on Motherboard - Vice Media is interesting for all sorts of reasons. Because of The American Slave Coast's subject, this section of the article stood out particularly:
In fact, as Junot Díaz pointed out on an episode of the Fan Bros podcast back in 2013, many of the themes in science fiction don’t even make sense without living in a world with marginalized people. He said it best:
Look. Without our stories, without the true nature and reality of who we are as people of color, nothing about fanboy and fangirl culture makes sense. What I mean by that is, if it wasn’t for race, X-Men doesn’t make sense; if it wasn’t for the history of breeding human beings through chattel slavery, Dune doesn’t make sense; if it wasn’t for the history of colonialism and imperialism, Star Wars doesn’t make sense; if it wasn’t for the extermination of so many indigenous nations, most of what we call “first contact” stories don’t make sense. Without us as the secret sauce, none of this works, and it is about time that we understand that we are the Force that holds the Star Wars universe together. We’re the Prime Directive that makes Star Trek possible. We are… in the Green Lantern Corps? We are the Oath. We are all of those things. Erased, and yet without us? We’re essential.The sections of the essay are divided into the traditional sfnal tropes, such as transformation, the replicant, alien and revolution. The sections are illustrated with references to well-known sfnal writers and music videos. It's pretty darned interesting.
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