Representations of Race in Science Fiction

Title

Representations of Race in Science Fiction

Transcript

A genre dominated by the white male voice, early Science Fiction (SF) focused on alien encounters and "future-war stories" as a metaphor for The Cold War, rapidly advancing technology, and post-WWII social upheaval. Socially progressive stories at the time often employed "alien other" tropes to depict marginalized groups in an attempt to confront race and racism in contemporary society. More conservative SF used the trope to caution against the perceived danger posed by immigrants and racial minorities. "Most race-related SF stories, such as William D. Hay's Three Hundred Years Hence, were racist and focused on black/white relations mainly, with an occasional nod to anti-Semitism and equally bigoted "yellow peril" themes."

Still - other SF narratives simply erased rae, projecting post-racial aspirations, by describing a future in which society had transcended racial disparity, inequality, and bigotry. these early SF narratives characterized race as "invisible," describing more equitable future societies that appeared devoid of cultural diversity. Because of such tropes and erasures, "people of color have been strikingly absent from both SF literature, and film, up until the last 20-25 years." Science Fiction allowed writers to imagine the impossible, in some distant future or an alternative past in these early works, yet a future that included people of color seemed to be unimaginable.

There were a few pioneers of African American SF, but more black voices brought their stories to SF literature, film, and television in the 1960s, when the genre experienced some subtle but very important changes in racial representation. Race, with all its complexities, became very much a part of these imaginary landscapes. Human (and alien) interactions, filtered through the black cultural lens, now envisioned characters who were resilient survivors, both threatening and non-threatening "alien others" who possessed great power, hyper-empathetic leaders and other representations of African American humanity. Present day SF has seen an explosion of African Diasporic authors who have created compelling characters and imagined fantastic worlds. A modest sampling of these titles have been selected for this exhibit.