Combatting Dreams Deferred in English Language Arts by Dr. Stephanie Toliver

The Sunday Post on Ethical ELA is a year-long series featuring contributions from English language arts educator-scholars from across the country. In this series, we hope to expand notions of what secondary English language arts is, can do, and can be. Explore past posts on our “Teacher Ed” page.

Combatting Dreams Deferred in English Language Arts by Dr. Stephanie Toliver

In his timeless poem, “Harlem,” Langston Hughes asked, “What happens to a dream deferred?” It was a predictive question, one that asked society to reckon with the institutionally upheld racial injustices experienced by Black people in a country presumably built on the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Of course, many Black and Brown folx knew the American Dream was never meant for them, as some of the men who publicly signed freedom into law discreetly forced Black people into enslavement. As racial injustice maintains its foundation in the lives of modern-day Black people, Hughes’ inquiry is even more poignant, as the dream deferral may continue for years to come. In fact, if science fiction (SF) novels published during the same decade as Hughes’ poem presented any indication, the dreams of Black and Brown people would be deferred in perpetuity, as the white imaginary refused to acknowledge the existence of a Black future.

Take, for example, an interview of science fiction author Samuel Delaney by Mark Dery. Responding to questions about Black people and SF, Delaney discussed the genre as a restricted space, one that has greatly signaled hostility toward people of the global majority. Specifically, he said the “​​imagistic paraphernalia of science fiction functioned as social signs – signs people learned to read fairly quickly. They signaled technology. And technology was like a placard on the door saying, “Boys Club! Girls, keep out. Blacks and Hispanics and the poor in general, go away.” In other words, people who were not white, male, and middle or upper class were not welcomed as writers or readers of science fiction. These sentiments were echoed by numerous white male authors, some who controlled avenues for SF publishing.

For instance, Edgar Rice Burroughs – an American fiction writer known for his SF, fantasy, and adventure stories, including the Tarzan Series and several novels about humans being transported to various planets – said the following: “White men have imagination, Negroes have little, animals have none.” Thus, somewhere between human and beast lies Black folx, whose imaginations are as limited as their perceived intelligence. Additionally, in defense of racial segregation, John Campbell, former editor of Analog, the renowned science fiction magazine, wrote:

The Caucasian race has produced super-high-geniuses by the dozen in the last five thousand years; the Oriental race has, also. The Negro race has not. And it’s the super-high geniuses, not the ordinary, or run-of-the- mill geniuses, that lift a people from one level of civilization to another.

Similar to Burroughs, Campbell suggests a Black imagination deficit, one that prevents them from producing “super-high geniuses,” thus limiting their ability to ascend to higher levels of civilization. According to Delaney, this same editor rejected his short story, Nova, “explaining that he didn’t feel his readership would be able to relate to a black main character.” Campbell wasn’t against Delaney’s Black identity, “it was the poor benighted readers, out there in America’s heartland, who, in 1967, would be too upset.” Of course, we’ll never know if Campbell was really thinking about the readership, or whether it was a way to avoid publishing a Black author’s work.

Perhaps, though, Campbell was on to something, as Black people who dare to read and write SF are often maligned by white fandom. In 2009, conversations about race in SF and fantasy, which had been taking place in fan communities for years, erupted in what is now known as Racefail ’09. The conversations started as a reaction to a blog post on writing the Other that was written by Elizabeth Bear, a white author. In response to the post, Indigenous, Black, Asian, and Latinx SF and fantasy fans commented on the power, privilege, and historical legacy of white authors writing and publishing about characters of color in speculative fiction. Instead of listening to those who critiqued the post, however, Nalo Hopkinson noted that some white fans became “angry at the anger displayed by people of color in the community.”  That is, groups of people defended the white author’s right to write the Other in speculative fiction narratives, and they attempted to silence the Othered in the process because they didn’t critique Bear’s words nicely.

