Afrotopia

The Black Tomorrow

"...the map of the new world is in the imagination..."
-Robin D.G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams

In the year 2169, when you pick up the device of the day and peruse the news, you are met with headlines forecasting a world population of over ten billion and record-breaking sales of electric vehicles. Articles like “The slow death of the carbon energy era” and “Society and the hybrid generation” catch your eye, but it is the news of the first successful human colony on Saturn’s moon Titan that truly captures your attention. As you click through the accompanying images, you discover that the first person on Titan is a young black woman, hailing from Xaymaca, formerly known as Jamaica. This revelation strikes you deeply, as you look out the window and realize you are not even in Jamaica, but rather in Afrotopia, a newly-formed state in Africa that lives up to its name as an African Utopia, phonetically similar to Ethiopia. Yes, it is real. The future is Black.

In Afrotopia, the future is black and African, where the continent informs and expands those identities. Afrofuturism imagines a world where identities are reconnected with our ancient deities and archetypes, where borders and boundaries between our physical , spiritual and metaphysical worlds are blurred, and where there is room for a plethora of forms of existence. Afrofuturism offers a way of understanding the world that does not rely on western philosophical frameworks, but rather on an organic and evolving understanding of identity. 

Yet, some how, such a noble idea and ideal.... the notion of imagining and re-imaging the African continent is often met with difficulty and derision, mocks and jeers, thanks to Western indoctrination and brainwashing that has instilled stubborn clichés and pseudo-certainties in our collective consciousness. Racism has ravaged history and warped our understanding of our Motherland, perpetuating myths and lies about its state of being. Even during the dawn of independence in the 1960s, Afro-pessimistic ideas painted Africa as a continent that was “badly off” and “adrift.” In the midst of the AIDS pandemic, some even advocated for the extinction of life on the continent.

But we must emancipate ourselves from the mental slavery that racism and the West’s psyche have imposed on us. It is through imagination that we will liberate ourselves from these mental shackles. That is the mission of what today is dubbed the Afrofuturist, and Afrofuturism dear reader, is about imagining a future where black people survive, but it is also a way of reclaiming the past and the present, and re-imagining them in a way that centers blackness. It is a way of questioning and subverting dominant narratives and power structures that have historically excluded black people. Afrofuturism provides a space to explore the complexities of identity, culture, and history through a lens that is not limited by Western ideas of progress and civilization.

Afrofuturism carries with it a flashy aesthetic flair that is now significantly impacting pop culture; it is a space that envisions the future of Black lives beyond the constraints of conventional science fiction, and things like Marvel's Black Panther and Wakanda Forever are barely scratching the tip of the iceberg that is Afrofuturism. Science fiction provides a platform to explore the future in all of its potential utopian and dystopian outcomes, but the genre often relegates Black people to secondary characters who quickly perish, without delving into how race might exist in the future.

This is an ironic approach, given that the same genre depicts superheroes, aliens, robots, and even post-racial white people in situations that Black people have lived for centuries. Forced labor, false imprisonment, involuntary biological testing, and compulsory sterilization may sound like dystopian fiction, but they are all very real and traumatic experiences among members of the African diaspora. Simply being Black and alive is already an Afrofiction. For those of us from communities with historic collective trauma, we must understand that each of us is already science fiction walking around on two legs. Our ancestors dreamed us up and then bent reality to create us. So when you revisit and re-read my opening paragraph, know that it is both a reality, but yet to be.

There is a stark disconnect between science fiction and Black people, but fortunately, the global Black imagination is expansive, and Afrofuturism has emerged as an all-encompassing term that encompasses an art form, a practice, and a methodology that allows Black people to see themselves in the future, despite their distressing past and present. Members of this movement, think up a wide range of visions for what a Black future could look like and be. Afrofuturist art and politics provide a gateway to another galaxy where Blackness survives and a means of expressing the urgency of real Black freedom. Blackness in the future is alive, with access to technology, knowledge, and power. It is Blackness that can make real what is currently only a vision of a life-sustaining world for Black peoples.

