you completely tune out of the world. Once users put on the device they can disconnect from the real, material world, and plug into an imaginary one that is free of all the troubles of our world. Apple isn't the only company that's creating virtual realities for the wealthy to escape to. Mark Zuckerberg has been putting his all into the Metaverse, even though it's hurting his business. The company has spent MILLIONS on this venture and it's concerning. I think that this push for escape and ignoring the world is dangerous and incredibly scary. It's almost like they're signaling that they know the end is here (look at climate change, increased unemployment, rampant school shootings, etc) and while they can, they're going to try to sell us things that can help us to continue to ignore this. 

[speculationsofthediaspora]

Blog Post #5

Although rooted in Caribbean folklore, Nalo Hopkinson's "Greedy Choke Puppy" contains lessons that transcend culture. The story confronts how older women in society are treated and how we women are forced to live on an artificial countdown clock. The greed that Jackie's grandmother calls her out for is the same greed that consumes us all that live in a capitalist society. It's an all-consuming greed that leads to a perpetual craving for more. Never are you satiated in where you are in life because your eyes remain fixated on the horizon of the expected next step. Although Jackie is quite successful in her own right, she is a Ph.D. student who has the love of her grandmother and of many others in her life. Yet, she hungers for more. Rather than enjoying and appreciating what already exists in her life, she feels incomplete because she doesn't have the dream that is sold to little girls. She doesn't have a lover, and men don't even fawn over her anymore. They've moved on to women with tighter bums and perkier breasts. She feels old and behind. It's hard to blame her for feeling this way because it's how women are told they're supposed to feel. We act as if life ends once you turn 25 and that if you don't have kids and a husband by 30, you have failed. No matter what you've accomplished, without those things you're made to feel like a failure. And this is why despite all of her impressive feats, Jackie feels inadequate because her life lacks men. This was quite relatable. As a young girl, in a heteronormative environment (ie middle and high school) your social capital is dependent on if you're considered attractive by men. We're raised on media that tells us love trumps all and it should be a priority. But this message was not meant to teach young girls to get in touch with our emotions (we're villainized for being emotional), instead our programming continues to stay in line with the heteronormative status quo. Even Y.A novels that featured female characters on epic adventures had to have a romantic element. Remember how amid Katniss' fight against a bloodthirsty government she was caught up in an (unnecessary) love triangle that took up more of the plot than the fighting? It's drilled into us that desirability is the most important thing in the world, so can we be mad at the succouyants for feeling so desperate that they have to suck the life out of babies to sustain themselves?

[speculationsofthediaspora]

Blog Post #4

The ASAP MOB is a group that was born from the internet. They are some of the first influencers as they blew up during the height of the popularity of New York fashion on Tumblr circa 2016. Their influence was inescapable on the streets of SOHO of Manhattan. Their influence went beyond setting fashion trends, their fans were so keen to get their hands on clothes designed by a member of the group Ian Connor that they rioted on the streets of New York for a t-shirt he designed. Youths gave up their government IDs in exchange for a limited edition "VLONE" shirt, that was just a screen-printed tee. Their relationship with fashion and raging and partying and youth culture is very similar to the characters in Janelle Monae's Dirty Computer. Like the lovers who party all throughout the world, ASAP MOB stood for rebellious, hedonism. It's important that ASAP MOB influenced the youth because like in many Afrofuturistic works, the youth are what create the future. We still feel the influence of this time in fashion in design (see everyone on Instagram who screenprints t-shirts) , and consumer culture (ie limited drops, expensive simple design, etc). Like in Kendrick Lamar's works, ASAP MOB is based in our world now. When framing these works in the position that the future is now, these worlds become clearly Afrofutiuristic. Again, consider the fact that this group and its influence was born on the internet. They took over the world and the minds of young men from the ages of about 13-25 all over the world. They birthed so many clones, and the lineage of their influence spans all the way to musical themes that we see in modern popular music and in new genres that have been created such as Opium Rap subgenre. The positioning of a group of Black and Brown men having such a huge widespread influence on the world is SO AFRO FUTURISTIC. Is it not something of a once-distant future? And when you also think about how groups like these are influenced by their culture. The group like I said is made up of people from the diaspora who carry their cultural influences into their dress and what they gave the world was more Black culture built from that. Even their futuristic beats (See the song Quantum Physics by ASAP ANT and ASAP Rocky's Testing) are a continuation of the experimentation with sound of Herbie Hancock and George Clinton.

