Dr. Julian Chambliss: Revolutionizing Black Panther, CP Time, and Real and Imagined Cities

Welcome to Reflections and Afro Futurism Podcast. My name is Phoenix Miranda and I'm your host. In three episodes, myself and a few guests explore the aesthetics and intersections of Afro Futurism to not only recognize its impact on our personal lives but the world around us as well. So you're ready? I said are you ready? Say life. Here I have my professor, Julian Tamless. You know, I'll have you introduce yourself because you do so many things. Yeah, my degrees in history I write about real and imagined places. That's how I use this sort of simplify it for people. So a lot of my public writing is about comics because that's an urban narrative. So race and community and space. Those are things that you see in plans. So I've written a lot about comics as sort of exemplars of a kind of urban transformation in the United States. A lot of my digital work using digital tools to ask human questions. That's a simple way to think about visual humanity. Focus is on black spaces. Right. So the legacy of black spaces in Florida. I'm really interested in black imaginary spaces and as a relate to Afro Futurism. So, you know, black people imagine freedom a lot for obvious reasons. And they do that both in terms of literary practice. You know, they write stories and things. But they also do that in terms of like activism, right? Like at some level, a lot of black spaces are framed around a laboratory activity. And that can be really complicated. And also can be really simple, right? Create an all black town in the late 19th century is a libertarian act, right? They're trying to create that space to be free of oppression. Other kinds of libertarian acts like the creation of music. For instance, exist as a kind of what it's called referred to as a counter public space. Yeah, there's like a public space. And then you do stuff in that space that fights against the. Oppressive nature of the space. So you create a counter narrative and you know, academics use words like counter. It mean they're in opposition to. And then when it's a black counter public space is black people in opposition to what public narrative about blackness are. And the music is like a black counter public practice sometimes. Right. A lot of times almost every time. Honestly, um, it depends on. It's true. You know, because when you hear it, usually there's a kind of transgressive resistance. And in the future is a sort of point. So like, well, you see how these people are singing about freedom in a moment where black people don't have freedom. Right. Accident like they. It's very intentional. Yeah, like just in the point that as a large. Right. You can sort of look at it that way. But you know, black people also sing about other things. And that's, that's the interesting thing because everything is not Afro futurism just because a black person is doing it. But to your comic pieces, we just finished reading in class, continuing the legacy of the colonizing black panther. Because for me, you know, black panther came out with 2018. I watched that like six times and that was pretty much my introduction to black panther because I wasn't a heavy comic reader as a kid. I just didn't get into that world. I wish I did because I'm reading the comics like this is interesting. It's saying the evolution of things that are pinpointed and how we are shifting to make these comics more revolutionary. So they're not just for white people's enjoyment. But this was really interesting. I'm glad we read it before we met. Can you tell me a little bit about that? Just the things you wanted us to get. I read a lot about black panther. That's probably my third black panther essay. And that's in a book on on black panther. Right. Oh, it's the last essay in that book. I didn't edit that book. I've edited other books. I did not edit this book. And when they asked me about it, I was like really interested in trying to make clear what's happening in black panther as a character, right? Because like when people talk about black panther, they often talk about the movie. It may never read the comic. The comic are your comic studies like not like me. Like that's a field black panther is offered to is like an effort. Like one of the earliest example of the future. And I kind of bothered on understanding that feature. And that's a character created by two Jewish guys. Yeah, I read that. Right. And for those two Jewish guys when they create that character, what they're doing is effort features. But they're doing it at a particular historical moment. So they're concerned with the colonization, right? So again, the moment, historical moment, like when you historian, like you really, you really think about the moments they happen. And for Africa in 1960, that's the moment of continental liberation. A lot of formal colonies aren't becoming free. And this has been something that has happened throughout the early part of the 60s. And this is very exciting for Africa, but it's also very exciting for African America. And one way you just think about the surprise movement is that it's part of a global movement of black liberation. Right. And a lot of black people at the time do think about it that way. Because a lot of people in the United States are always concerned about freedom. You can go back to the 19th century and they're like, when is Africa going to be free? Right. It's demon about like, let's let's go back to Africa. And I think going back to Africa is an idea that white people come up with in the 18th century, they