What might this Afrofuturistic freedom look like? Perhaps it can be found in the Egyptian-inspired headpieces and clothing worn by Sun during his musical performances or his cult film, Space Is the Place; or, closer to home, we might find it in a bulletproof black male character like Luke Cage whose superpower is being immune to public will to end black lives. Perhaps it is Bogle and Tommy Lee Sparta like "Dancehall Gothica," maybe it is akin to Makonnen Blake-Hannahs Space Age Rasta or the ambient reggae of Easy Star All-Stars. Or, perhaps it is insisting on a tomorrow for a people whose past has been written out.

Blackness in the future is alive, with access to technology, knowledge, and power. That blackness then can make real what today is only a vision of a life-sustaining world for black peoples. Imagine a black planet, Planet Melanin. Afrofuturism offers a “highly intersectional” way of looking at possible futures or alternate realities through a black cultural lens. It is non-linear and fluid; it uses the black imagination to consider mysticism, metaphysics, identity and liberation; and, despite offering black folks a way to see ourselves in a better future, Afrofuturism blends the future, the past and the present. The world of Afrofuturism is a world of endless possibilities, where technology, art, and culture are intertwined and constantly evolving. It is a world where black people are not just surviving but thriving, where our creativity and resilience are celebrated, and where we are free to imagine and create a future that is truly ours.

In the end, Afrofuturism is a call to action, a reminder that the future is not predetermined, and that we have the power to shape it. It is a way of imagining a world that is just, equitable, and inclusive, and working towards making that world a reality. So let us embrace the power of Afrofuturism, and together, let us imagine a future that is truly black and free.

 

 #tech #culture #politics #environment #health #education #finance #art #entertainment #sports #science #business #travel #lifestyle #food #fashion #beauty #relationships #spirituality

Religion’s Impact on a young Jamaican Psyche

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

― Issac Asimov

This week I think it reasonable to open my article with a quote from a Sci-Fi writer as we are living in some really sci-fi times, with bizarre cults and a fracturing society. I want to examine how religion affects the minds of Jamaican youth and how it impacted mine. Here is my story…

 At age 10, I became an atheist. Today as it pertains to God I am agnostic leaning to atheist, as a Rastafari, my faith is hinged on pan africanism, afrofuturism and a spirituality more akin to archaeology and anthropology of everything African... From ancient gods to ancestors. However, how did I become this person, how did a 10 year old in Norwood, Montego Bay become an atheist or an agnostic?

Well I attended many churches. First one I mainly remember well is Holy Trinity out by Westgate, where my beloved Grand Ma was a devout member. I remember my terrifying christening there... a ritual that I resisted since it wasn't my own volition. I remember the Father well, a well mannered enough man but that church bored me to tears and was steeped in Montego Bay's social politics. Or so it seemed to me as a young one. Then when I began attending Mt. Alvernia Prep Catholicism was introduced to me but my domestic set up was anti Catholic to a degree and very wary of homosexuality and catomite altered altar boys, and from my young perspective seeing their church attire and sometimes smoking priests gave even the young me the impression this place was at once too liberal in some regard and yet wound up in chants and ritual, and was just as boring in sound and song as Anglican.

My mother dabbled in the world of Pentecostal church with one Pastor Nigel who was killed in a house robbery at Bogue. She would eventually settle at Hillview Baptist church where many a community youth I were familiar with went and so I felt comfortable there and the service wasn't that boring... and by the time I was in grade 3, I had watched The Robe and Jesus of Nazareth so many times that I one day became so stupefied by Jesus' sacrifice and peaceful way that I to my chagrin then said to my mother that I wanted to be " A fighter for Jesus". An incident my cousin Camara Brown and brother Dax Pessoa never fail to remind me about or gimmicks me about and oh how I cringe hearing the tale repeated. My family was elated, especially my mother. And like a well brainwashed soldier, high on Jesus hopped up an reinforced by Peter Parker Spider-man and his motto of great power brings great responsibility, Star Trek and Data's and Spock's brands of stoicism and utilitarian logic "the good of the many outweighs the good of the few".

