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bookednrunningteonaka's review
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
This is Non fiction!! Re-read the title and then let that wash over you for a few minutes!!
Essays by Black Quantum Futurism theorists.
Basically, the concept of time was colonized like everything else. Go figure!🤷🏽♀️ A few specific groups of Indigenous African & Native Americans were noted with explanations & examples of their cultural experiences and engagement with time.
White explorers sought to standardize the concept of time for the purpose of expediting travel to sell “goods.” “Goods” being Black people. They were able to mark longitude pretty accurately (North to South) with the sun. but latitude was more problematic. Columbus’ failed travel destinations ring a bell? So they decided if they defined time, standardized it, created time zones for everyone to abide by then they could better make predictions about travel destinations and time frames.
The problem with this is it didn’t take into account (or care about) other people’s cultural use of or experience with time. This new linear way of mapping time ERASED cultural and spiritual norms and ways of life.
Because of the theft and transportation of Black people not only from the continent but from their orientation in time and space- it is theorized that “the Black body was the first form of time travel.” 🤯
This “annexation” has so many implications (as laid out) for Black Americans with descendants from the continent. (ahoy have to read it!) Included were examples of how enslaved Africans used their cultural and spiritual perceptions of time to navigate their way to freedom, how we see it show up in the stories passed down through generations, the songs we sang, etc.
And now many of those cultural and spiritual ways of experiencing time are relegated to “science fiction” by western standards. Time travel, time collapse, etc. So essentially Octavia, NK, Tananarive, Nalo and all the other melanated amazing “science fiction” writers in these AfroFuturistic styles are bomb a$$ writers simply because of their Blackness! ...my conclusion, of course. 🤷🏽♀️
This is a PHENOMENAL read!! Academic writing for the most part, so it’s not a story to be quickly devoured. But it was an amazing to read. I’m a geek, so this is my jam.
Essays by Black Quantum Futurism theorists.
Basically, the concept of time was colonized like everything else. Go figure!🤷🏽♀️ A few specific groups of Indigenous African & Native Americans were noted with explanations & examples of their cultural experiences and engagement with time.
White explorers sought to standardize the concept of time for the purpose of expediting travel to sell “goods.” “Goods” being Black people. They were able to mark longitude pretty accurately (North to South) with the sun. but latitude was more problematic. Columbus’ failed travel destinations ring a bell? So they decided if they defined time, standardized it, created time zones for everyone to abide by then they could better make predictions about travel destinations and time frames.
The problem with this is it didn’t take into account (or care about) other people’s cultural use of or experience with time. This new linear way of mapping time ERASED cultural and spiritual norms and ways of life.
Because of the theft and transportation of Black people not only from the continent but from their orientation in time and space- it is theorized that “the Black body was the first form of time travel.” 🤯
This “annexation” has so many implications (as laid out) for Black Americans with descendants from the continent. (ahoy have to read it!) Included were examples of how enslaved Africans used their cultural and spiritual perceptions of time to navigate their way to freedom, how we see it show up in the stories passed down through generations, the songs we sang, etc.
And now many of those cultural and spiritual ways of experiencing time are relegated to “science fiction” by western standards. Time travel, time collapse, etc. So essentially Octavia, NK, Tananarive, Nalo and all the other melanated amazing “science fiction” writers in these AfroFuturistic styles are bomb a$$ writers simply because of their Blackness! ...my conclusion, of course. 🤷🏽♀️
This is a PHENOMENAL read!! Academic writing for the most part, so it’s not a story to be quickly devoured. But it was an amazing to read. I’m a geek, so this is my jam.
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