[speculationsofthediaspora]

Blog Post #3

Daughters of the Dust was an almost spiritual experience for me. Director Julie Dash and cinematographer Arthur Jafa captured one of the most visually stunning pieces of media I have ever seen. I had to rewatch the film because I found myself so enamored by the way the film looked that I was not paying enough mind to the plot. The composition and the fluidity of the camera movement paired with the beautiful backdrop of Ibo Island and its inhabitants were jaw-dropping. The Peazant family looked as if they were birthed from the soil of Ibo Island. The way that they complimented the scenery in dress and physical features (but let's be honest melanin looks good in any setting) was so stunning. Not only was it a strong aesthetic choice because of how pleasant it is, but it also spoke to the claim and connection the family has to the land of Ibo Island. Ibo Land is their land as well as the land of their ancestors, and Nana Peazant hopes that it will be the land of the future generation of Peasants.

Unfortunately for Nana, the future she dreams of and the ancestors she holds on to begin to drift further from each other. Some of her children want to leave, but Nana Peazant is fervent that they don't. This point of contention in the film really struck a nerve with me as someone who is an immigrant. I was born in Nigeria and came to America at four years old. Like the small children on the boat, along with the rest of their family members. These kids though had the luxury of bringing along members outside of their nuclear one. This wasn't the case for me, I came to America with just my parents and younger sibling and I have not seen any of my (blood-related) family members outside of them since I was in the 6th grade. I feel like a product of what Nana Peazant was afraid of. I don't have much of a connection to my family members in Nigeria due to distance and how hard it is to get to Africa. I've lost a lot of my stories and memories and this is something that scares me. This lack of connection to my home, my land, and my people is something that's been hard for me to reconcile with for a lot of my late teenage hood and early adulthood. These are the times when your search to find yourself becomes more desperate and intense and I feel like as I've been on this journey I've hit some major roadblocks because I don't have all the pieces of my past or present. I see why Nana was so scared for her family to leave. It's miserable to think that there's not much of a choice for people. Like the Peazants who left Ibo Island, my family and I moved to America for better opportunities. It's because of capitalism we had to leave and it's also because of capitalism that it is so hard to come back or keep that connection as strong as it could be.

[speculationsofthediaspora]

Blog post #2 Pt 2

We've settled on an abandoned farm in Appleton, Wisconsin. We believe it's about 10 acres. It has the only groundwater well that we know of. Somehow it has had enough water to sustain us for the last year. We do not know how much longer it will last, but we are glad for it. Everyone settled here separately and over the course of a year we found out about each other. Rather than fight we've decided to try and create some peace here. If more people find this place we may let them join, if the community votes to accept them. Although we have water it's still scarce. We refuse to let people in who can not follow our commandments, people who are selfish, and people who may stir up trouble. In order to be considered a new community member we hold a council meeting where everyone who is already a member can ask whatever questions they want of the potential member. It is a chance to see if we may be able to trust that person. As stated earlier, there is no central leadership. Instead, we come to decisions as a community. We do have different groups to handle our specific needs such as childcare, safety, etc. Everyone belongs to these groups in some way or another and leaders are elected for each group as a mere means of keeping organized. These leaders can not make decisions alone, but they are the ones who make sure each group is able to perform its functions ( there are four leaders per group). Miraculously, the farm still has superseeds. These are genetically modified seeds that take a week to produce their crops. They are wonderful, unfortunately, they require a lot of water. We are trying to modify the water desalinators to be able to filter out chemicals as well as salt. If we can do that we can send explorers out to find Lake Mendota. Lakes are a bit less polluted than rivers if they are not dried up. We believe that Lake Mendota still has water. If we can find it we can use our modified desalinators to turn that lake water into water that will help us tend our crops. We are almost out of provisions. Our survival is dependent on our ability to take care of ourselves and each other and also our ability to make these desalinators work for pollutants. Once we do that we won't have to depend on the well. We can build and grow more. Other than trying to find water we will have to make other strides to create a better future. Once we have crops we will be able to make medicines, soap, furniture etc. We will be slowly able to provide our community with the necessities that they have had to go without for so long. Having these simple needs of our people met will prove to increase our prosperity.