Imagine the melee of ideas like these in the mind of a black child that believed his mother sang young gifted and black to him, whose grandma was in the UNIA... Imagine the mind molded in a Christian yet pan African household... I was charged up... a young black superhero... young gifted and black... I was the X-Men, Malcolm X-Men School for gifted... “Mi start get up early go church walk by mi self, go Sunday school, stay for big church, trying to get more moral more good a try understand God’s will... What did he want me to do etc? Granted hormones had become a problem, I went to church religiously and imbibed the message though as an early puberty child, I was lusting after the young girls in tight dresses, plus maybe some of my mother’s friends in all their church dress plumpness and pulchritude.

 

Beyond that I was good and ready to be a saint… I really did consider being a pastor… eeek! Oh I prayed to have wisdom like Solomon after al my mother wanted my middle name to be Nestor god of wisdom and my father wanted it to be the wise nesta Marley, I prayed like Samuel to be chosen, to ask for wisdom and granted health and length of days… “yep be a wise 'gallis' like Solomon and not to be gal clown like Samson.” Oh how silly I was. But I took spiritual matters and science very seriously from the day I was born. These meant everything to me, them and Africa… so they had to collide.

As in the back of my mind was marinating a debate that had happened one Sunday on the verandah, my father and uncles were debating God. My uncle Hugh Thompson a devout atheist was at it against my uncle David Brown a very religious man, they had asked my father to weigh in and I remembered his words well, "If Zeus and such are Greek and Norse and Roman mythology, then our religion might just be Jewish mythology" and forever that moment it dawned on my that I simply assumed Christians were right. But that didn't cause my divorce psychologically from church.

It came one Sunday when my Sunday school teacher were giving a Sunday school lesson on revelations, it was my common entrance year, but what in the sermon caused the great divorce and moment of cognitive dissonance is when she informed be Jews get a second chance on Judgement day but gentile which we all were would be judged and if not found worthy would be tossed in hell fire... how could even God be sort of racist and biased and if he didn't rather me or black people it can't work and I wanted no more part in it and maybe it was Jewish mythology and not my story or mythos. I would years later find out Pessoa is a Jewish last name but little comfort anyway. And so I wrestled with it inside. And when I mentioned it to friends they all looked scared or told me not to think so much. When I told my mother it became a family crisis for all of high school. I was recommended to speak with this person or that parson... only for all my questions to come up unanswered but everyone wanted me to just accept without irrefutable proof or sound logic and science that God is real... I was no longer the good son but now spaced out, a possible high school weed head even though I never knew what a spliff was, I was wayward etc.. I was a victim of fads, they said I was easily swayed.

The tribulations of not walking in religious norm followed me to the UWI, where in my first semester a big argument with Ms. Kitty after she attacked me as the devil worshiper (I wonder if she remembers that!), whilst I was reasoning with someone else on Atheism. She and that debate led a portion of people to dub me as devil boy... ironic that at home in my community I was called Jesus… but I was persecuted over my opinion and belief. So when I say I understand the rigors of being ostracized by Christians and Christianity to be ridiculed and persecuted despite all my logic and scientific methodology, my critical thinking.... I understand how a religion can put enmity in family, the familiar and the familial.

So let us not heap scorn and condemnation in the Pathway congregation... Who controls your mind... is it Mark Zuckerberg, Rachel Maddow, Jewish myth writers who goads yours mind and prompts your ideas who coaxed you and cajoled your brain? Did the influence of external thought and ideas from outside u ever make u take stance and divides from friends and family?

About the author: Yannick Nesta Pessoa B.A. is Jamaica’s first blogger, a Social Advocate, Community Activist and Philosopher. Follow on Twitter & Instagram @yahnyk. Follow on Youtube @ and Reply to yannickpessoa@gmail.com