Afro Futurism
‘”Apocalypse bin in effect’ from the 1992 Public
Enemy track ‘Welcome to the Terradome’, Mark Sinker’s 1992 essay
‘Loving the Alien’ argued that this lyric could be interpreted to read that
slavery functioned as an apocalypse experienced as equivalent to
alien abduction: ‘The ships landed long ago: they already laid waste
whole societies, abducted and genetically altered swathes of
citizenry. . . . Africa and America—and so by extension Europe and Asia
—are already in their various ways Alien Nation” -from slides
– Quotes from Last Angel of History
“Well i’ve always continued that the black existence and science fiction are one in the same and thats from someone who has obviously experienced life as a black person and has been reading science fiction since he was nearly nine or ten years old. The form itself, the conventions of the narrative in science fiction in terms of the way they deal with the subject its usually some one who was at odds with the apparatus of power in the society and who’s profound experience is one of cultural dislocation, alienation, estrangement” – (Greg Tate, The Last Angel Of History)
“were not believed you know we’re like aliens uh trying to you know tell our experience to earthlings you know people don’t believe us. You see we live … theres normal life in this country (America) where the police don’t plant evidence; they don’t lie and drug dealers call ahead and make appointments before they execute people. This is like the upper-class white world. You know, we try to tell them that this doesn’t happen in Oakland where i live and they say well your Experience is so incredible your making this up and you’re paranoid so i think living in this country for African Americans is a far out experience” (Ismael Reed – The Last Angel Of History )
‘’Black people, in America certainly, live the estrangement that science fiction writers kind of talk about … Greg is recasting American history in the light of science fiction and saying well look, all those things you read about alien abduction and genetic transformation they already happened’’
(Kodwo Eshun, Last Angel of History)
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