COMMXNDMXNTS AND UNDEBATABLES OF THE AFROFUTURE:
An Afrofuturistic Manifesto for Black Art
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Afrofuturist CommXndmXnts
Thy work shall take up the entirety of space while respecting the space of others.
Thy shall not input traumatizing imagery in media for Black folX
Thy shall collaborate with other Black WomXn
Thy shall be a safe space for Black WomXn and Black folX
Thy shall make each scene in coordination with archival footage
Thy work shall not be linear
Thy work shall not fall into White Validation Syndrome[1]
Thy shall use AAVE without explanation; you know, you know
Thy shall honor the Ancestors
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Undebatables in Afrofuturism
Post-colonialism is false. We are still living in colonialism and are suffering its' effects. It has reshaped and adapted to take on many forms.
White fragility is an escape from the accountability of the privilege that was set up by racist, oppressive, criminal, social, and institutional systems.
Black folX can be both human and alien. Magical and normal. Extraterrestrial and terrestrial. We can co-exist in varying realities and identities.
AAVE language is only reserved for Black folX. No appropriating it and masking it as your own if you are not Black.
Black folX can be merry, have joy, and frolic...
without the threat of police being called on them...
or be confronted and questioned by white womXn with our being in a space.
I speak for my experience. I do not speak for all Black folX, nor is all our stories are the same. We encompass any narratives and have different experiences. We are all not the same.
Not all Black folX are poor, have rhythm/dance, can rap, nor will rap on cue when you demand it.
If the hair is on my head, donât touch it nor say, âWhere did you buy it?â or âIt looks so real.â Mind your business.
Donât counter my grievance with your grievance to minimize and suppress me.
Stop gaslighting Black WomXn when we speak up about our grievances.
The term Hotep should not be used to describe so-called âwokeâ Black folX.
And so-called âwokeâ Black folX need to stop gatekeeping information with patronizing, paternal condescension.
Code-switching is exhausting. Stop pushing âproper English.â
If you feel uncomfortable with my presence, do not expect me to make myself smaller to accommodate you. Your discomfort is between you and your god.
Black folX need to stop saying, âWe are not our Ancestors.â Our Ancestors fought peacefully and burned shit down too. We are them.
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In molding a world for Black folX in the future, we must be intentional with our actions. No new world can form without Black folX. No new world can develop, especially without Black WomXn. We are "mother civilization." Societies and pop "culture" is Black culture appropriated and watered down from Black WomXn.
The CommXndmXnts and Undebatables are in direct correlation with physical space. As we construct a physical space that is a safe space for Black WomXn, these CommXndmXnts and Undebatables are rules that will enable this space to come to fruition while catering to the needs of Black WomXn. In modeling and intentionally creating an Afrofuturistic future where Black bodies are free to be merry about, the success of an Afrofuturistic future lies in the protection of Black WomXn.
Black WomXn have been on the frontlines of every liberation movement. Despite our work that contributed to the success of other groups, white supremacy and patriarchy still profoundly affect the lives of Black folX, but more specifically, Black WomXn, ranging from racism, reproduction rights, not receiving recognition and credit, and more than there is space to list. This experience alone brings an inseparable connection of racism, sexism, and classism. These three elements are tied so bound together that for exclusion of one will only prompt the other two to be highlighted and take center stage. Without racism, sexism and classism take hold. Without classism, racism and sexism are intertwined. Upon encountering a Black WomXn, the societal definition of gender and the color of our skin leaves no escape from the inseparable chains of racism, sexism, and classism, all of which to be present simultaneously.
Black Queer WomXn's recognition was often shoved to the back end "for the good" of the Black community. In part due to their identity considered not crucial to the movement; thus, their identity would "muddle" the message that correlated with conservative views, despite fighting for the liberation of all Black folX. Along with internalized homophobia, those who identified as Queer or a WomXn, our voices were often diminished and "shushed" away for a male leader to carry the voice of the Black community. We are currently experiencing Black WomXn continuing to lead the fight for Black and Brown bodies' liberation. In the male-dominated Civil Rights movements, the sexism and marginalization again Black Queer WomXn has led to Black WomXnism. Despite the Suffrage Movement, white feminism used the work and labor of Black WomXn while simultaneously silencing Black voices and benefiting off of white privilege.
How do we get to this point?
The Afrofuturistic CommXndmXnts and Undebatables serve the purpose of creating a space where the inseparable chains of oppression associated with Black WomXnhood do not hold the velvety to cause harm for Black WomXn.