return to the 19th century. And they mean when they talk about colonization, sending all the free black people back to Africa. And they have a very different idea. They're like, we're through it. You were going to go back to the place you smacked us from and we're going to make it better. Where we should have been. Or you should have been. Right. But of course, they can't really do that because they're African American, right? But like there, I was asked, but they are not connected to indigenous groups in the same way. They have a heritage there. They don't have a culture there. So like a place like Liberia, which is founded by, you know, a former. From by African Americans, they come there and they clash with the indigenous people, right? The tribes are already there. Liberia today is is a place where like the the descendants of those Americans, those African Americans that returned. And indigenous people have formed into like a, like a he's a poet, but you know, it's a very complicated exercise. But I point out just simply because Africa is a place that's a part of the African American imagination. For white people, especially white people, good conscience. Or, you know, allies, the liberation of Africa, the end of colonial rule is a good thing. Right. They can imagine how important that is, right? And when you see the creation of a character like Black Panther, that's two Jewish people. And remember Jewish people come up to the diaspora too, they also is displayed. Jew Jewish people recognizing white people, what you did to Africa. If you hadn't come there and messed it up, it would have been, and you get like Wakanda. Right. Yeah. I mean, there are ways that that story is very problematic. Like, you know, monarchy and all these other things, the hyper mask and then blah blah blah. There's like a really sort of like straight ahead look imperialism and colonialism destroyed things. It this place things it prevented. And so, you know, they're imagining this sort of like place unspoiled by imperialism, but they are white, right? I mean, they are, they are not black. You know, Jewish and, you know, there's argument here about lightness and the restrictions around it. Most people who walk around the United States today were, were not be classified white and 1900. Most quantum white people, they would not be classified. Part of the reason they're able to, the claim it's because of juxtaposition, right? They, they define themselves opposition to black people. They change the character. Right. Like they make the character more adhering to a kind of politics that aligns with black people. And what I wanted to do in that chapter was talk about that, right? Like what does it mean to say that this character that is without question is core Afro futurists and it's core are kind of like libertary narrative. What does it mean to have black people, especially over time, engage more and more with their libertarian narrative? Like in the change that they make sort of add to it being more revolutionary, right? And making more counter-public. They make some more thinking about how black people must navigate the world. And when you look at the comics and you, and you can sort of see it, right? You can see it if you, if it's pointed out to you, I think comics are often not thought about as a serious medium in the United States. That's not the case in other parts of the world, but the United States they're, they're primarily a juvenile media. They're, you know, other parts of the world, and adults re-comics and there's no question about it. So, you know, clearly sophisticated stories to be told with comics. Thank you so much for that. First of all, this work is great and I'm excited to continue reading the comics so I can really get everything that basically you pointed out in the essay. Like you said, I do sense that you don't really go to comics a lot as like an educational tool. So I think that's something that needs to change. There's clearly so many things you can really touch on and build on with reading comics like this. So thank you for your work. I see it. I thought this question was very interesting in the beginning of the semester. When we began reading Natasha Warmak's, a fairy tale named Blackd, and now we've been reading her stuff throughout the semester. But this question that she said, what decisions do we make because of the limitations or expectations we associate with race? I was really sitting there thinking, you know, that's a really good question. Having to think about, okay, what is it that you do because you think this is what you should do just because of the way you look? I thought there was a really interesting question and I definitely sparked my interest just in the first class. Whatever answer we might come up for this might be the result in us imagining a time where we really don't need to be succumbed by these limitations, you know. Oh, sure. Well, you know, I think one of the things about any. Afro-futurist narrative is that it is asking us to think beyond the boundaries associated with Black there. And I think that's one of the reasons that instinctively a lot of Afro-futurists take on cosmic or spiritual elements because that too is already beyond the bounds of what's in right in front of you, right? Like, well, you know, space is a place like San Rha space is a place. Well, that place is not defined by the earth. And so that's why like the kind of spiritual or cosmological matter so much because, you know, in science fiction in general, as a genre, there is always this sort of emphasis on the