Imaginative Rhetorical Invention In The 21st Century: An Analysis Of Afrofuturism And Black Utopian Thought In A Black Lady Sketch Show As An Avenue Toward Black Liberation

Inspired by recent events following the deaths of unarmed Black bodies killed at the hands of police officers and white vigilante citizens (Griffith, 2020; Oppel, 2020; BBC, 2020) this thesis seeks to validate the seemingly impossible aspirations of Black struggle and liberation in attempt to dismantle white supremacist ideology and oppression. Grounded in rhetorical theory emphasizing the imagination and canon of invention alongside critical perspectives of Afrofuturism and Black utopian thought, this thesis demonstrates the liberatory power of the Black American imagination within the United States in the 21st century through an analysis of A Black Lady Sketch Show (2019)