Futures of Colour

Futures of Colour is a theme that I am exploring in my academic and creative practice, to investigate and envision new — or rather, expanded — directions for what the future may hold.

Of course this is an incredibly vast, nuanced, varied topic, but I have narrowed down the scope to futurist worldbuilding and imaginaries conceived of by non-white, non-western, postcolonial and/or feminist scholars, artists, designers, technologist, dreamers.

Again, that requires me to cast a very wide net, so, for the purposes of my independent study, I am narrowing my scope of interest to those worlds and imaginaries that create politicized, subversive, and/or emancipatory narratives, and those that center the digital and/or technology as a method/modality of that subversion.

I remember reading the Noughts and Crosses series by Malorie Blackman when I was in primary school. I went to a British International School, with predominantly white students and teachers — with very apparent and insidious colonial/imperialist tendencies — but, ironically, these books were insanely popular. There was usually a long waiting list to check one of Blackman’s books out from our library. Blackman’s books presented a world where Black people were the dominant social group in England, followed by other people of color, and white people were subordinate. While whites were not officially regarded as an inferior group, they faced issues of institutional racism and discrimination in Blackman’s world, and were used as a proverbial mirror to shine a light on society’s injustices.

In her world, subtle exclusionary behaviors and policies that disenfranchised white people were made visible; for example, their systemic poverty, a lack of access to high paying jobs, and violence that they suffered from the police. In her world, the dominant Black community was both oblivious to, and slightly annoyed by, the grievances of the oppressed whites.

I remember talking about these books in class, with my teacher leading the discussion. He, a white man, was explaining to us — a rather diverse, multi-ethnic group of eleven year olds — why these books were so important for us to read. He said that these books served as a necessary reminder to us about “how bad racism used to be”, how racism hurt people’s feelings, and as a warning for “us” to never be racist again!

I remember the white students in the class being very moved by the speech. Some of them even raised their hands to share pieces of the story that upset them, particularly the fact that the Black female and white male protagonists were prevented from being together — despite their love for each other — all because of silly racism! Another white student shared that they felt very sad when the white male protagonist’s mother was spoken to in a rude way by some Black people in the story, and despite the fact that she was kind and smart, she would never be more than a maid — just because she was white! It just seemed unbelievable to them! The injustice of it all! How could the Black people care so little and be so callous?

I remember my teacher interjecting, saying “Well, yes, but of course some parts of the story were exaggerated for dramatic effect. Thankfully it is not like that anymore.”

I remember all of the non-white students, including myself, shuffling uncomfortably in our seats. We knew, although we did not have the words to express why at that age, that these stories, while fiction, were truthful. The awful descriptions of discrimination were not just artistic license and, we also knew, were not just horrors of the past. I knew that the truths that were detailed in this story were softened by virtue of the fact this was a children’s fiction book, but the content was more relevant and relatable than many other “factual” books that I was required to read for school.

I think of Malorie Blackman stories as the earliest examples of science fiction writing that had a political influence on me. Yet, the discussion that unfolded with my peers seemed to miss the point entirely. They read Noughts and Crosses as purely fictitious, perhaps even gratuitous exaggeration. Whatever profundity that they were able to glean from the story, they were still able to compartmentalize as being somehow historical. I am not sure what they believed to be the lesson of this fable, but I know that they believed that they had successfully “got” it.

Thinking about this whole experience as an adult frustrates me. It frustrates me to think about the way that the white people in my class, including my teacher, were able to make this story about them. It amazes and baffles me that they were able to usurp this narrative, and make themselves the victims in the story, and the heroes in real life. It annoys me that this powerful exposition of racism was still allowed to unfold on their terms.

How could they show such seemingly genuine sympathy for the characters in the story, but continue to be oblivious about discrimination of all sorts in real life? How could they so proudly express their own feelings of shock, appall, and anger for what they had just read, but profess their innocence for the racism that was happening all around them? How could they all nod, and unanimously agree, when my teacher declared that “racism was over” on behalf of us all?

They never even asked any of the non-white students what we thought. They displaced their latent feelings of guilt by speaking over us, speaking for us, silencing us into agreement.

That is what hegemonic narratives do — they silence the subaltern into submission. It is so sad that even this narrative — Noughts and Crosses — this subversive text written by a Black woman, was hijacked by white fragility. Perhaps, despite being a fantastical tale, it hit too close to home.

Maybe it needed to be wilder. Maybe it should not have been set in England, maybe it should have been set in outer space. Maybe it should not have been so explicitly about race, maybe height or something else. It could have been about animals — white people really empathize with the plight of animals. They can definitely relate to the struggles of animals over the struggles of people of colour. Maybe the characters should have been green or purple. White folks are always saying how they are colourblind and do not care if you are yellow with orange spots. Maybe that is true, but they still care if you are Black or brown.

So, on second thought, I am so glad that the book was about Black and white — because it had to be in order to be understood by white people at all.

This entire anecdote was all to bring me to this final point: that science fiction, speculative fiction, space opera, fantasy, and futurist worldbuilding are liberating genres. They allow readers to escape into alternate realms where the rules, assumptions, and expectations of our current reality are disrupted, challenged, or erased, so that we are able to investigate the very pressing fragile, controversial issues of now in a decontextualized backdrop. And, when creators from historically marginalized demographics are the ones who build these worlds, who introduce these narratives, and who navigate us around these issues, then the genre becomes even more political, powerful, transformative.

So, back to my independent study, it is important as people of colour, to decode, deconstruct, and analyze the stories for ourselves. The Futures of Colour project looks at works created for us, by us. It is necessary for us to own and define our narratives, and narratives about our futures. In fact, it is a profoundly political act to center ourselves, and our communities, when we construct images of the future, because, to be frank, “the future” only exists if we are around to experience it.