An Afrofuturistic landscape acknowledges that Afropessimism and Afrofuturism coexist simultaneously[1]. Like Black folX, there are intersections of both that influence the other. Varying identities can coexist, so will in the Afrofuturistic landscape. Afrofuturism revolutionizes patriarchal systems that were created to confine and control Black bodies. Rather than rewrite, revise, gloss over, or suppress history, we must acknowledge these patriarchal systems and revolutionize through dismantling and destroying so that Black folX can, in fact, frolic freely. Afrofuturism is the result of these systems, and we craft our own. Rather than integrating into "dominant culture," we should be allowed to live separately without the threat of the "other," which is non-BIPOC folX, invading and colonizing us. Afrofuturism allows for Blackness and Black folX to be expansive, not confined. To be free, we cannot submit to white culture or seek their validation and approval.
With Afrofuturism, there must be a balance for Afropessimism as well. In an Afropessimistic world, the reality and weight of colonialism and imperialism's lasting effects have no escape. This constant reality is reinforced by institutional, social, and systemic institutions, reflecting racism, classism, sexism. The Afropessimism is that of the present moment, reminding us eradication of exploitative systems is not synonymous. When reform occurs in abolishing these systems, it is in correlation with an Afrofuturistic world being molded.
The very act of thinking and molding a space for Black WomXn is a radical act. While we can take steps to this radicalization, the systems of racism, classism, and sexism are the productions of a patriarchal and capitalistic world that have profited and have been sustained by the exploitation and labor of Black WomXn. Reclaiming time and space is such a radical act that the systems that exploit and benefit from the bodies of Black WomXn will be dismantled and destroyed to pave a true revolution that is not centered around white liberalism.
For an Afrofuturistic world to exist, it must first be a world that is a physical and mental safe space for Black WomXn. Black WomXn birthed us, and yet we have exploited off of their pain and labor. Black WomXn must be able to be free and not policed by our bodies. The CommXndmXnts and Undebatables are a beginning step in molding and crafting this space intentionally inclusive of Black WomXn.
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CommXndmXnt: Thy work shall take up the entirety of space without thy work impeding and overwhelming the space of others
In first molding a space for Black WomXn, I must first incorporate this into my own life and work. My work shall take up as most space as possible that is allocated to me while also respecting other artists and their work. In coexisting with varying experiences and stories being told, as I demand to carve out a space for Black WomXn, I shall also respect other artists' work.
CommXndmXnt: Thy shall not input traumatizing imagery
In acknowledging that pain and joy are intertwined with one another in the Black experience, pain is often exploited for a profit, with joy masked for its former. More specifically, the trauma and pain inflicted on Black WomXn on-screen are horrendous to us. It becomes a spectator view for those who are outside of Black WomXnhood. The trauma and pain when being depicted for other subjects, there is a proud conservatism and privacy. To allude to the pain but respect it for the subject. Shield the audience from being pained and respecting the privacy again for the subject, which is usually a non-Black WomXn. For Black WomXn's pain to be communicated and gain empathy, every lash in an enslaved movie must have the blood splashed across the camera lens. In 12 Years a Slave, the night engulfs and hugs the master as he rapes his captive. The moonlight shines down on the horrendous and decrypting and dehumanizing act. The silence and echoes of the crickets add to the heart-wrenching show and violation. This pain and rape scene is set up as a show so audience members can be captured by the moment, hypnotized by it, and not tear a single eye away from the screen.
For our pain to be communicated, we must be demeaned and dehumanized, stripped of identity and emotion. This leads to the desensitization of Black WomXn's pain, adding to the mistreatment suffered by doctors that underestimate our pain and leads to our death. Black WomXn's bodies are not respected. We are treated as disposable waste that reaccumulates. Showing Black WomXn's pain and trauma with more gore will not cause any action. Only temporary empathy that is dismissed from the mind once the movie or tv show ends.
CommXndmXnt: Thy shall show thyself
Identifying as a Black WomXn, this work is representing a part of me. As I show myself more in my work, this can be a restorative and therapeutic tool in unlearning biases and conditioning and being able to frolic mentally and physically freely in an Afrofuturistic world.
CommXndmXnt: Thy shall collaborate with other Black WomXn
Collaborating with other Black WomXn ensures to the multifaceted experiences of Black WomXn are included. No narrative is the same, yet all narratives encompass the being of a Black WomXn. Collaborating with other Black WomXn ensures that money and opportunity circulate within the Black community. As I rise, others must as well.
CommXndmXnt: Thy shall be a safe space for Black WomXn and Black folX
Self-explanatory. Period.
CommXndmXnt: Thy shall make each scene in coordination with archival footage
The archival footage serves to document at the earliest possible time that Black WomXn were molding and currently creating with the Afrofuture in mind, consciously and subconsciously. In drawing parallels of Black history, the Afrofuture and the present archival footage serve the purpose of grounding and acknowledging our Ancestors fought and worked with the Afrofuture in mind, regardless of if the term was coined then or not.
