MartineSyms

24
The Mundane
Afrofuturist Manifesto
The undersigned, being alternately pissed
off and bored, need a means of speculation
and asserting a different set of values withwhich to re-imagine the future. In looking
for a new framework for black diasporic artistic production, we are temporarily united
in the following actions.

***The Mundane Afrofuturists recognize
that:***We did not originate in the cosmos.
The connection between Middle Passage andspace travel is tenuous at best.
Out of five hundred thirty-four space travelers, fourteen have been black. An all-blackcrew is unlikely.
Magic interstellar travel and/or the wondrous communication grid can lead to an
illusion of outer space and cyberspace asegalitarian.
This dream of utopia can encourage us toforget that outer space will not save us
from injustice and that cyberspace was prefigured upon a “master/slave” relationship.
While we are often Othered, we are notaliens.
Though our ancestors were mutilated, we are
not mutants.
Post-black is a misnomer.
Post-colonialism is too.
The most likely future is one in which we
only have ourselves and this planet.

***The Mundane Afrofuturists rejoice in:***Piling up unexamined and hackneyed tropes,
and setting them alight.
Gazing upon their bonfire of theStupidities, which includes, but is not
exclusively limited to:
Jive-talking aliens;
Jive-talking mutants;
Magical negroes;
Enormous self-control in light ofgreat suffering;
Great suffering as our natural stateof existence;
Inexplicable skill in the martialarts;
Reference to Wu Tang;
Reference to Sun Ra;
Reference to Parliament Funkadelicand/or George Clinton;
Reference to Janelle Monáe;
Obvious, heavy-handed allusions todouble-consciousness;
Desexualized protagonists;
White slavery;
Egyptian mythology and iconography;
The inner city;
Metallic colors;
Sassiness;
Platform shoes;
Continue at will…

***We also recognize:***The harmless fun that these and all the other Stupidities have brought to millions ofpeople.
The harmless fun that burning the Stupidities will bring to millions of people.
The imaginative challenge that awaits any
Mundane Afrofuturist author who accepts that
this is it: Earth is all we have. What will
we do with it?
The chastening but hopefully enlivening effect of imagining a world without fantasy
bolt-holes: no portals to the Egyptian kingdoms, no deep dives to Drexciya, no flying
Africans to whisk us off to the PromisedLand.
The possibilities of a new focus on blackhumanity: our science, technology, culture,politics, religions, individuality, needs,dreams, hopes, and failings.
The surge of bedazzlement and wonder thatawaits us as we contemplate our own cosmology of blackness and our possible futures.
The relief of recognizing our authority. We
will root our narratives in a critique ofnormative, white validation. Since “fact”
and “science” have been used throughout history to serve white supremacy, we will focus
on an emotionally true, vernacular reality.
The understanding that our “twoness” is inherently contemporary, even futuristic.
DuBois asks how it feels to be a problem.
Ol’ Dirty Bastard says “If I got a problem,
a problem’s got a problem ’til it’s gone.”
An awakening sense of the awesome power ofthe black imagination: to protect, to create, to destroy, to propel ourselves towards
what poet Elizabeth Alexander describes as“a metaphysical space beyond the black public everyday toward power and wild imagination.”
The opportunity to make sense of the nonsense that regularly—and sometimes violently—accents black life.

The electric feeling that Mundane Afrofuturism is the ultimate laboratory for worldbuilding outside of imperialist, capitalist,
white patriarchy.
The sense that the rituals and inconsistencies of daily life are compelling, dynamic,
and utterly strange.
Mundane Afrofuturism opens a number ofthemes and flavors to intertextuality, double
entendre, politics, incongruity, polyphony,and collective first-person—techniques that
we have used for years to make meaning.

***The Mundane Afrofuturists promise:***To produce a collection of Mundane
Afrofuturist literature that follows
these rules:
1.

No interstellar travel—travel islimited to within the solar system andis difficult, time consuming, andexpensive.

2.

No inexplicable end to racism—dismantling white supremacy would becomplex, violent, and have globalimpact.

3.

No aliens unless the connection is
distant, difficult, tenuous, andexpensive—and they have nointerstellar travel either.

5.

No internment camps for blacks,aliens, or black aliens.

6.

No Martians, Venusians, etc.

7.

No forgetting about political, racial,social, economic, and geographic
struggles.

8.

No alternative universes.

9.

No revisionist history.

10.

No magic or supernatural elements.

11.

No Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, or Bucks.

12.

No time travel or teleportation.

13.

No Mammies, Jezebels, or Sapphires.

14.

Not to let Mundane Afrofuturism cramp
their style, as if it could.

15.

To burn this manifesto as soon as itgets boring.
Martine Syms & whomever will join me
in the future of black imagination.

*A version of this manifesto appeared on rhizome.org in December 2013