On Demon Time

Abstract

I think the idea of the end of the world is over stigmatized. Meaning, the end of the world does not have to be the end of the earth—in a planetary sense. However, the malleable and seemingly perpetual nature of planet earth suggests/implies/infers the world is something different. The concept and practice of Worldbuilding places natural environment(s) (in this case earth or whatever it might be called in this new world) and places it in conversation with the mentality, sociality, geopolitical desires, agricultural imagination, and technological advancements of a collection of people. This suggests that a world is a materializing figment of an imagined landscape embodied by enough people who not only bring said world into material reality, but maintain its illusory existence as well. One might consider this as a combined will of sorts. So, the end of the world should be something less than anxiety inducing. Because in this sense it is not the end of earth and life itself, but the end of one particular mode of existence/way of life over others. The end of the world in this case would be the end of an anti-Black world, leading into as many Black worlds that could possibly ever exist/be. This essay will attempt to take a few disparate concepts (spacetime, demons, and the US popular culture concept of demon time) and weave together elements within each in an effort to postulate a necessary cocktail for the end of the world. Here, a cocktail is a potent combination of factors/ingredients converging on a particular coordinate, or set of coordinates, in spacetime. This cocktail relies on the concept of demon time to add both a local and complex ingredient; illegible to previously recognizable attempts at bringing a conclusion to white supremacist and anti-Black world(s). Here, demon time is meant to provide an initial language and framework intended to normalize Black embodiment and way(s) of life. It also acknowledges the ways Black bodies and modes of embodiment/being exist in diametric opposition to normative western conceptions of embodiment/being. I draw from quantum physics, neurobiology, and spacetime to conceptualize demon time as a portal leading to upending anti-Black world (s), while simultaneously building Black world(s)—as a multidimensional intervention/interruption and irruption of anti-Black time. An end of the world and not necessarily the earth suggests a difference in naming, referencing/indexing, epistemology, and sociality. One could go so far as to infer that the end of the world might suggest the end of present sociopolitical super powers or systems of power altogether. Even more so, it could mean the end of all known points of reference. Calling into question all points of reference might leave too many possibilities unspecified. So, for the purpose of our discussion I want to focus on the perceptual and existential foci of the world—humanity. I will do so through a Black Posthumanist lens. This kind of conceptualizing is akin to Rasheedah Phillips’ practical framework of