Introduction

Critical conversations have emerged within the concepts of Afropessimism and Afrofuturism, particularly, the future and/or non-future of Blackness and Black people in the twenty-first century. Moreover, where does Blackness and Black people situate themselves within these framed concepts as it relates to Black Religious faith tradition and Black Religious Thought? How and where does religion and theology take up these matters in relation to Blackness and Black people within their faith traditions and experiences? Scholars, mainly within Black Studies, have taken up these ideologies in an effort to locate Blackness and Black people in a white racist patriarchal system that anchors itself within white right, and white nihilism. Yet, where does the Black faith tradition situate itself in religious discourses centered in white theology, and how can it permeate the discourse on redemption and hope, or failure and the unsalvageable? It is why this special issue journal, Afrofuturism, Afropessimism and Black Religious Thought: Conceptualizing Ideologies of Race, Religion, Gender and Sexuality in the 21st Century, takes up these matters, whereas Black religion scholars consider these concepts within the study of religion and theology. One key question for consideration, where does the recovery work begin, and where does it end in relation to Black person’s race, gender and sexuality, and religious ideologies in Black Religious Thought?” Key voices within Afropessimissm scholarship, Saidiya Hartman, Jared Sexton and Frank Wilderson have made a critical juncture toward naming Blackness and Black people’s lives and experiences a unique distinction within Black suffering. Essentially, Black persons experiences within the concept of liberation or liberatory means is bound to the historied notion of slavery, which has become systemic and structural against Black life progress and liberation. Afropessimism, according to Frank Wilderson, makes the following claims, and it is worth quoting in length,