There's an old story about Octavia Butler that I often return to: A young man once asked the visionary science fiction novelist the answer to ending all the suffering in the world. "There isn't one," Butler replied. "So we're doomed?" he asked, confused. Then she delivered the words that would remake my understanding of the future: "There's no single answer that will solve all of our future problems. Instead there are thousands of answers--at least. You can be one of them if you choose to be." Black futurist artists are often regarded as prophets, and expected, unfairly, to foretell the path that will lead us to a brighter tomorrow.