There never used to be much talk of fiction being a literary mode that would have its own connections to black people’s culture and the way they show itn until the 1990s. Many people began to study Afrofuturist studies such as Mark Dery, Greg Tale, Tricia Rose, and Kodwo Eshun. They were the ones who recognized and showed the importance of the science fiction themes in all the works of black authors, artists, and musicians. The term “Afrofuturism” was first introduced by Mark Dery in his collection of “ Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture.” He mentions this word to draw attention to how African Americans appropriated images of technology and an enhanced future. Sociologist Nelson believes “ the task of an Afrofuturist scholar is to explore futurist themes in black cultural production and the ways in which technological innovation is changing the face of black art and culture.”
One of the ways in which artists project black futures in writing if by using the same narrative techniques of science fiction and writing them in an Afro Diasporic perspective. A central text of literary Afrofuturism would be Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. Ellison uses science fiction in a way that criticizes American institutions and practices that take away from black people and their history from the future imaginary. After world war 2, new sciences and technologies were being introduced and while Afrofuturism didn’t have direct contact with the science fiction community, they discovered a new popular art form called jazz music. Jazz musicians such as Sun Ra and Lee became very famous in this period. In the past years, Afrofuturist music has exploded and science fiction scholars have begun labeling science fiction as “ the literature of late capitalism because it effectively captures the experience of living in a high tech world.”
Afrofuturism has evolved in its political missions. According to the author Toni Morrison, Afrofuturism demonstrate how African slaves experienced conditions of homelessness, alienation, and dislocation. Also, Afrofuturist artist Butler used images of robots and cyborgs to show appreciation for the black labour in national and global progress and show black mastery in the techniques involving communication and information. All of this demonstrates what W.E.B Dubois called “ double consciousness.” Afrofuturist artists challenge and transform the future with stories that, as Ruth Mayer puts it, ‘move seamlessly back and forth through time and space, between cultural traditions and geographic time zones’ and thus between blackness as a dystopic relic of the past and as a harbinger of a new and more promising alien future.
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Philosophy and Afrofuturism have to do with culture, civilization, society, community, and ethnicity. These things are correlated with all the theories of personal identity and political philosophy. Examples of personal identity include psychological, continuity, animalism, narrative centered, and a pragmatic view. The political aspects include liberalism, Marxism, conservatism, republicanism, socialism, communism, fascism, anarchism, and monarchism.
