Roger Sneed, a professor of religion at Furman and self-described \u201cBlerd\u201d \u2013 Black nerd \u2013 can point to many examples of Afrofuturism in modern culture.<\/p>\n
Jazz, funk, R&B and soul-infused melodies by Sun Ra, George Clinton and Janelle Monae accompany lyrics describing androids, extraterrestrials and space travel. Black protagonists in stories by Octavia E. Butler, N.K. Jemisin and Ytasha L. Womack explore other worlds and timelines. White supremacist vigilantes in an alternate future and eldritch monsters in the Jim Crow era lurk on TV in \u201cWatchmen\u201d and \u201cLovecraft Country.\u201d<\/p>\n
And \u201cBlack Panther,\u201d arguably the most well-known current example of Afrofuturism \u2013 a genre described by Womack as \u201can intersection of imagination, technology, the future and liberation\u201d \u2013 is one of the top 10 highest-grossing films of all time, seen by millions since its release in 2018.<\/p>\n
\u201cBlack Panther,\u201d the blockbuster Marvel superhero movie set largely in the fictional techno-utopian African nation Wakanda, suggested more than just an escapist fantasy for Sneed. In his paper \u201cBlack Panther, Afrofuturism and African American Spiritual Life,\u201d he argued that, for African Americans and Africans in the diaspora, the movie provides an alternative religion.<\/p>\n
Sneed presented his paper in 2019 at the conference Religioni Fantastiche e Dove Trovarle: Divinit\u00e0, Miti e Riti Nella Fantascienza e Nel Fantasy (Fantastic Religions and Where to Find Them: Deities, Myths and Rites in Science Fiction and Fantasy) hosted by the Raffaele Pettazzoni Museum of Religions in Vettrelli, Italy. The paper was published as part of the conference\u2019s proceedings<\/a> in March 2023.<\/p>\n Wakanda \u201cexists as the blueprint for a Black future that isn\u2019t determined by white supremacy,\u201d promoting \u201can African spirituality\/religion that is informed by African religious traditions and offers the viewer (especially African American viewers) creative alternatives to \u2018Western\u2019 monotheisms.\u201d<\/p>\n In contrast to the imposition of Christian values and attitudes, the Wakandans\u2019 worship of panther goddess Bast suggests that \u201creal liberation may be found in an Afrofuturistic rejection of the Western gods and a re-imagination of African deities,\u201d Sneed argued \u2013 placing \u201cBlack Panther\u201d within a tradition of Afrofuturist critiques of white supremacy.<\/p>\n \u201cI would say that Christianity has become a tool of white supremacy,\u201d said Sneed. \u201cThat has been a problem since Europe\u2019s encounters with Asia and Africa. For example, we see that in Richard Furman\u2019s letter to the governor of South Carolina, he argued for slavery using interpretations of the Bible<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The world of Wakanda is also a critique and rejection of \u201cmisogynoir,\u201d which Sneed described as \u201cthe hatred of Black women by Black men.\u201d The antagonist of \u201cBlack Panther,\u201d Killmonger, is depicted as a power-hungry chauvinist, while heroines Nakia and Okoye represent the movies \u201chumanistic soul,\u201d Sneed said.<\/p>\n Sneed had finished his paper years before seeing \u201cBlack Panther: Wakanda Forever,\u201d but he found that the sequel continued the critiques of misogyny he described in the original.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the movie\u2019s focus on Shuri\u2019s journey as well as the focal points of the movie being Shuri, Queen Ramonda and Okoye definitely add to my claims about \u2018Black Panther\u2019 centering Black women in ways that are empowering,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Centering Black experiences as a source for speculative fiction, \u201ccreating narratives in which Black peoples are \u2018in the future\u2019 or are in fantastical settings,\u201d Afrofuturism pushes back against white supremacy while offering a vision of new worlds and possibilities, Sneed said.<\/p>\n He enjoys contemporary offerings such as N.K. Jemisin\u2019s Green Lantern comic series, the site blerd.com<\/a> and the SyFy Sistas podcast<\/a>. But Sneed\u2019s fandom goes back to devouring comic books and \u201cStar Trek\u201d reruns in the \u201970s.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been a Blerd since I was old enough to read,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat is great is that social media and the Internet can bring Blerds together from far and wide.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For Roger Sneed, \u201cBlack Panther\u201d offers a vision of new worlds and possibilities \u2013 and a rebuke to white supremacy and misogyny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":23973,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-religion","category-top-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Alternative Spirituality<\/h3>\n
Rejecting \u2018Misogynoir\u2019<\/h3>\n
Blerds Unite<\/h3>\n