In 1965, Amiri Baraka called on filmmakers, engineers, architects, chemists, electronics artisans, and more to go beyond Western ideals when creating technology. “[O]ur creations need not emulate the white man’s," he said. But what does that really mean?
If technology helps shape our world, that’s an opportunity. Baraka even detailed an idea for an invention: the “expression-scriber.” It’s better than a typewriter. It could convey not just language but raw feelings and intention three-dimensionally. Expression would come from our fingers on the keyboard - and our whole body.
The idea of “informational Blackness” requires culture, technology, and technoculture. Scholar André Brock Jr. connects this imaginative framework of Baraka’s imagination to our social media and smartphones today. How do we use technology to express ourselves today? How will we?
Black Twitter is one example. There are also Afrofuturist approaches like Black Quantum Futurism. Livestreams make sure nothing gets lost in translation. There are even virtual reality exhibits, allowing you to walk right into Black history. That could be a tool used to imagine and practice our liberated futures, too.
Technology will always shift. But the way we use technology matters. We aren’t just consumers of it - we’re creators. Will we decide to make the firecracker or the bomb? As Baraka sharply wrote, “Machines have the morality of their inventors.”