XPost: rec.sport.pro-wrestling   
   From: BillV2320@webtv.net   
      
   Conservatives Deeply Outraged by Science Fiction Story From 1992   
      
   Derrick Bell's story "The Space Traders" is one of science fiction's   
   scariest thought experiments   â€" because of what it reveals   
   about human nature. It's a misanthropic tale  in which aliens arrive   
   on Earth and offer America the solution to all our problems, in exchange   
   for all of our black people. For Bell, who spent years of his career   
   fighting segregation in America, it seemed all too plausible that   
   Americans might choose to trade minorities for wealth and alien   
   technology.   
   In any case, this story â€" which was made into an HBO special in   
   the early 1990s, see video above â€" somehow managed to avoid   
   getting on the radar of the 24/7 outrage machine, until now.   
   Conservatives are seizing on the story as proof  that Bell was racist   
   against white people â€" and thus, President Obama must be racist   
   too, because he embraced Bell once in 1990. Obviously, this is the sort   
   of fake controversy that cable news runs on nowadays â€" but also,   
   it's apparently the product of people who live in some sort of alternate   
   universe where many people aren't alive nowadays who lived through   
   segregation.   
   Over in the Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf surmises that as recently as   
   1992, Americans might have been willing to make the trade that Bell   
   hypothesizes â€" but not any more. And he concludes:   
   Those objecting to "The Space Traders" would do well to acknowledge that   
   for many decades of American history, including years during Professor   
   Bell's life, a majority of Americans would have voted in favor of   
   trading blacks for fantastic wealth, unlimited energy, and an end to   
   pollutants. I wonder, if God could run the hypotheticals for us, and   
   Americans were forced to wager $1,000 of their own money, what year   
   they'd choose as the first when blacks would win the referendum. I'd be   
   curious for an answer from Diane Ellis, who seems to think  that the   
   story is deplorable and evidence of Bell's alleged racism. I'd say it's   
   evidence that his experiences made him understandably pessimistic about   
   how racial majorities will treat racial minorities given the right   
   circumstances. To label someone as a racist for honesty conveying his   
   dark view of human nature is the sort of politically correct, reductive   
   stifling of speech that conservatives are supposed to stand against.   
   Thanks to mekki for pointing us to the HBO video!   
   Contact Charlie Jane Anders:   
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