Digital Exclusivity by Inclusivity: Blacks and ‘the’ Digicultural Paradox of Afrofuturism by
Kehbuma Langmia, PhD Howard University, Washington DC Cathy Hughes School of Communications Department of Strategic, Legal, and Management Communication
Behind the Broken Mirror of Hope As Black Panther 2 hit the airwaves November 11, 2022, Afrofuturists like some of us were holding our breath. Is this movie the launching path to Black technological advancement void of epistemic violence or another experiment of fictionalization that bears little resemblance to Black experiential reality? As a Wakandarized Afrofuturistic scholar burning in the nonstop oven of persistent Westernized hegemonic culture, all one can say about this second Black Panther movie launch is that we hope to dream of a world void of Eurocentric White gaze over our shoulders, checking if we are up to par with technological advancement with the rest of the world or not. In case our realities are distorted and our vision doomed, then like Jerome Turner says in Spike Lee’s Blackkklansman movie, our history was already written by the lightning in the sky. So, we may just continue to limp in circles hoping for the chariot to swing low as it comes forth to carry us home . . . But that cannot be true because it is Wakanda forever. Black
22