There Are Black People In The Future

 Khia Purdy

Dr. Harris

English 2016-44378

2 December 2024

There Are Black People In The Future



Throughout this semester this class has helped me gain a deeper understanding of African American culture and where the things we have in society and the things we do today stemmed from. Before entering this course I had no clue what Afrofuturism was. I had never heard of it actually but learning about its originality and learning to recognize it in films, music, art, and fashion has truly helped me appreciate where I come from and better understand the adversity that black people faced in society. The term Afrofuturism means, a cultural movement, aesthetic and multimedia genre that incorporates science fiction, fantasy, and technology into art, literature and music to explore black history and culture.  Some characteristics of Afrofuturism is black identity, black diaspora, social movements, self-liberation, optimistic future and black excellence. I learned that all women but mainly women of color have always had no choice but to work ten times harder than men in society to get any recognition or have any type of power no matter what they’ve done. 

My final project was inspired by black women in society who were determined to become successful no matter the obstacles they faced. The text I chose to use as a representation of women who persevered through their problems is Wild Seed by Octavia Butler. I chose this text because we saw how even though everyone feared Doro because he was this menace who used manipulation and his power to take people's bodies to get his way in society Anyanwu did not back down from him. Even though he did hang her children's lives over her head because he knew that was a way to get to her since she was a natural healer and nurturer in the end she didn’t give up even when she lost her daughter Susan. It hurt her but her end goal was to always flee from him.  After Doro takes Susan's body, Anyanwu finally gains the strength to show him right before his eyes that she no longer fears him,  “Suddenly she lowered her head and bit his hand as hard as she could with her little sharp teeth. Pain made Doro release her” (Butler 286). Through her pain and suffering she remained  strong enough to take her kids and leave and start a new life in a new city where he couldn’t find her. 

My painting displays a brown skin girl who thinks beyond and uses technology to help her navigate a new life. With this painting I wanted to express how women's success and love politics ties to Afrofuturism. My painting overall ties into love politics because it displays the change in society of a black woman and how she overcomes societal norms . The silver wires in her hair represent the future because silver was used to represent what people before us thought the future would look like. They thought of the future of being pure and clean which is where the color silver served its purpose. I incorporated the wires in her hair  to symbolize the advancements of technology like we learned about within this course. The hearts on her face are used to showcase self love as she discovers her self worth and identity in a  world where people of color were overlooked for a very long time. Based on the symposium about science fiction writing,  “contemporary works of Afrofuturism have begun representing Africans as producers of their own science and technology” ( Jones 237). Her silver top symbolizes personal growth and wealth because she’s thinking of advancements inside of her mind. Her afro itself is a staple symbol of the black community and her roots, while the wires in her hair form a city where all of her dreams and aspirations lie while she overcomes challenges to accomplish those goals. As I look at this painting the movie Hidden Figures also comes to my mind because of how they wore their hair and they were the first black women to work with technology but most importantly work for NASA.





Works Cited

Butler, Octavia E. Wild Seed. Grand Central Publishing, 1980.

Jones, Brandon. “Writing Another Future: Science Fiction, the Arts and Humanities.” Science Fiction Studies, vol. 41, no. 1, 2014, pp. 236–38. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.5621/sciefictstud.41.1.0236. Accessed 3 Dec. 2024.

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