Afterlife of Slavery

 Matthew Malcolm

Professor Harris 

ENGL 2016-45498

12/2/2024

Afterlife of Slavery

Afrofuturism represents different aspects of black culture through science, technology, literature, and art. When the term was coined by Mark Dery in 1993 it referred mostly to science fiction. Over the years it has become a cultural aesthetic that incorporates much more than science fiction, because of the diversity of the black culture. Because of slavery people of African descent can be found almost everywhere. This group of African descent living outside Africa is called the African diaspora. Their ancestors were brought as slaves to the Americas, the Caribbean, and South America. Because of slavery, there are high populations of people of African descent living in these Countries. Being in different environments, these Africans were forced to develop a new culture resulting in the very diverse culture that black people have today.  Afrofuturism is a very broad topic that encompasses all the aspects of past, present, and future developments of African Americans and the greater African diaspora. Afrofuturism was built to create a vision of a better future. Because of slavery Blacks are thought to be less than, no more than property and often excluded from society. The ending of slavery posed another challenge to blacks, the construct of white supremacy, and gender roles in society especially for women.

In the United States slavery has been abolished for over 150 years, and many argue that it is still present or exists in different forms. This argument has caused heated debates among whites and African Americans alike, but one certain thing is that the effects of slavery are still prevalent today. The most obvious of which is police brutality. It is known that policing in the U.S. was established to discipline and recapture slaves. A book review was done by Charles E. Menifield of Black and Blue: Inside the Divide between the Police and Black America- Jeff Pegues highlights specific examples of police brutality against African Americans. “The city of New York encourages its officers to stop and question citizens and frisk them for weapons. As communities pass and enforce more laws, such as “three strikes,” more and more black citizens are arrested and the practices have a deleterious effect on the black family” (Menifield, 1). These methods deployed by the police department affected the black community because young African Americans were arrested without ever committing a crime. There is a theory called The Racial Threat Thesis that explains why blacks are treated this way. “As applied to law enforcement, conflict theory posited that enhanced majority – the threat of losing “losing dominance to a culturally dissimilar group” (Jackson, 1985:5). The excuse for carrying out these exercises is to deter crime. However, they are nothing but methods of control, a method of playing with the black psyche. In the same way that slaves were punished publicly to keep other slaves in line, this is the same method of control employed by today’s police force. 

The afterlife or lasting effects of slavery are not only visible in how police treat blacks but also in gender roles. The roles of women both black and white have changed drastically since the abolition of slavery. However, there are some major differences in how these changes came about. As expected, both groups of women were not treated as equals. After all, the housewives were always black women who took care of the house chores and the children; the woman of the house was the white woman. White women were enraged when black men had the right to vote before them. In Iowa, based on the State Historical Society of Iowa, women’s suffrage was opposed because, “Conservative churches, including Catholics, opposed women's suffrage as an attack on traditional family values”. The 19Th Amendment was passed in 1920 giving women the right to vote. However, black women were discouraged from voting via multiple intimidation tactics. Black women are at the lowest of the social ladder, especially where civil rights are concerned. 

Even though they played integral roles in society black women are often exploited and are never sufficiently repaid for their efforts. The treatment of Henrietta Lacks by the doctors paints a picture of the exploitation of black women. Henrietta’s cancer cells were pivotal in the science world and yet neither she nor her family were ever given any compensation for her contribution to science. Today there is an online article by Johns Hopkins Medicine. In this hospital, she was treated, titled The Legacy of Henrietta Lacks where the hospital claims that they made no profit from the discovery of the HeLa cells. The article also says, “They have been used to test the effects of radiation and poisons, to study the human genome, to learn more about how viruses work”. Such viruses include polio and the recent COVID-19, where vaccines were created and sold. No compensations were handed to the family of Henrietta. Henrietta’s cells were thought to be nonexistent yet because of her cells evolutions in medicine were made and today many benefit from this medical advancement, an example of Afrofuturism.

The Comet is a fictional short story written by W.E.B. Du Bois, set in New York. The story puts Jim Davis an African American man and Julia a white woman in a precarious situation. From two different backgrounds these two individuals end up becoming the last two individuals alive in the city of New York. This story was provocative because it was written during a very segregated America. Discrimination and inequality were very abundant, and for a black man and white woman to be the last two people alive, made for an interesting story. The unfortunate pair had to depend on each other to survive. The author aims to promote equality and when Julia says, “how foolish our human distinctions seem-now”, in response Jim says, “yes-I was not human yesterday” (). The white woman is now seeing the black man, who was ignored by the entire world, as a human. Du Bois alludes to Afrofuturism in his story by depicting a world where all are seen as equals. Unfortunately, the story ends with both going their separate ways and back to acting as if neither exists.

With the ending of slavery, there was uncertainty about how the now-freed black population would fit into society. The fact that blacks had some rights and should now be considered as equals was not accepted with open arms by the white population, leading to segregation and discrimination. The divide caused by slavery was so deep that Jim Crow laws were created to maintain white supremacy. “Immediately following the Civil War African Americans existed in legal limbo. They were no longer considered property, but their citizenship and ability to form legal domestic bonds had not yet been fully defined” (Perrone, 9). African Americans struggled to obtain an education, housing access, and healthcare because of these laws. White supremacists intimidated African Americans by using violence to maintain their social status. The most popular form of white supremacy was demonstrated by the Ku Klux Klan (K.K.K.) who spread fear by killing African Americans. Today discrimination and segregation are not as prevalent as it was in the late 1800s and early 1900s because of laws passed to protect African Americans. Because of the right to protest and fight for social reform, African Americans are now able to go about their lives on a day-to-day basis without the fear of losing their lives. Afrofuturism is exemplified because the first African Americans did not have the same rights as modern-day African Americans. 

Afrofuturism reimagines black culture and history. There is no doubt that the effects of slavery are still felt today by modern-day African Americans, however, today these effects are somewhat reduced. African Americans now have more civil rights and participate in the wider society, even if in some they are not properly accredited. There are forms of inequality including access to healthcare, education, and police brutality. The African American culture is more widely known and accepted. An optimistic future is possible for African Americans because blacks are now able to express themselves through music, technology, and literature. 


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