CommXndmXnt: Thy work shall not be linear
Time is a social and artificial construct. We are operating on CPT. Subjectivity in time is in correlation with production and commerce. Production and commerce that has led to the exploitation of Black bodies. Time is limiting.
Going against time is a radical act and a decisive act in choosing the power of rest. Rest is revolutionary. To rest should not center around the business hours of our exploiter. Rest needs to be center around the needs of the body. We suppress our body's needs to keep up with forced capitalism that highlights production and commerce over mental, emotional, and physical health. Rest is revolutionary of the Afrofuture.
CommXndmXnt: Thy work shall not fall into White Validation Syndrome
Our pain, art, value, and trauma should not be recognized and validated by white people to be considered accurate. The need to be identified and acknowledge by those outside our community will ultimately be our downfall. Insisting to be accepted by white culture will only compromise our own sanity and quality of work.
The mental and cultural relocation has caused a need for belonging for some within our network. Seeking white validation will only result in more protracted suffering and suppression, for we have to suppress ourselves to be deemed as of value. Leave the shackles of this thinking behind.
We add to our oppression seeking that we are acknowledged and integrated by the dominant culture. Black WomXn's bodies will continually be satirized and mocked with or without white validation. We sacrifice ourselves to be approved by others who have no relation or idea of Blackness.
CommXndmXnt: Thy shall use AAVE without explanation
My language. I will use it as I will. I will not be shamed for code-switching.
CommXndmXnt: Thy shall honor the Ancestors
We are here because our Ancestors fought and survive to get to this point. Saying âI am not my Ancestorsâ is disrespectful and disregards the work and fight our Ancestors lived and died for. They lived and died for us. We will not disrespect them.
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Language plays a crucial role in acknowledging identities while also following rules that adhere to imposed gender roles. The significance of X is intentional in acknowledging identities that have been erased due to misogynistic language and suppression. The X alludes to the identities beyond the English language incomprehension. The English language is limited and Anglo-Saxon based, which is rooted in patriarchy. In acknowledging the vastness of gender and escaping the binary, X is a gender-neutral language. It is a language that is not rooted in the oppression of groups that have been oppressed and silenced. It is the intentionality of correcting a wronged history.
An example of this intentionality of recognizing those silenced is using X in the word folX. "Folks" have traditionally been seen and accepted as a gender-neutral term. The inclusion of X in reference to titles and nouns that refer to humXns is a means to highlight those who have been impacted and affected by misogyny. No group is exempt from colonial influence, either be directly or indirectly.
Another example includes using the X with words with "man" or "men." Examples of this include changing "woman/women" to womXn and "humans" to humXns. In this manifesto, particularly, "amendments" and "commandments" are changed to amXndmXnts and commXndmXnts.
Each time "men" appear in sequence, "e" will be replaced with X regarding gender and authority, such as âmenâ and âamendments.â Correcting gender-identifying words means correcting the default language of masculinity that has impacted and formed the English language (Kerr, 2019). In pointing out misogyny and intentionally adding X, it acknowledges an oppressive system.
The deliberate and intentional inclusion of the X when referring to womXn and folX is a radical act in acknowledging identities that has been silenced by language and limited by it. It is the deliberate inclusion of identities that have been overshadowed or not acknowledge. X acknowledges that gender and sexuality are fluid, with varying identities existing and coexisting at once. The X is a push against the standard, gender confining language. It allows for Black folX to be as they please.
Having been raised in a Southern Baptist Church, words such as "rules," "forbidden," and "laws of God" are centralized in the Christian belief and verbiage. These rules are centered around the "10 Commandments." These commXndmXnts establish morality and governance that humXns must abide by for soul security in the afterlife. This fear and laws drive those to "do good" and into submission. This same fear and irrefutable laws are used as grounds for repression and suppression. The "10 Commandments" were used as grounds of obedience with the penalty of being deprived of entering the pearly gates of Heaven.
The beginning of the manifesto opens with the "Afrofuturistic CommXndmXnts." In replicating the original "10 Commandments," the "Commandment" language takes an authoritative tone. There is no room for debates or questions. These commXndmXnts are absolute. The commXndmXnts are rules that humXnkind must follow. In mimicking the authoritative and absolute tonnage of the "10 Commandments," the Afrofuturist CommXndmXnts sets a tone in the art process that allows for Black folX to exists. The commXndmXnts serve the purpose of elevating Black WomXn while also protecting them. In addressing a world and safe space for Black WomXn to prosper, we must first create a model that is free of misogyny and the effects of colonialism. The commXndmXnts sets a stage that protects Black WomXn rather than suppressing them into a patriarchal, submissive, demeaning will. Rather than establishing actions and forbiddance, the Afrofuturist CommXndmXnts serve the role of establishing a physical, emotional, and mental space that is free of symbols of oppression. They serve as a protection rather than establishing morality that is Eurocentric based.