[speculationsofthediaspora]

Blog Post #2 Pt 1

Our community had to come together because there's no water or escape. The Colorado, Mississippi, Rio Grande, and all other main water sources are either polluted or all dried out; falling victim to the warming and train derailments that dumped hundreds of thousands of gallons of hazardous materials into our waterways. The only people with water are those fortunate enough to have access to groundwater wells, but even then, those don't last forever and it hasn't been raining much. Mexico and Canada refuse to let any more of us in. "There are too many of you," their governments say as they turn away thousands a day. Because people have no water to spare they don't wash anymore. They can't. Disease has run rampant. People have to leave sores and rashes untreated until they (rarely) go away or the person's immune system can no longer take the disease that's attacking it. Showers are monthly luxuries, if we're lucky enough for rain that month. We apply the lessons from Earthseed to help guide our community. One verse we follow is "To get along with God, Consider the consequences of your behavior." We ask that the members of our community think before they act, and consider the consequences of their actions. We are a small community of 20 people, if anyone betrays the trust that we have taken months to build the result could be detrimental. The fabric of this community is trust. We all count on each other, we need each other. If one falls we all fall. Another verse we follow is, "All struggles Are essentially power struggles. Who will rule, Who will lead, Who will define, refine, confine design, Who will dominate. All struggles Are essentially power struggles, And most are no more intellectual than two rams knocking their heads together". As we are a community, we come to decisions that way. Everyone gets a say since every decision affects us all. We do not have a central leader. Learning from the American government before us politics, and the creation of factions is a trap. All it does is create divisions and make a select few prosperous while everyone else suffers. We will not have that. We have too much to focus on, we do not have the luxury of fighting over politics, and who gets to be in charge in an already lawless land.

[speculationsofthediaspora]

Blog Assignment #1: Mother Lead The Way

What does revolution look like? 

Historically, women and fems have not been a part of the picture, at least not as more than the mere shadows of the men amongst them. Women such as Coretta Scott King, Michele Obama, and Winnie Mandela are "wives". Rather than being an indication of their individual personhoods their names and legacies are successors of their husbands'. At times we do not call their names at all, instead, they are simply"so and so's wife".

Forgotten are the women of the Panther party. Ignored are those who organized and marched in the Civil Rights movement. Rarely is the literature penned by female revolutionaries taught to the youth (or even the adults). 

In a refreshing response to the absence of women in revolutionary thought afro futuristic works such as Pumzi, and Dirty Computer place women not only at the forefront of the narratives but it is through them that societal change comes. They hold the keys to the new world and one must pass through the portals they open in order to be brought to light. 

Beyonce, also known on Twitter as Mother helps audiences imagine a world in which leadership comes through maternal lineage. Her stunning 2017 Grammy performance illuminates the divinity of femininity, specifically exploring the role of the mother as a god in her own right. "You look everything like your mother". She repeats this phrase throughout the performance and to me it is reminiscent of the beliefs of several religions that human beings are made in the likeness of God. Here, the mother is the god and she has the ultimate power of creation. She creates in her image her children. She gives life where there was once none. Beyonce's pregnant belly further emphasizes this point as she is creating two human beings herself. She, like all mothers, is a giver of life and through her, we enter this realm. The perspective that women birth the future lays a foundation for us to imagine a coming world in which women are also in the lead. 

Love is also a theme in this performance. Beyonce questions the listener about why they are afraid of love. She tells them not to be, for they are the love of her life. A mother's love is regarded as one of the strongest forces in the world. The phrasing of love as a power rather than a weakness is interesting as it contrasts with what is taught in our male-dominated society. Love as power is also seen in Dirty Computer where the couple's love for one another beats all odds. It's as if Beyonce and Janelle Monae are telling us the audience that in the future love is a tool. Love, which is regarded as a feminine force whose most powerful wielder is the mother serves as another example of how power in the future is wielded through the matriarch. 

Beyonce is also interesting to me because her take on femininity is very traditional especially when compared to artists like Janelle Monae who has a queer interpretation. As we continue to look forward to the future and more imaginings of the future it will be interesting to see how both traditional and queer views of femininity will affect the leaders and reimagined worlds we see. 

*this is not meant to be read as a TERF take but rather a look at the believed godly powers of women with wombs