Speculative BlackneSS This page intentionally left blank SPECULATIVE BLACKNESS The Future of Race in Science Fiction andré m. carrington University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis London A version of chapter 4 appeared as “Drawn into Dialogue: Comic Book Culture and the Scene of Controversy in Milestone Media’s Icon,” in The Blacker the Ink, ed. Frances Gateward and John Jennings (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2015). Por- tions of chapter 6 appeared as “Dreaming in Colour: Fan Fiction as Critical Reception,” in Race/Gender/Class/Media, 3d ed., ed. Rebecca Ann Lind (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson, 2013), 95–101; copyright 2013, printed and electronically reproduced by per- mission of Pearson Education, Inc. Copyright 2016 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy- ing, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by the University of Minnesota Press 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290 Minneapolis, MN 55401- 2520 http://www.upress.umn.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Carrington, André M. Speculative blackness: the future of race in science fiction / andré m. carrington. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8166-7895-2 (hc) ISBN 978-0-8166-7896-9 (pb) 1. American fiction—African American authors—History and criticism. 2. Science fiction, American—History and criticism. 3. Race in literature. 4. African Americans in mass media. 5. African Americans in popular culture I. Title. PS374.N4C37 2016 813.009’896073—dc23 2015008724 Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper The University of Minnesota is an equal- opportunity educator and employer. 21 20 19 18 17 16 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves. — Langston HugHes This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS Introduction The Whiteness of Science Fiction and the Speculative Fiction of Blackness 1 1 Josh Brandon’s Blues Inventing the Black Fan 30 2 Space Race Woman Lieutenant Uhura beyond the Bridge 68 3 The Immortal Storm Permutations of Race in Marvel Comics 89 4 Controversy and Crossover in Milestone Media’s Icon 117 5 The Golden Ghetto and the Glittering Parentheses The Once and Future Benjamin Sisko 156 6 Dreaming in Color Racial Revisions in Fan Fiction 195 Coda 238 Acknowledgments 243 Notes 247 Index 269 This page intentionally left blank INTRODUCTION The Whiteness of Science Fiction and the Speculative Fiction of Blackness the point of departure for my research on speculative fiction (SF) was a desire to spark informed dialogue that would build on the lessons I have learned from critical reflections on literature and media, while also making the concerns that animate my career as a Black intel- lectual more legible within these conversations. The tradition of intellec- tual inquiry into popular culture points toward speculative fiction as an exemplary venue for understanding how the production of literature and culture fits within the structure of societies in which it takes place. In par- ticular, there has been a generation of cultural criticism published about the ways in which popular texts resonate with the interests of attentive, actively engaged fans and academic researchers concerned with gender, sexuality, class, national identities, and changing technologies. With def- erence to research in these areas, however, I have come to believe that scholarship does not yet provide all of the tools required to articulate what science fiction, fantasy, and utopia mean to Black Americans. Some of the most important questions that speculative fiction provokes for scholars who think, as I do, that race and racism should be paramount concerns in any inquiry into the relationship between popular culture and its social context are just beyond the reach of prevailing approaches to the genre. I intend to bring them closer. The interest I take in SF texts and the ways in which I negotiate my role as a fan and critic of the genre are closely bound up with what it means for me to be Black and what it means for me to be an academic. This is a book about what speculative fiction, in the many ways we encounter it and embody it, has to say about what it means to be Black. It is also about how placing Blackness at the center of discussions about speculative fiction • 1 augments our understanding of what the genre might be and what it might do. Authors and audiences from a variety of racial backgrounds have brought speculative fiction into being through production, consumption, representation, interpretation, and reception. In that process, we have refracted ideas of Blackness through the meaning-making conventions of the genre. This book examines those mediations of Blackness through the lens of genre, and it also interprets speculative fiction through the critical lens of Blackness. In the chapters that follow, I have examined speculative fiction and media— novels, short fiction, memoirs, performance, film, television, com- ics, amateur publishing, and works circulated on the Internet— in accor- dance with the axiom that popular culture, broadly construed, plays a part in the social construction of identity. This book assays the notion that race is socially constructed, that its meaning is shaped by the habits of persons and institutions, by scrutinizing how genre functions as an orga- nizing principle in the field of cultural production. I argue that the cre- ative acts and interpretive structures through which authors, readers, fans, and critics have shaped the genre tradition of speculative fiction draw on the same deep well of thinking about race that influences other seg- ments of cultural production. Speculative fiction is as saturated with race thinking as any other variety of popular culture, and it tends to reproduce conventional understandings of race for reasons I explore in this intro- duction and throughout the book. By analyzing works that represent the production and reception of speculative fiction, I also demonstrate that race thinking is a salient factor in the way actors on the media landscape employ genre distinctions and reproduce genre conventions in practice. Ultimately, I hope to establish a basis in the interpretation of popular culture for a more expansive understanding of what it means to be Black. I also hope to encourage SF readers and critics to acknowledge that race matters in speculative fiction; whether we realize it or not, our engagement with the genre entails a variety of complex relationships with Blackness. In the first part of this introductory essay, I outline how I am deploying the notion of genre, how I have come to organize an expansive variety of texts for the purposes of this study, and why I am arguing that the field of cultural production is a significant place to look for evidence about rac- ism and racial identity. Following this discussion, I examine some of the underlying assumptions regarding race that are typical in academic criti- cism published on speculative fiction. A significant strain of this writing compares the relative marginality of the genre within the field of literature 2 • INTRODUCTION and literary study to racial subordination; that is, it consists of arguments that invoke racial segregation and discrimination as metaphors for the devaluation of speculative fiction as a tradition that has “less value” than conventional, literary fiction. Another major task among SF critics has been taking stock of the ways in which social differences like race provide the basis for the fictionalized configurations of identity (technological, superhuman, extraterrestrial, supernatural) that characterize the genre. Contrary to these long- standing tendencies to invoke race in metaphori- cal terms, I argue in this book that we ought to focus our critical attention on situations in which race thinking and speculative fiction converge on the meaning of Blackness as such. To comprehend the significance of Blackness in speculative fiction and media, SF critics must cultivate and put into practice sophisticated approaches to understanding race that are relevant to the field of cultural production writ large as well as its social surroundings. Therefore Specu- lative Blackness is not just a study of how Black people are represented in a particular area of popular culture but also an examination of the ways in which Black people’s heterogeneous interests come to bear on the range of cultural endeavors in which we involve ourselves. Thus the last part of this introduction outlines how this book, in dialogue with recent scholar- ship, might further our appreciation for the ways in which Black authors, artists, and audiences have incorporated speculative fiction into the rich, dynamic reservoir of cultural practices on which we draw to fashion our- selves. In that respect, this project resonates deeply with the institutional and vernacular traditions of Black knowledge production. The effort to bring together race- conscious cultural criticism and the study of speculative fiction is not a new endeavor. Before proceeding to the aforementioned discussion of previous studies that share my objec- tive of speaking to the common interests of SF studies and critical think- ing about Blackness, I will articulate how the way I portray speculative fiction in Speculative Blackness addresses the concerns of several fields: literary criticism, cultural studies, American studies, and African Ameri- can studies. My research emerges out of a distinctly African Americanist and feminist practice of scholarship as well as my experiences as a fan. I align my analysis with certain prevailing tendencies and certain critiques in the aforementioned fields, which I acknowledge in turn; accordingly, I offer the present account of how my own perspective has taken shape as an invitation to my fellow scholars to read this book from many disciplin- ary locations.