When referring to Black folX, the âBâ will be capitalized.
ââŚWe capitalize Black, and not white, when referring to groups in racial, ethnic, or cultural termsâŚBlack reflects a shared sense of identity and community. White carries a different set of meanings, capitalizing the word in this context risks following the lead of white supremacistsâ[1]
In capitalizing womXn, it will happen in the sequence where Black is first. Black WomXn is a title that is synonymous with being a noun.
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Water will be used as a portal through time.
With the water used as a portal, a tool of the Afro future, water symbolizes the sacredness it has within the Black community. As water is essential to life, it is also used as a tool against Black communities in either denial of it, a weapon during the Civil Rights Movement on protestors, or environmental racism resulting in disasters impacting Black communities detrimentally. The water serves as a grounding tool in acknowledging the Afropessimism of the reality of imperialism's lasting effects on the African Diaspora. Water is where my Ancestors lay and rest, the ocean floor of unmarked graves.
Cisgender mXn's face will not be shown no more than 3 times.
We live in a world that privileges mXn subconsciously and consciously. In breaking and dismantling our patriarchal system's brainwashing and misogynoir, we must break from the automatic default of comparing our experiences with others. We can give insight, but the comparison of experiences leads to demeaning and minimizing of others. In challenging the world and societal standards and highlighting the varying intersections of Black life, spaces must coexist. In this space that is relating to Black WomXn, cisgender mXn are limited in appearance. In allowing for Black WomXn to frolic freely, a space must be created that is inclusive of solely them and their needs, free from misogynoir and those who resemble it.
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AAVE â African American Vernacular EnglÂish, aka. Black English. A dialect and socio-linguistic language developed by Black folX due to theft from the motherland and forced into enslavement in the Americas. Oppression of language through suppression in education and dislocation led to the creolization of English[1]
Afrofuturism â Experienced through folX of African descent existing and being in spaces and identities that we have either been erased from, suppressed from, oppressed from, and/or not imagined in[2].
Afropessimism â acknowledges the reality of the last effects of colonialism, imperialism, brutalization, and theft of people in relation to folX of African descent.
Black WomXnism â Not feminism. As defined by Alice Walker, â⌠a wom[x]n who loves other women sexually and/or nonsexually ⌠committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and femaleâ through challenging patriarchal systems that have oppressed Black folX[3].
Black Space â A space purposefully created for Black folX, free of paternalism, colonialism, and misogynoir.
CPT â Colored Peopleâs Time
Hotep â Egyptian word that means âat peace.â Has evolved to describe Afrocentric Black folX. Also used to describe a person who is âeither clueless parody of AfrocentricityâŚor someone whoâs loudly, conspicuously and obnoxiously pro-Black but anti-progressâ[4].
Misogynoir â Coined by Moya Bailey; it is the âanti-Black racist misogyny that Black Wom[x]n experienceâ is internalized. This leads to the over-sexualization of Black Wom[x] and adding to existing stereotypes about Black WomXn[5]
[5] (What is Misogynoir?, 2020)
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Edwards, L. (2020). Afrofuturism Collab. (L. Edwards, Performer) Durham, NC.
Laws, M. (2020, June 16). Why we capitalize 'Black" (and not 'white'). Retrieved from Columbia Journalism Review: https://www.cjr.org/analysis/capital-b-black-styleguide.php
Mazama, A. (2018). Retrieved from Cognitive Hiatus and the White Validation Syndrome: An Afrocentric Analysis: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75447-5_3
Rahatt, C. (2020, February 04). How Alice Walker Created Womanism - The Movement That Meets Black Women Where Feminism Misses the Mark. Retrieved from Blavity: News: https://blavity.com/blavity-original/how-alice-walker-created-womanism-the-movement-that-meets-black-women-where-feminism-misses-the-mark?category1=Books
Sidnell, J. (n.d.). African American Vernacular English (Ebonics). Retrieved from Language Varieties: https://www.hawaii.edu/satocenter/langnet/definitions/aave.html
Syms, M. (2013, December ). The Mundane Afrofuturist Manifesto. Retrieved from The Third Rail: http://thirdrailquarterly.org/martine-syms-the-mundane-afrofuturist-manifesto/
What is Misogynoir? (2020, February 12). Retrieved from Blackburn Center: https://www.blackburncenter.org/post/2020/02/12/what-is-misogynoir
Young, D. (2016, March 05). Hotep, Explained. Retrieved from The Root: https://www.theroot.com/hotep-explained-1790854506
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