Mother Africa

Through the readings and movies, Parable of the Sower, Children of Men, and 28 Days Later, we are given the image of a black woman as the survivor in a dystopian future. In a large amount of science fiction media, black woman come to represent that which is most human. Jayna Brown remarks how they alone seem to be “visionaries of the apocalypse”, and they “receive the apocalyptic message.”

Jayna Brown explained how the black women in both Children and 28 Days were both ‘outsiders’ in british society thus closer to the apocalyptic truth. Kee from Children is an immigrant, and throughout the course of the movie very rarely moves beyond the symbol of humanity’s hope for the future. She is rarely shown beyond her biological worth and sexual function. This has unfortunate parallels to the representations of black women during the era of slavery, when black women were nothing more than tools. And, to many of the characters in Children of Men, Kee is just that. The Fishes want to use her to incite rebellion, and the progressive, peaceful, humanistic and scientific political left represented by Theo’s wife Julian, and the Human Project, wants to use her to try and remedy humanity’s infertility.

However, Selena’s representation in 28 Days Later is not that of a tool like Kee’s. Brown argues that “Selena is rendered the most human”. Unlike Kee who was a refugee, a complete outsider of the white british patriarchy, Selena is both Black and British. As an outsider she is able to see and accept the breakdown of this white patriarchy in the world and move on.

Lauren in Sower is also another black woman that recognizes the rotting society around her, leading her to begin anew with her religion of Earthseed. One of her Earthseed passages is;

A tree
Cannot Grow
In its parents’ shadows

And thus it takes someone on the outskirts, the black female, to bring the world to Utopia, to “take root among the stars.”

Brown speculates that the centrality of Black women in dystopian futures, “signifies the necessary death of white privilege in a potential utopian future.” When the White, Western, European patriarchy is destroyed, whether it be by the rage virus or by infertility and xenophobia, the most human of us will rise from the ashes; the representation of Mother Africa, the cradle of humanity. To start over from an apocalypse we have to go to the beginning, and the beginning starts with a black woman.

Michael Randolph