When I first discovered the concept of Afrofuturism, I knew I wanted to delve deeper into the concept of people of color unable to imagine themselves in the future due to Science Fiction. After all, in a world where racial tensions are rising, depictions of people of color in popular media remain more important than ever. Science Fiction quickly turned me towards some of my favorite books but Legendborn stood out among the rest as a new, not-yet-conquered beast. However, I knew that Legendborn did not fit the science fiction category I started with. To try and decide where exactly the book fit, I spread out my lens to cover all of speculative fiction. After finding the information of realistic representation versus fictional, I decided to stick with overall speculative fiction rather than narrowing down my focus into a singular genre. I gathered my information about inequality in publishing and representations. I quickly used my newfound expertise to show the significance of Deonn’s book and what it does for the community.
This project made me realize the importance of fighting back against publishing patterns. There needs to be a push for more representation in the employment of people of color in publishing, especially the largest ones such as Penguin Random House. By adding more diverse employees, more editors and marketing officials can relate to these stories. By being able to relate to these stories, more diverse fictional books are deemed believable and therefore publishable and marketable. From there, more young people of color will see these books and be able to purchase them. This will increase sales and get more diverse books and authors on the Bestseller lists. The more profits the book makes, the more sellable these books seem. The more sellable they are, the more books and authors these publishers will take on. The cycle will continue but this time in a positive direction rather than a negative direction.
Sometimes to balance out the racial inequality in our day-to-day lives, we have to start small. Our entertainment and trends drive young children’s lives, especially in our modern day society. By increasing the positive interactions between these children of color and their entertainment, the likelihood of them growing up positive in themselves and their abilities rises. Creating a better future starts with raising better children. By increasing representation in entertainment, the more likely these children of color will grow up seeing their self worth and protesting and fighting for a better life. When these children are unable to even imagine themselves in a proper future, how are they supposed to aim for the best situation possible?
Obviously fixing our publishing industry is just a small piece of the overall problem. However, as the Legendborn’s tagline says, ‘some legacies are meant to be broken.’ The more books like Legendborn on the Bestseller lists is a move in the right direction, even if it can not fix everything. Legendborn started a trend and hopefully the drop in the water can create a tidal wave that breaks the legacies down that have repressed African-Americans for centuries. After all, Bree Matthews broke down the racist systems dating all the way back to King Arthur… who’s to say which system is next?