Reed’s Flight to Canada as a Manifestation of Afrofuturism

Abstract

This paper deals with Afrofuturism as a literary aesthetic whereby African artists, such as Ishmael Reed, 
can anticipate a counter-reality through which they are able to practice their liberty. Afrofuturism 
represents the other voice of the marginalized blacks against the white authority and it is a reaction to 
the heavy use of technology by the whites to promote themselves over other races. It is a means at the 
hands of the black artists to recognize the inequality and oppression imposed over the Africans. The 
Afrofuturists often criticize the hegemony of the global status quo whether it is social, political or even 
technical. Thus, this movement came to existence due to the dehumanization that the Africans have 
faced since the Middle Passage, the slave trade case; the black nation which has no past, present, and 
even future from the Western perspective. The main goal that Afrofuturism is about to achieve is to 
imagine a good future for the Africans far from the white restrictions, and it shows how the blacks can 
use modern technology, or in general, how the black culture intersects with the twentieth century 
technological issues. The study discusses Reed’s Flight to Canada (1976), a novel that parodies the slave 
narrative and at the same time it draws a good future for its black slave characters, Raven Quickskill and 
Uncle Robin, as they plan to get their freedom away from the white supremacy. While Quickskill escapes 
to Canada to live in peace and getting his freedom, Robin stays under his slavemaster order plotting 
one day can manage himself freely.