3rd Year Winner: Afrofuturism and Black Radical Love

HUMA/CLTR 3318, Black Popular Culture. CD: Shaunasea Brown.

Abstract

The particular brilliance of “Afrofuturism and Black Radical Love,” is not just due to its first-rate research, or compelling prose, but also in its advanced awareness that multiple hegemonic systems repress Black persons worldwide. With careful use of evidence and considerable theoretical acuity, the author convincingly reasons that to emerge from under the heavy thumb of these ideologies, Black persons must imagine different plausible futures without losing sight of historical realities and their causes (Afrofuturism). However, “Black Radical Love” is an essential component of any future path for Black people—for to be “radical” is to refuse all dominant narratives that do not preach love and true equality. This means not just rejecting white supremacy, but also capitalism, the patriarchy, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, agism, and other similar mythologies of human inequality. Only by placing love for all Black people at the centre of Afrofuturistic narratives, authors “rehumanize dehumanized subjects.”

Using examples from popular culture such as Black Panther (2018), #BlackLivesMatter and the #MeToo movement, this submission powerfully argues that to imagine a path forward from this historical moment, Black people need to be able to see themselves in stories that show better, alternate futures. Using the words of poets and scholars, its author persuasively concludes that Afrofuturistic texts should not just showcase utopias for the strong. Instead, they must be truly counterhegemonic, featuring authentic Black visions of equitable, fairer worlds with agency for all.