“Why Sci-Fi Keeps Imagining the Subjugation of White People”
“The link between colonialism and science-fiction is every bit as old as the link between science-fiction and the future. John Rieder in his eye-opening book Colonialism and the Emergence of Science-Fiction notes that most scholars believe that science fiction coalesced “in the period of the most fervid imperialist expansion in the late nineteenth century.” Sci-fi “comes into visibility,” he argues, “first in those countries most heavily involved in imperialist projects — France and England” and then gradually gains a foothold in Germany and the U.S. as those countries too move to obtain colonies and gain imperial conquests. He adds, “Most important, no informed reader can doubt that allusions to colonial history and situations are ubiquitous features of early science fiction motifs and plots…
these works flip the racial dynamic that characterized the most influential imperialist ventures of the last few centuries. In such stories, sci-fi is about “them” (a non-white, foreign civilization) doing to us (Western, largely white powers) as we did to them… To some degree, and in some instances, it’s clear that sci-fi reverse colonialism is anti-colonial…
Reverse colonial sci-fi don’t always have to be anti-imperialist, though. Ender’s Game, both film and book, use the invasion of the superior aliens not as a critique of Western expansion and genocide, but as an excuse for those things. The bugs invade human worlds, and the consequence is that the humans must utterly annihilate the alien enemy, even if Ender feels kind of bad about it…
On the one hand, then, the reverse colonial stories in sci-fi can be used as a way to sympathize with those who suffer under colonialism. It puts the imperialists in the place of the Tasmanians and says, this could be you, how do you justify your violence now? On the other hand, reverse colonial stories can erase those who are at the business end of imperial terror, positing white European colonizers as the threatened victims in a genocidal race war , thereby justifying any excess of violence.”
And on the flip side, Afrofuturism (and other non-white futurism)
I want to really explore the white fear of subjugation; I think it has so much to do with white anti-anti-racism. It was a big part of the Jim Crow laws, this fear that free black people (specifically black men) would engage in violence against white people. And it still feels present — this idea that if you actually hire black people into positions of power (more than one, isolated person), they will engage in anti-white prejudice.
I think it has to do with this apologist-explanation for racism that it’s just how people are, we always do good things for people who look like us and distrust people who don’t. That explanation (a) ignores history and the culture of white supremacy, and (b) falls into the same logical inconsistencies of any “evolutionary” explanation for human behavior, like the rape-apologists who talk about how men just need to spread their sperm.
We need to talk about this to get over it; we need to get past this fear. I don’t feel safe in this world where the dominant culture fears my potential to gain power.