possibility of the potentiality that's available to people, right? And what science fiction does over time is that it's always a place where the potentiality of something new, right? So 100 years ago, like in 1920, the way the boys is like, oh, well, in order to make the world a new, we're going to have to like wipe everything out, right? And while we read the comment, I remember like, the way the boys is probably the way the way the boys is probably the most famous Black and Electro-futurist century. So it's often very jarring to people to understand that he wrote science fiction. Like they don't associate him with that. And I'm like, well, it's actually quite common for a lot of intellectuals of that period. Like, they do everything. Like, you always feel lazy as an academic because like, if you go back 100 years and look at academics, they were an athlete, they were an artist, they were a writer, they were a diplomat, they did all this stuff. And you know, I always feel like I didn't get enough stuff done today. And it is just crazy, right? They wrote letters. I mean, people wrote letters in a past in a way that I just don't understand when they got the time to do it. Like in perfect chemistry, I'm here. Like, I was not awesome. And you're like, I'm not doing it. So, you know, this question of like, what we expect from society, what we expect to be in society is it's often very culturally derived. And with Afro-futurism, the possibility that your expectations can be expanded is really, I mean, that's part of the reason why Afro-futurism has so much appeal, right? Like, what does it mean to expand your imagination? Because of course, imagination has a very direct impact on your actions. Like, living a world where, you know, the person who had been at the cell phone, he said that the reason he came up with the idea of the cell phone is he saw a Star Trek and they had the little communicator. And he was a, you know, he was an engineer. And he was like, no, I wonder if you could do that, right? You saw it as a kid and he's like, you know, how would you do that? And he created the concept of the cell phone because he's like, I think you do that. But if he had never seen Star Trek, he would be a thought of it. Yeah, where would that idea have been, you know, stem from? Right, yeah. It might have come from somewhere. I mean, a lot of ideas come from different places at the same time, but the guy who actually did it, we asked him, it was Star Trek. It was Captain Kirk with the community. Right. That's true. A lot of people who saw Star Trek wanted a new science. And before Star Trek, you know, some scientists like, oh yeah, you know, I read Buck Rogers and a kid. And so I wanted to be, I wanted to be a rocket scientist. And like, he was a rocket scientist. Like, it was an oral history interview. He was like, how'd you get involved in naturalism? Buck Rogers. I read Buck Rogers as a kid and I was just so fascinated. And so, you know, so it's not, it's not to say that like imagining things doesn't matter. We know that they did. But for white people and really a lot of people have colored what they're allowed to imagine is super limited. Right. Because the people in charge, the people who are the gatekeepers as it were, so often can't imagine those people doing something beyond X. A lot of theorists, a lot of cultural theorists and cultural critics, you know, they are, they are super critical of popular culture and sort of complement it is because of the limitation of associative with what those necessists tell people. And that's why Afrofeaturism, why I feel like you touched a little man who writes about this in her book, Afrofeaturism, right? Like, she's writing about grown personal journey around exploring a different kind of speculative landscape. And her journey is like a journey that everyone can sort of like emulate the kids. Right. And so it's a great, a great entryway into like that fundamental question. What is it that your imagination allows you to do? Yeah, and I agree with that. And Mark Dare even, he said, kind of people who's been basically who have endured like the worst of the worst. Imagine a better future like is it possible? I think I remember reading that at some point in the, in the beginning of the semester. I mean, clearly we can and we have, and we've seen that, you know, as early as the 18th century, but there were people before that as we were reading through Womack and as we shifted to more of the historical evolution of this, like I was one person who did I know that Du Bois was a sci-fi writer. So that was really interesting to me. Just him writing about like a catastrophe, bringing white and blacks together, but even that didn't last when you were talking about, you know, these sciences and you asked them, you know, how did you get started? What made you do this? Well, because I saw this and I saw that how the arts, how film, literature, music is that impactful. And that's all aesthetics of Afrofeaturism. I think that's why I like this so much. We have literally, we have Erika Badu, we have Denimo and Nate, we have people like Sunrot, George Clinton, and then in literature, Zorniel Hurston, she's considered a pioneer of this Afrofeaturist movement. That was very interesting to me because it's not space, it's not the typical, like, futuristic, it's the ways of black people and highlighting the things that we can create when we are just given the opportunity and the space to thrive and claiming the vernacular that we have and not being forced to assimilate to, you know, what's deemed proper. And you are part of that festival that we were discussing earlier that represents her. Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things about the fighting Afrofeaturism, that is a challenge for everybody, but we should always be mindful of is that Afrofeaturism is a practice, right? We say Afrofeaturism, but we're really talking about black speculative practice, right? Like, how do I people imagine in the public space? And what does that, what does that mean? Any moment where black people, especially in American context, and I think about this in terms of the American context, like North America and its history, almost every moment that black people are sort of like striving to do better is a speck into that, right? Because they're doing it in the context of like a slave society. And so they're doing it in the context of like a really anti-black oppressive system. And so even though they might be doing something as simple as seeing, right? We can understand that that represents again, like an example of like a black counter-public practice, right? Because the public has one narrative, like the white majority, the white average doctor has one narrative about blackness that is subservient and wrong, right? That's part of the reason why slavery is okay. And what what black people have to like constantly do is go like, well, no, that's not that's not true. And they have to do that in different ways, different moments, right? Like they can't always do it like straight ahead. They can't go to like their the overseen to be like, you know what you're on about? I'm a work, right? But if you listen to the work songs, they're making fun of them. Or they're, you know, transmitting messages about slow things now, right? I mean, there's a chronopolitics of black life, chrono meaning time, politics meaning politics, right? So the like when people talk about color people's time, right? They're actually referencing like a really complicated chronopolitic, right? Because like black people and a lot of people of color are in an industrial system that's exploited. And one way they can exert agencies by slowing things down, right? So like they don't want to show up on time. They don't want to go by machine time because that machine is demonizing, right? And so like this is like a cultural thing that like no black person's ever explained, but they exhibit. And it's just always a thing. See? But sometimes I'm working on color people's time. Right. Which is like, you know, silly and so low, but it's the truth. Like that's why almost all people color a high-persistent system to systemic injustice. And it plays itself out across different systems of pride. So that's why like the outside of figure is like a recurring pro in things that involve people of color. Right. Like it doesn't matter because the outsider is fighting the system and the system they know is not fair. So they can embrace the outsider even if the outsider is quote unquote criminal because like the system itself is problematic, which is why like in rap music, this sort of criminal fantasies when like the drug dealer hustler as a hero figure, that's why that makes sense. There are lots of reason why it's a bad thing, but there's also like a perfectly reasonable reason it makes sense. And distinguishing between the one versus the other, you know, that's that's the work of trying to understand how black people are navigating. like all people are navigating our really oppressive system. You know, you just look outside your window right now, but like people who are talking about, I don't want to count these votes. And this place, this full of black people with X percentage of like votes there outside the norm, but they want to count every vote in a place that full of white people that has doubled the number of things outside the norm. If you're black, I personally like you lying in some of the, like it makes no sense. You're only doing that causes black people that you wanted this in French. Right? Like, you know, Donald Trump, he masters this in a way that's impressive at a level. He uses that language of racial animus to his greatest effect. Like, you know, that's why he had more votes. This election thing got last year. Well, he's been stroking that racial animus for four years. In contrast, what people of color, they've been stroking like we can make it better. Just come out to make it safer. Like it's not the same thing, but it's almost the exact opposite. It's one of the things that's really complicated about a kind of libertary narrative for white people is that they assume that the libertary narrative is going to, by the fault, create a moment where they are not okay. This is, this is why I always point out the students, there's nothing inherently that requires you because most of the students are white. So there's nothing in Afrofeatures that necessarily you can't be in Afrofeatures because there's nothing in Afrofeatures that necessarily requires white people to suffer. It's just like if you treat black people better, everyone will be okay. Basically what it is. So like you can be in Afrofeatures and be white. Like it's not, I know a bunch of Afrofeatures are white. They're super cool people, but they also recognize the complications of them being white and advocate. - Yeah, it's the game, yeah. - It's a thing, but there's nothing about the philosophy that requires you to be black. The challenge, I think, for everyone who try to understand Afrofeatures is to understand that reality, right? But there's a set of practices that aren't linked at some level to African diaspora