Afrofuturism at Work: Critique & Praxis

• Pages: 1491-1542
• Date: 01 June 2024
• Published date: 01 June 2024
• Author: Etienne C. Toussaint
• Subject Matter: Derecho Civil

Afrofuturism at Work: Critique & Praxis

ETIENNE C. TOUSSAINT*

During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, so-called essen-

tial workers from minoritized racial and ethnic groups were dispropor-

tionately subjected to workplace indignities that resembled, in the words

of Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, a modern “Black plague.” Some observers

expressed faith in existing corporate governance regimes, noting that

many business leaders were steadily improving their management of

competing stakeholder interests. Others, from essential workers to organ-

ized labor, demanded more stringent workplace regulations to combat ir-

responsible corporate behavior and limited worker bargaining power.

However, a few turned to speculative f‌iction—such as Octavia Butler’s

dystopian novel Parable of the Sower—for answers. For legal scholars,

the f‌ictional writings of Butler and other “Afrofuturist” literature—

works that resurrect untold Black histories and imagine Black technocul-

tural futures—not only contain plot elements that seemingly predict mod-

ern societal calamities but also offer pathways to reimagine law and

political economy. This Essay provides two contributions to this emerg-

ing “Afrofuturism and the Law” movement.

First, this Essay advances an Afrofuturist legal critique of the modern

workplace that challenges the form and function of business enterprises in

advanced capitalist markets. Three themes of Afrofuturist literature ground

this critique: (1) Afrofuturism calls for the disruption of elitist, identity-

based hierarchies that undermine human dignity; (2) Afrofuturism urges the

reformation of legal systems that foster alienation in political and economic

society; and (3) Afrofuturism demands the abolition of hegemonic framings

of the human condition that naturalize involuntary human sacrif‌ice (both

literal and f‌igurative) in everyday life. Second, this Essay articulates an

Afrofuturist legal praxis that emphasizes the dialogical, constitutive, and

* Associate Professor of Law, University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law. © 2024,

Etienne C. Toussaint. I thank the many people who provided helpful comments and constructive

feedback on drafts of this Essay, including Madalyn Wasilczuk, Emily Suski, Raff Donelson, Veena

Dubal, Gregory Day, Nate Holdren, Ifeoma Ajunwa, Chaz Arnett, Andre

´ L. Brock, Philip Butler,

Bennett Capers, Adrienne Davis, Jessica Eaglin, Lewis R. Gordon, Paul Gowder, Cierra Robson, and

Sheila Foster. I also benef‌ited tremendously from critical feedback during faculty workshops at The

University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law, The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law

School, American University Washington College of Law, The George Washington University Law

School, and Seattle University School of Law; and during the Afrofuturism and the Law Symposium at

Georgetown University Law Center. I thank Molly Keegan and Jurnee Jones-Holcombe for research

assistance, and Ashley Alvarado and Vanessa McQuinn for editing assistance. I am especially grateful

to the Editors of The Georgetown Law Journal for exceptional editing and support during the

publication process, including Mariah Johnson, Joshua Peck, Samantha Purdy, and Tate Rosenblatt.

Finally, I thank Ebony, Etienne, Edward, and Erwin—I am, because we are. Any errors or omissions

contained in this Essay are my own.

1491

legitimating nature of law. Afrofuturism’s legal critique of the modern

workplace suggests that business enterprises cannot simultaneously man-

age competing stakeholder interests and uphold worker dignity without

reckoning with the alienation and human sacrif‌ice that are endemic to

capitalist economies.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION. 1493

I. ON DIGNITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1499

A. THE LANGUAGE OF LAW . 1500

B. SOCIAL PRACTICE AND CULTURAL DISCOURSE . 1504

C. AFROFUTURISM’S APPEAL TO EGALITARIANISM . 1507

II. ON ALIENATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1512

A. THE ORDER-GIVING POWER OF LAW . 1513

B. THE IDEOLOGICAL POWER OF LAW . 1519

C. AFROFUTURISM’S CRITIQUE OF DOMINATION . 1524

III. ON SACRIFICE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1530

A. LAW’S SANCTION OF HUMAN SACRIFICE . 1531

B. LAW’S APPROVAL OF ANTIDEMOCRACY . 1533

C. AFROFUTURISM’S RECLAMATION OF UNTOLD FUTURES . 1537

CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1540

1492 THE GEORGETOWN LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 112:1491

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All we want do is take these chains off

All we want do is take the chains of pain

All we want do is be free

All we want do is be free

— J. Cole

1

If we don’t watch out for ourselves, they will rob us, kill us, and maybe eat us.

It’s a world gone to hell, . . . and we’ve only got each other to keep it off us.

— Octavia Butler

2

INTRODUCTION

It is the year 2024, and Lauren Oya Olamina’s “world is falling apart.”

3

Conf‌ined within a “walled f‌ish-bowl cul-de-sac community” in Southern California

where armed residents must keep watch for the lurking “street poor”—an “island

surrounded by sharks”—Olamina witnesses the Golden State becoming “a car-

cass covered with too many maggots.”

4

Powerful corporations treat the desperate

working class as “more throwaways than slaves” that are “easy to replace.”

5

“Debt slavery” is commonplace, “living skeletons” roam the streets alongside

“thieves, rapists, and cannibals,” and the “Crazies” have joined forces to “kill

rich people. . . . sometimes they grab a rich guy and set him on f‌ire.”

6

The rich

protect their “estates, enclaves, and businesses” with dogs and “private armies of

security guards,” and “there are at least two guns in every household.”

7

Even as

Olamina’s father, a Baptist pastor, strives to hold their community together with

Christian faith and mutual aid, Olamina has become convinced that the children

of Los Angeles outside of their gated community have “nothing to look forward

to.”

8

Octavia Butler’s dystopic portrayal of twenty-f‌irst century America through

the story of Lauren Olamina in her 1993 novel Parable of the Sower is haunt-

ingly familiar.

9

Corporations in the United States have long attempted to balance

maximizing shareholder value with minimizing social, political, and ecological

harm. Despite good intentions, corporate decision-making has failed to decrease

the concentration of poverty and wealth in the United States. Many U.S. corpo-

rations have opposed efforts to empower workers or mitigate climate change.

1. J. COLE, Be Free (Dreamville Records 2014).

2. OCTAVIA E. BUTLER, PARABLE OF THE SOWER 286 (reissued 2019) (1993).

3. Id. at 275.

4. Id. at 9, 10, 12, 50.

5. Id. at 324.

6. Id. at 89, 110–11, 121, 289.

7. Id. at 39, 40, 117.

8. Id. at 7, 10, 15.

9. Cf. MIKE DAVIS, CITY OF QUARTZ: EXCAVATING THE FUTURE IN LOS ANGELES 224 (2018) (“In

cities like Los Angeles, on the bad edge of postmodernity, one observes an unprecedented tendency to

merge urban design, architecture and the police apparatus into a single, comprehensive security effort.”).

2024] AFROFUTURISM AT WORK: CRITIQUE & PRAXIS 1493