![]() It means to believe withĪll our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the Principle we celebrate is Imani, which means faith. Truly live is to have something to believe in. There is more to life than just survival. Daring to dream of a better future, which is the The only thing that keeps you going is a living Many dark nights of the soul, when you lay awake wondering “what’s the point?”Īnd are tempted to give up. You’re up against can loom so large, the battle can seem hopeless. Systemic baggage, no matter where you find yourself or how you do it, what In doing community organizing, in any struggle to break apart “Sometimes it’s an act of resistance just to portray ourselves with a future.” Tananarive Due Steven Barnes’ “Fugue State”) or in mapping possible ways for us to moveįorward as a people (like Tobias S. Be it critiquing the politics of today (in Tananarive Due and Humanity, and the insidious nature of oppression that people often don’t know The stories allow space for conversations about race, our Wanak’s “Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Memphis Minnie Sing the Stumps Down Good”). Sometimes it’s simply about our right to be and live (as in LaShawn M. Wiggins addresses in “Let’s Talk About Afrofuturism”). They begin with a journey of self-discovery (like in Suyi Davies Okungbowa’s “Dune Song”) and the importance of defining ourselves (as Troy L. The stories build awareness and raise consciousness, as identity stories do, as we explore who we are. I could call it our Afrofuturist issue, but I think of it as an identity issue. ![]() Which brings me to this issue of Apex Magazine. “We need images of tomorrow and our people need them more than most.” Samuel Delany To find new ways to not only understand ourselves but the world around us. Imagining a better future for ourselves, on our terms, as we design blueprints We want to be?” and “How do we get there?” It’s rooted in black people Our art ponders the questions “Where are we now?” “Where do It’s what blackĪrtists-black people, period-have always done, long before the term Afrofuturism Out room to dream about where we want to be as a community. “it is not taboo to fetch what is at risk of being left behind.”Īs a part of my community organizing work, I host a monthlyĬonversation called “Afrofuture Fridays” where we use Afrofuturist art to carve Sankofa, a word in the Twi language (Ghana) that means “go back and get it” or As aīridge connecting the past to the future, Afrofuturism embraces the concept of It’s the African diasporaĬreating a framework to critique the past and dream of possible futures. No matter what it’s called, it’s the intersection of the blackĬultural lens with art, technology, and liberation. The more I realized that idea undergirds who I am not only as a person of faithīut as a community organizer and as a writer.Īfrofuturism. Living hope.” The idea of that being the core of my belief weighed on meīecause of how profoundly it resonated with me. I was asked recently to sum up myįaith without using any Christian jargon. It’s always a valuable exercise to take stock of who you are I get to be whatever I want to be through Afrofuturism.” Janelle Monae Being as magical as we want to be … We get to paint a different world, on our own terms. “Afrofuturism is me, us, as Black people, seeing ourselves in the future.
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