experience that embrace a kind of liberation at the goal and by following that, everybody will be better. But yeah, there's an element here where like it's a lot of black people talking about liberation. - Mm-hmm. - And that's really complicated for white people, right? - Yeah, I mean, yeah, I get it. So then we have Afrofeatures in the past contrasted Pauline Hopkins and George Schuller. Like, they're different takes on, you know, what we should be focusing on. I thought that was really interesting. Like, with Pauline Hopkins, we have this strong drive to the motherland, Afrocentricity and, you know, knowing where you come from, knowing that society says, that's one thing, but like, who cares what the odds say? This is what you are able to do. Comparison from Schuller, who is telling us, just be quiet. All of you guys were talking about race. It just doesn't even matter. Forget it. His book, Black No More. - It's a sad tire. - Yeah, it's definitely sad tire. - And part of his, he's a conservative. - Right. - Like, she was a black conservative. And he's critical of the kind of excesses that you might associate with race, race, ideologies of the time period, right? So like, he's not buying at some level. Kind of talented to argument. And like, at some level, he's also, yeah, black people get all this power. Are they gonna need any better than white people? - Right. - So, you know, he's sort of like, ask me and think about whether like the ways that a active rule system that's not tied to race will have. Which is, in some ways, a classic conservative thought, right, a lot of conservatives today argue that, you know, as long as that there's a equal process then the outcome is okay, right? And I'm like, you know, part of the critique of that is like, there isn't an equal process because there are people involved and they got like racist ideas, right? So I often point this out and like, I deal with stuff related to planning. It doesn't matter what black people do. Their property is under value because they own it, right? Like, it's not, it's not because like they did something and that drove down the value. No, they owned it and because they owned it, it doesn't accrue the same value in the market, which is controlled by white people. So you can have a house that looked exactly the same to a house in the white neighborhood and it's worth less. Period. They could have owned it 100 years but it's in a black neighborhood. So it's worth X. If you move that house magically over to a white neighborhood and it's owned by white people, it's worth worth more. And I'm like, that right there gives you, like it doesn't matter. Like nobody doesn't do anything. I said, build a house, own a house, and you can't just keep it up. Right. What's different is like white people got it, right? That's my identification. Like when people are identification, like, well, you're not just a market worker. No, that's not just a market worker. That's not how that worked. Right? Like it's displacement. Right? Like it doesn't matter. Because like it makes it sound like nothing's happening. Like no, people with money and power are using a series of things to move people without. And then when they gone, that space gets more value. And that sort of spoken complexity, like, you really do have to recognize this sort of the near of race and culture that is informing how you actually experienced the system, right? So it's there even before you show up to ask the question about X, Y, and Z. And that's a real challenge for people to understand. And one of the things about feature is that it does the center that practice. And that's one of the things that makes it both drawing and inspiring, right? Because like for someone who's grown up in a system where like, well, normality is the pilot blackness. When you get to an afflifteure story, all that that quote unquote norm stuff gets questioned. Sometimes really subtly, but sometimes really directly. And for some people, that's a huge problem. Because they're like, well, I don't understand why is that. Well, but for other people, it's not a huge problem, right? It makes perfect sense. It's always a question about what are you seeing. And that feature is always asking you to see things that they don't like. Yeah, and that gets to the many definitions we have. Because I think in the beginning, I was just wondering, like, what are we going to call this? Because we studied so many different people's perspectives. We have a way of imagining possible features through a cultural black lens. That's a touchable, my quoting, Ingrid Laflour. But then we have the intersection of imagination, technology, the future and liberation. And we have Alondra Nelson's epistemologies, what she calls it, you know, theory of knowledge. One of the main goals being bring the Afro-Dyesporic experience to life in new ways. I kind of like that different people can add on to what it means to themselves as long as it's staying within the confines of, I guess, what we've said it is. There's still structure. There is still structure. I think, you know, definitions are always complicated. But what all those definitions share is that they, they ask us to think about the subject position of black people and blackness, right? How is blackness being defined? How is that definition affecting black people? And what all of them also are asking us to do is think about liberation. Like, how do you change it, right? And so, as a theoretical exercise, again, it goes back to the moment that people are visioning these definitions, right? Because knowledge does