Wakanda Shakes the World
April 2, 2018 9:19 AM Subscribe
Foreign Policy (1 April): It’s been six weeks since the “Wakanda speech,” and the world is still reeling.
To reimagine colonization from the position of the historically colonized is a brave new world of science fiction, at least on the scale of a hit like Black Panther. Scholar Jessica Langer has demonstrated the historical link between science fiction writing and imperialism. The beginning of science fiction writing coincides with an industrial age funded by imperialist resources, and the traditional motif of the resulting stories is a narrative of external — often literally alien — forces taking resources from or colonizing the historical colonizers. Even at the time, authors such as H.G. Wells used this trope to question the morality of colonization itself, with the Martian invaders of The War of the Worlds defeated by the bacteria of Earth in the same way as Europeans were often stymied by African diseases such as malaria. But the genre all too easily descended to tales of justified extermination and heroic settlement.
Related: Wakanda, Afrofuturism, and Decolonizing International Relations Scholarship: Decolonizing IR scholarship goes beyond simply including more people of color in our syllabi. In addition to questioning the dominance of western epistemology and methodology, previous intellectual anti-colonial movements have emphasized the need to fight the pervasive erasure of political actors of color and their contributions. It does not involve merely mentioning them in passing. In IR, it also demands that we re-examine their relationships with contemporary political and security architectures and the latter not be taken for granted. Critical security theory begins to question the production of conventional knowledge in the discipline by interrogating the social, historical and political roots of that knowledge. But this practice needs to permeate the entire field.
9 Afrofuturist Books To Enjoy If You're Homesick for Wakanda
To reimagine colonization from the position of the historically colonized is a brave new world of science fiction, at least on the scale of a hit like Black Panther. Scholar Jessica Langer has demonstrated the historical link between science fiction writing and imperialism. The beginning of science fiction writing coincides with an industrial age funded by imperialist resources, and the traditional motif of the resulting stories is a narrative of external — often literally alien — forces taking resources from or colonizing the historical colonizers. Even at the time, authors such as H.G. Wells used this trope to question the morality of colonization itself, with the Martian invaders of The War of the Worlds defeated by the bacteria of Earth in the same way as Europeans were often stymied by African diseases such as malaria. But the genre all too easily descended to tales of justified extermination and heroic settlement.
Related: Wakanda, Afrofuturism, and Decolonizing International Relations Scholarship: Decolonizing IR scholarship goes beyond simply including more people of color in our syllabi. In addition to questioning the dominance of western epistemology and methodology, previous intellectual anti-colonial movements have emphasized the need to fight the pervasive erasure of political actors of color and their contributions. It does not involve merely mentioning them in passing. In IR, it also demands that we re-examine their relationships with contemporary political and security architectures and the latter not be taken for granted. Critical security theory begins to question the production of conventional knowledge in the discipline by interrogating the social, historical and political roots of that knowledge. But this practice needs to permeate the entire field.
9 Afrofuturist Books To Enjoy If You're Homesick for Wakanda
Anyway, the April Fools article is fun; if only if only the netizen sighs...
posted by inconstant at 9:27 AM on April 2, 2018
posted by inconstant at 9:27 AM on April 2, 2018
i'm very much a noob about the book genre, so please accept my humblest apologies. recs are definitely welcome.
posted by cendawanita at 9:31 AM on April 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by cendawanita at 9:31 AM on April 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
April fools day is good now
posted by Going To Maine at 9:52 AM on April 2, 2018
posted by Going To Maine at 9:52 AM on April 2, 2018
“It was an impromptu example of the car’s safety features.”
posted by straight at 9:56 AM on April 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by straight at 9:56 AM on April 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
nice references in there to Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto) and Kamala Kahn (Ms. Marvel), too.
posted by mephron at 10:01 AM on April 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by mephron at 10:01 AM on April 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
Come for the April Fools Day joke that's actually funny, stay for the serious contextualization
Black Panther tells a speculative story for those who already have abduction stories. Instead of asking, What if the aliens come for us? Afrofuturism asks, what if they didn’t? What if the colonization of Africa never happened, or the enslavement of Africans was fiction?posted by Nelson at 10:06 AM on April 2, 2018 [14 favorites]
No, no, not at all -- it's not like I'm some expert. Mainly I was shocked by the whole whiplash of "hey are you feeling homesick for an imagined African nation of heroes and superadvanced technology, unbroken by the grind of colonialism? here, have a story about a generation ship where black people are reenslaved and denied the benefits of the technology all around them; beatings and sexual assault included free of charge!".
Probably less whiplashy things would be stuff like Nnedi Okorafor's Binti novella series, a far-future YA series where heinous violent shit does happen but our heroine is on top of it; or Karen Lord's The Best of All Possible Worlds, also far-future and structured as a series of almost episodic linked tales along a single arc (has a loose sequel, The Galaxy Game, but it's quite different from TBoAPW).
Even in addressing real-world bloodiness, there's stuff that a lot more hopeful. If we want to talk imagined African nations, there's the steampunky alt-history of Nisi Shawl's Everfair, which looks at a timeline where a ragtag group of people are able to rise up against the vicious depredations of Leopold II. It's certainly not escapist in anything like the same way, but at least it isn't utter crushing despair.
posted by inconstant at 10:11 AM on April 2, 2018 [12 favorites]
Probably less whiplashy things would be stuff like Nnedi Okorafor's Binti novella series, a far-future YA series where heinous violent shit does happen but our heroine is on top of it; or Karen Lord's The Best of All Possible Worlds, also far-future and structured as a series of almost episodic linked tales along a single arc (has a loose sequel, The Galaxy Game, but it's quite different from TBoAPW).
