After Reading Samuel R Delany's Babel-17. . .

As I sat reading Samuel R. Delany’s Babel-17, I wondered what was the significance for my reading this book other than it being assigned by my professor. I struggled through the pages trying to imagine myself in the world that Delany had created. When I finished the last page, still as confused as when I first started reading I decided to see if I could find anything that would help me understand the reading. I came across an interview that Delany had with Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah for the Paris Review in which Delany made a statement that put everything in perspective for me. Samuel R Delaney stated

“science fiction isn't just thinking about the world out there. It’s also thinking about how that world might be—a particularly important exercise for those who are oppressed, because if they’re going to change the world we live in, they—and all of us—have to be able to think about a world that works differently” (2011).

At that moment I started to understand Babel-17 differently. In Babel -17 Delany imagines a future in which communication is a force that brings people together. It doesn't matter what planet they came from, what kind of cosmetic alterations they had, in Delany’s world people were drawn together through communication whether it be spoken language or body language. What Delany and other artists in the world of Afrofuturism provided us with the imagination needed to envision change in our society so that we can work toward the change we wish to see. 

                                                                       Nigerian artist Komi Olaf’s ’3014′