The world as we know it now is on the brink of change. If you’ve been paying attention to the media at all in the past few weeks, you can feel it. You can feel how tired and angry we are of black people constantly getting killed by police officers. As I’m writing this on June 2nd, Mayer Fisher of Louisville has called for a night curfew starting at 7 pm from now until June 8th. Riots, peaceful and violent are running rampant throughout the downtown metro area of Louisville, and more black people are getting killed by police officers abusing their authority and a governmental system that lets them and sometimes even supports them. Throughout all of this, I’ve been thinking about the platform I now have, and why I believe it’s important. I understand that my platform is small, but as a black and queer person in times of violent struggle, I believe it is my responsibility to bring these issues up.
The blog website I designed was and still is what it was set out to be: a blog to talk about genre-fiction from the realm of being black and queer. Originally, I had wanted to make a blog post about the three main black characters in the Star Wars franchise and how were they as fully developed characters, but during this time of a protest, it wouldn’t be appropriate. At least for right now. Now, I would like to affirm why it’s important to talk about fiction through a black point of view matters. To not say every single post I write Has to be centered on blackness or queerness. Starting off the blog site I had done posts on Star Wars and the Justice League without any mention of blackness or the LGBTQ community, but art concerning black people or queer representation in genre-fiction is important to be noted and examined. Why?
Why is it important that genre-fiction, of all types of entertainment, should have appropriate representation?
Genre fiction includes any mediums within the science-fiction, horror, romance, western, and speculative fiction. Although today genre-fiction is viewed to have the same literary merit of importance, when many of these genres were first gaining categories for book publications, they were generally seen as “trash reading”. What made them last-long was that they were books consumed by a mass-market of people that didn’t have any formal education and wasn’t taken seriously as a serious art-form like the great works of the western canon such as Faulkner, Hemingway, Chaucer, Beowulf, Homer, Shakespeare, etc. It was during the new wave era of science-fiction led by figures like Harlan Ellison and Samuel. R. Delany that writers began to write genre-fiction the way one would write literary fiction.as opposed to writing it for a quick and exciting read for the masses to read before work. The point being, genre-fiction was always a fiction for the underprivileged masses and culture, and culture reflects the values of its people. What do I mean by that?
It was while watching Brown Held High’s video titled “From Caligari to Hitler” that I learned about the term “culture industry”. The term was created by two Marxist named Theodor Adorno and Max Harkmier in their book The Dialectic of Enlightenment published in 1944. The “culture industry” refers to art such as movies, magazines, being formed and solidified by public ideals of quality and morality. In other words, art inevitably reflects the values and culture of the people.
I bring all of this up in terms of my blog because if culture to be understood as the art, values, and customs of a people or nation than it’s important that as a black and queer person share, critique, analyze, and even create works of art that either promote queer and blackness or shun it. Think of all pieces of art that have inspired racists such as Mein Kampf, A Birth of a Nation, and the Turner Diaries. They were works of art that promoted the ideals of race-wars, black inferiority, and white supremacy; they reinforced a philosophy of the world that you were not worthy to live if you weren’t white, Christian, and straight. For the longest time in America, governments, law enforcement, and racists have acted in kind have discriminated against not only black people, but those of the LGBTQ community, Hispanics, the mentally and physically disabled, the poor, and others. There are many systemic reasons as to why, but one of the biggest factors is the culture that America had educated their people in for so long. So now, using the platform that I have, as a self-proclaimed writer and educator, I believe it is important to raise awareness of and discuss art that reflects a loving society that accepts everyone and lets everyone live in peace. To write about black authors, black works, LGBTQ art, and works that promote a better world in which innocent black lives aren’t killed so savagely and without care. Maybe if we kept painting, writing, directing, or sculpting fictional worlds that loved all, we’ll create a culture that loves all too.