In 2013, a minor faction of SF writers and critics created the “sad puppies” and “rabid puppies” who campaigned against the politicized trajectory of the genre, which is “code for it becoming more diverse and exploring more themes of social justice, race, and gender.” Their goal was to overtake the Hugo Awards and uplift their own white writers who would refrain from making speculative fiction a dogmatic genre. Their objective failed, as Black women were and continue to be awarded, but the initiative continues each year as the puppies attempt to remove authors who are not white and male. The puppies’ beliefs are not new, of course, considering a respondent from a 2003 Fantasy and SF survey quoted the following: ‘Give us candy, not nice healthy carrots.’ And spare me the lectures on racism, homophobia, sexism, etc.” In other words: “Boys Club! Girls, keep out. Blacks and Hispanics and the poor in general, go away.”

I detail the history of racism, generally, and anti-blackness, specifically, in speculative fiction because although these instances happen in the publishing industry, they also happen in our classrooms. I’ve loved speculative fiction my entire reading life, but when I was a high school teacher, my reading selections were often limited to required texts alongside those I found in the book room. Speculative fiction was relegated to Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, 1984, or Harrison Bergeron. There were only a handful of times when I brought women SF writers into the classroom, bringing in short stories like “The Ones Who Walk Away from the Omelas” by Ursula LeGuin and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Texts featuring Black characters were steeped in conversations centering the Civil Rights Movement (e.g,. Warriors Don’t Cry) and racism (e.g., To Kill a Mockingbird or excerpts from Native Son), Looking back on these selections now, I see how I nailed a placard on my classroom door, covertly telling my Black students that this genre wasn’t for them. Did I say it out loud? Of course not. My intent was not to block the entrance I’d craved to enter ever since I was a child, but my curriculum choices were loud and clear. I had the hammer in my hand, adding more nails to the wooden blockade.

I didn’t learn how to use that hammer to knock down the barrier until I began reading the work of Virginia Hamilton, one of the few Black writers who published SF novels for children in the 1970s and 1980s. In one of her essays, “On being Black in America,” she talked about the hopescape, a place for authors to show the community, culture, history, and tradition of Black people as parallel, rather than beneath the larger American culture. To create this place of hope, she knew it was important for authors to imaginatively use their language and ideas to portray the humanity of Black people so that all people could be reminded “to care who these black people are, where they come from, how they dream, how they hunger, [and] what they want.” To do this, she believed a triad of perspectives – the known, the remembered, and the imagined – were essential, that the multitude of Black experiences couldn’t be relegated to one point of view or one literary genre. I also learned from Christopher Myers, whose article, “The Apartheid of Children’s Literature”, discussed the boundaries imposed on the imaginations of Black children and other children of color. From these writers, I learned that having the speculative imaginations of white authors prominently featured on my syllabus, while relegating Black life to specific points of view and genres meant that I was imposing boundaries, that I was in the way of the hopescape.

Now, I try to center diversity in my literature courses, opting for stories that meet across various intersections of identity, format, and genre. This work isn’t easy, of course. Books still cost a lot of money, and resources aren’t always readily available for SF books. But, I do believe we owe it to our students to widen the entrance to the dreamscape so that no barrier can ever block it. I believe we owe our students a corrective to the racist history of SF fandom, uplifting them when people argue that they lack imagination, challenging any person who can’t see their genius,  and demanding that people get the “nice healthy carrots” that force them to consider the realities of this and other worlds. We owe it to our students to tear down the placards telling them they’re not welcome, telling them to keep out, go away, and never dream again.

Langston Hughes asked, “What happens to a dream deferred?” In my dreams of the future – in my hopescape – we won’t have to ask this question because the speculative imaginings of Black youth won’t sag like a heavy load. Instead, their imaginations can explode, making for a vibrant, fireworks display of dreams, of love, of hope. Instead, the placard will say, “All are welcome. Please, come dream with me.”

Black SF Teaching resources

Legendborn Reading Group Guide

Wings of Ebony Reading Group Guide

Website with lists of Black SF books

YA Wednesday Picks (Toliver, April 2019)