change over time. And we all experience this, right? We know things about medicine now that we did not know 100 years ago. It's not magic. Like, we learned more as we were going along. The same thing is through a technology, like, you know, a phone now that's going to like a phone 100 years ago. Right. Like, and we all accept that, right? No one's going like, I can't imagine how the guy here, like, because it changes because you learned it. And the same is true of race. 100 years ago. If you were an Italian American, you were not white. If you were a check, like, if you, your family was from check about, you were not like, if you were Jewish, you were not white. Like, the number of people who were classified at white in 1920, any United States, was very narrow. It was basically people from a certain part of England, like the British Isles and a certain part of Germany. Everybody else wasn't white, not just simply white people, but everybody else. In fact, they had court cases where people were suing to be defined as white. So when we talk about identity, and we talk about defining ourselves, remember that it is, it is an intellectual exercise. It's a social exercise, but it's intellectual exercise. That it's an exercise of like people providing meaning for race. And that meaning being a justification for practice. So I get to do extra, these people because they're not white. And what these people were in the past was a lot of different. And the people that you can do the worst thing to were black. So for all those people who weren't black, who weren't white, but also weren't black, what they had to do is figure out, how can I distance myself from being black? How can I distance myself from being black? Right. I want to not be black. Yeah. That is not to do a horrible thing. But that has colored identity on the globe forever. Right. Right. Like, you know, you never see in popular culture, black humans. But if you go to Cuba, black people everywhere. I've been in Cuba, black people everywhere. Like the, the light skin, cubans are like a small percentage. When you walk in on the street, it's like, you're not a color of a benetop, right? Like they're black people all over the world. Yeah. The same thing is true of Brazil. One thing you know, our light skin, but that's a particular subset of a population Super black, right? Super super black. But both of those places have a kind of racial politic where like a lot of skin people are taught. Yeah, it gets into colorism Right, and you know even in the Asian world like like no skin white like in India a cast as though there's no there's no question that I Understanding about damage is infected infected Inflected infected both by questions of power and those questions of power use of vehicle like a kind of race-based distortion and With Afro futurism. I think it asks us to pause about that Assess to stop and think about something else and there are other futurism too, right? There's native futurism. There's desi futurism. There's other visions of the future that acts in a similar way Did I like well, you know why does it have to be centered on this so the battle for the future that you know We always fight in the present relies on at some level on us like we think in the past Right like like that's that's one definition of thinking about the future I like the future is a undetermined. This is a quote Hayden why who's a theorist? I mean, it's just like the future is a yet undetermined landscape that is going to be achieved through means not yet clear Right, so it's like that's why the past is so important because like the past is the past So monopolizing people's understanding of the past helps justify the present which Can project into the future. So when people especially in our states contacts are like very deliberately not wanting to talk about what happened In the past are not wanting to admit you know bad things happen in the past and it was a ratio, right? Like why people tend to always tell people of color you let it go But they in term will never let anything go really into the past, right? Like you can't be like all you people let let it all go While I will hold tight to like my remembrance of the past Meanwhile the people like you know, I was there too. It wasn't that way Right, so really happened. I really happened right like so like when you know again, I'm going to Some of my Donald Trump like make America great again. When was it great if you weren't a white guy? Yeah, right when was it great? Exactly. Can you name a moment of space in the time, right? Like that's an important question It is to that question with a straight face I'm not being able to like go like well, you know they were doing this horrible thing to people when you when you talk about that and The answers you can't right like it doesn't matter every time in the past you talk about I'm like what about the Native American women couldn't vote then you were hanging black people and Asian people and in Mexico So like make America great again. It's such a signal to our white imagination or the past that of course And there's every black person and brown person Right like they of course it does because everyone's got a grandmother and she can tell you about the past she will tell you details Right like it wasn't good right like you know, so how's that you're not getting anything past people they know Yeah Saying that because you want X right so it's it's always this question about a battle that is ongoing and Is a tool to think about that future is paying and yeah, and I think that's an important thing that