Even in addressing real-world bloodiness, there's stuff that a lot more hopeful. If we want to talk imagined African nations, there's the steampunky alt-history of Nisi Shawl's Everfair, which looks at a timeline where a ragtag group of people are able to rise up against the vicious depredations of Leopold II. It's certainly not escapist in anything like the same way, but at least it isn't utter crushing despair.
posted by inconstant at 10:11 AM on April 2, 2018 [12 favorites]
I makes you stop and think, wakanda future do we want?
posted by SPrintF at 10:12 AM on April 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by SPrintF at 10:12 AM on April 2, 2018 [5 favorites]
That article is [chef kiss] perfect.
posted by rmd1023 at 10:16 AM on April 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by rmd1023 at 10:16 AM on April 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Now this is extremely my nerd shit! Loved these sharp paragraphs especially:
posted by yasaman at 10:17 AM on April 2, 2018 [15 favorites]
“They use this material casually,” commented U.S. Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross, “How can a tribal nation like this be trusted with such destructive potential?” While the United States reportedly has a back channel to the Wakandan leadership, Russia and China have already arranged high-level summits. Economists are perplexed as to how Wakanda’s shift from supposedly one of the poorest nations in the world to the richest will affect the global economy, especially given Wakanda’s own market-averse policies.Also, other Black Panther-adjacent fun: I made this recipe for "Wakandan" Jeweled Vegetable Pilau with Berbere Braised Lamb with my mom, and it was absolutely delicious, A+++ would recommend this "fictional" recipe Nnedi Okorafor posited for Wakandan food.
In the United States, an emergent migration crisis has prompted a strong response from both Wakandan and U.S. officials. The newly expanded Wakandan Embassy has been besieged by prospective immigrants, the vast majority African-American, while tens of thousands more have written letters requesting asylum. Applicants argue that they are subject to continual persecution in the United States, that their lives are at risk from official violence, and that Wakanda owes a moral duty to provide asylum after its centuries of willfully ignoring atrocities in Africa and among the diaspora. Many African Americans have taken to social media to express their newfound allegiance to Wakanda and adopted the cross-arm over chest salute to demonstrate their loyalty to the Wakandan crown. Fox News, meanwhile, has run 24-hour coverage of “The Wakandan Threat.”
posted by yasaman at 10:17 AM on April 2, 2018 [15 favorites]
Joseph Clifton may also be a Marvel reference.
posted by rmd1023 at 10:17 AM on April 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by rmd1023 at 10:17 AM on April 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
Afrofuturism is, I think, applied to speculative/fantasy lit in which *African descended people are protagonists*.
What's hopeful about it is that the folks actually survived to be in the story, unlike those "classic" futures which have no people of color in them, or fantasies in which the good are the light and the bad are the dark.
/in a hurry.
posted by allthinky at 10:22 AM on April 2, 2018
What's hopeful about it is that the folks actually survived to be in the story, unlike those "classic" futures which have no people of color in them, or fantasies in which the good are the light and the bad are the dark.
/in a hurry.
posted by allthinky at 10:22 AM on April 2, 2018
I really want someone with better photoshop skills than mine to put together the following and send it to Joe Arpaio:
By the Grace of His Majesty T'Chaka
KINGDOM OF WAKANDA
CERTIFICATE OF LIVE BIRTH
Date of Issue: August 8, 1961
Date of Birth: August 4, 1961 Time of Birth: 7:28pm
Full Name: Barack Hussein Obama II
Gender: Male Birth Weight: 3.6kg
Location: King Azurri Memorial Hospital, Birnin Zana
Full Name of Father: Barack Hussein Obama
Full Name of Mother: Stanley Ann Dunham
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:02 AM on April 2, 2018 [14 favorites]
By the Grace of His Majesty T'Chaka
KINGDOM OF WAKANDA
CERTIFICATE OF LIVE BIRTH
Date of Issue: August 8, 1961
Date of Birth: August 4, 1961 Time of Birth: 7:28pm
Full Name: Barack Hussein Obama II
Gender: Male Birth Weight: 3.6kg
Location: King Azurri Memorial Hospital, Birnin Zana
Full Name of Father: Barack Hussein Obama
Full Name of Mother: Stanley Ann Dunham
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:02 AM on April 2, 2018 [14 favorites]
Fox News, meanwhile, has run 24-hour coverage of “The Wakandan Threat.”
"Look, I'm not saying I agree with Thanos on everything, but a lot of Americans are worried about crime..."
posted by PlusDistance at 12:18 PM on April 2, 2018 [7 favorites]
"Look, I'm not saying I agree with Thanos on everything, but a lot of Americans are worried about crime..."
posted by PlusDistance at 12:18 PM on April 2, 2018 [7 favorites]
In the meantime, no confirmation on whether the president is nominating Helmut Zemo to be his new secretary of state...
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:42 PM on April 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:42 PM on April 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
To be fair, pretty much anything by Nnedi Okorafor is worth reading. For a pleasant way to try out her writing, LeVar Burton read The Baboon War on his podcast a few weeks ago.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 7:07 PM on April 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 7:07 PM on April 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
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posted by inconstant at 9:26 AM on April 2, 2018 [3 favorites]