Time Traveling While Black

    The two pieces of media that cover time traveling while black are Janelle Monae's "Timebox Altar(ed)" from her book The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer and Stephon Bristol's See You Yesterday. The two cover both sides of time travel, with "Timebox Altar(ed)" covering time travel to the future and See You Yesterday covering time travel to the past, although the two pieces of media ultimately use time travel in different ways.

    Monae's "Timebox Altar(ed)" is about a child, Bug, who has their parents taken for being "dirty computers", leaving them to survive on their own. Bug ultimately turns to art, turning what many would call trash into a sculpture they call the ark. Their creation turns out to be a kind of time travel device, which if sat in would give the user a vision of a possible future, one that is desirable but perhaps not the future that would occur. The ark represents the power of envisioning the future and becoming motivated to try and make that future a possibility. The ark also represents something that can hide you away from the horrors of the outside world.

     See You Yesterday tells about two friends C.J. and Bash who create a time machine, giving them the ability to go back in time. After creating their machine, C.J.'s brother Calvin is shot dead by the police, which leads C.J. and Bash attempting to go back in time and save Calvin, although the two figure out that to save Calvin, C.J. would have to sacrifice herself. The movie ends on a cliffhanger, not letting the viewer find out if C.J. sacrifices herself or not, simply just going back in time again to try and save Calvin once more. The movie ultimately covers how police violence against black communities is deeply rooted in American society and that one small change will not cause major change on the greater scale or even on small scales.