Gaze into the Afrofuture
I will guide them. I will turn the bleakness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I will do, and I will not forsake them. – Isaiah 42:16 (Year A)
Twentieth-century prophet Greg Tate taught me something that changed my faith forever. He introduced me to Afrofuturism, which imagines the “unreal estate of the future” through the techno-cultural lens of Black folks.
Afrofuturism re-engineers our gaze on the future so we can conceive of the times to come in a way that does better by us. It rights the annihilation of our past with a future that is beautiful, beyond anything we’ve ever been allowed to see.
We are, otherwise, exposed to very few hopeful images of the future.
But what if we listened to God, through the prophets, instead? Prophets get a glimpse of the future God imagines, with its valleys and its peaks. Alas, many of us aren’t willing to listen to the prophets because we can’t see past the valleys, the pitfalls they foresee. The valleys overwhelm us and we look away. Which submits us to, as the prophet Isaiah calls it, the bleakness.
But God says: Look a little bit farther. Don’t look away. Don’t you dare concede the years to come!
God says: Didn’t you know? Didn’t you know I intend better for you? Didn’t you know that I love what I have made? Didn’t you know that I don’t just believe in justice, I am justice? That I will make a way? That I will not leave you nor forsake you? That I am the starter and the finisher, the Alpha, the Omega, your very help in times of trial?
I wish I’d known of the Afrofuturists sooner. I wish I’d learned to give the real estate of my head over to God and the prophets and the beauty they intend. Because my people—and all of us—were made to live in a land that is flowing, not burning.
Prayer
Precious Lord, take my hand. Lead me on, into your future. Amen.
About the AuthorKaji Douša is the Senior Pastor of The Park Avenue Christian Church, a congregation of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ, in New York City.