Damion Kareem Scott

When adopting a Futurist point of view, we often work with background notions of what is properly ‘Afro’ about Afrofuturism (AF) or ‘Black’ about Black Futurism (BF). There are various compelling views on the relations and senses of Afrofuturism and Black Futurism, both orthodox and unorthodox. I will begin by examining the original usage of the word ‘Afrofuturism,’ which depends on unanalyzed conceptions of ‘Africana'. and ‘Blackness.’ The definitions that set the initial usage are apt for clarification through a semantic analysis of the concepts embedded in the original definitional stipulations. My contribution to Critical Black Futures is an argument for a difference, if not a complete disjunction, between the concepts ‘Afrofuturism’ and ‘Black Futurism’. I conclude with specific applications of aesthetic, semantic, and socio-ontological insights in relation to the concepts of Afrofuturism and Black Futurism. These applications draw primarily from Martin Delany’s novel Blake, or The Huts of America, along with the film Black Panther.