ABSTRACT
Although it might seem that a genre concerned with otherness and alienation should frequently be drawn to explore themes of racism, for most of its history sf has considered itself a “colorblind” genre, either blithely portraying a future free from racial struggle (not seeming to notice that this harmony is accomplished by eliminating nonwhite people) or else projecting racial anxieties onto the body of the alien without seeming to notice that the humanity united against this external threat is suspiciously monochrome. It is perhaps more accurate to see sf’s supposed “colorblindness” as an investment in whiteness as the norm – the very idea that is challenged by critical race theory. Although recent analyses of sf have embraced the insights of postcolonial theory and used them to investigate the unconsciously racialized settings, characters, and events of much sf, considerably less work has been done to bring together critical race theory and sf. After sketching out some of the main ideas and theorists associated with critical race theory, this chapter will consider existing scholarship on sf and race and then suggest ways in which it might be expanded and developed through the methods and insights of critical race theory. It will conclude with a brief discussion of Afrofuturism, a distinctly African-American mode of engagement with technoscience that has developed in parallel with sf.
