Derrick Bell's "Space Traders"

Today’s slavery is one of the most diabolical strains to emerge in the thousands of years in which humans have been enslaving their fellows. In the modern global society, there are not just only one kind of human race that specifically victim of human traffic, today it come in all races, all types, and all ethnicities, which became the “Equal Opportunity Slavery” that Bales and Soodalter were mentioned in their book, The Slave Next Door. It is proving itself to be worse than the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade that historically took place from the 1500s to the 1800s.

In Chapter 4 of his book, which is aptly titled “Postwar Passions”, Daniels chooses to focus on the experiences of African-Americans in the post-WWI era, specifically focusing on race riots that occurred during the “Red Summer” of 1919. (104) There is a long-standing history of racial discord between whites and African-Americans, but the post-WWI years are a unique time. It has been more than fifty years since slavery has been abolished, but it will still take another forty plus years before discrimination on the basis of race is made illegal in America. Industrialization after the turn of the century and blatant racism in the South led to the migration of millions of African-Americans to northern

“The Space Traders” is a short story written by Derrick Bell, science fiction fan and a talented author. The story serves as a thought experiment: what if space traders came from another star and offered to buy all the black people in America? This is a great thought experiment for readers in order to contemplate what would happen in present day America if something like this were to happen. I enjoyed reading these works because it puts our present state as a country into perspective, and allowed me to think of what decision America would come to in regards to “selling” all black people in America.

Walter Johnson examines the fluid nature of the domestic slave trade and its role in shaping a culture of slavery. Central to this culture was the fundamental reality that the slave person was a commodity to be bought and sold as the market demanded. Describe the effects of the practice of slave trading on the actors involved. How did the domestic slave trade help create the identities of slave, the slaveholder and the slave trader? How did the activities of the slave pen help “make” race (both white and black) in the antebellum period?

The article “The Negro Digs Up His Past’’ by Arthur schomburg on 1925, elaborates more on the struggles of slavery as well as how history tend to be in great need of restoration through mindfully exploring on the past. The article, however started with an interesting sentence which caught my attention, especially when the writer says ‘’The American Negro must remark his past in order to make his future’’ (670). This statement according the writer, explains how slavery took away the great deal freedom from people of African descendant, through emancipation and also increase in diversity. The writer (Arthur Schomburg) however, asserts that “the negro has been throughout the centuries of controversy an active collaborator, and often a pioneer, in the struggle for his own freedom and advancement” (670).

As a black man, Samuel Delany has experienced discrimination and racism in a number of settings. However, as a Science Fiction writer he mostly explores racism in that community. Samuel Delany’s, “Racism and Science Fiction” explores how “Racism is a system. As such, it is fueled as much by chance as by hostile intentions and equally the best intentions as well. It is whatever systematically acclimates people, of all colors, to become comfortable with the isolation and segregation of the races, on a visual, social, or economic level”(31). Delany blames social traditions, and material and economic conditions for supporting the system. And not actual individuals. Delany supports his argument by giving three examples of when he has experienced racism in science fiction. The issue of racism in science fiction is presented by Delany when he tells his readers of an encounter with Isaac Asimov, his convention book signing partner, and his habitual panel placement with a fellow writer.

Slavery was abolished after the Civil War, but the Negro race still was not accepted as equals into American society. To attain a better understanding of the events and struggles faced during this period, one must take a look at its' literature. James Weldon Johnson does an excellent job of vividly depicting an accurate portrait of the adversities faced before the Civil Rights Movement by the black community in his novel “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man.” One does not only read this book, but instead one takes a journey alongside a burdened mulatto man as he struggles to claim one race as his own.

Racism is a big part of this book. It shows the absurdity of what people thought back then, which is an important lesson. It is important for us to learn what people’s views used to be, and how important it is not to go back to that mindset.

John Lewis initiates his claim by conveying that everyone in America should not tolerate racial segregation nor discrimination. In order to reach to his point, he uses the rhetorical device, pathos, in which it causes the “white” audience to feel remorse for what society has become. To illustrate this idea, Lewis reveals African Americans “live in constant fear of a police state”, “have been arrested on trumped charges”, and some faced “the death penalty for engaging in peaceful protest” (paragraph 2). The evidence highlights that they are going through hardships caused by the federal government because they are considered “inferior” compared to the “white” race. From this, readers can infer that white supremacy is being marked on the walls. Lewis is able to awaken Americans so they can realize how their actions are wounding African Americans. In addition, Lewis is representing the African American community so they can feel inspired to join the Civil Rights Movement. Possibly the speaker is trying to drag the African Americans out of their state of oblivion by incentivizing them to defend their rights. Lewis is addressing the problems to both audiences so they can feel the urge to fix them. Therefore, Lewis’ remarks in the first paragraph reveal that he identifies with the concerns of African Americans and how whites, mainly activists, should focus on addressing their issues.

Christopher Paul Curtis wrote The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 throughout the course of 1995. The novel follows the Watsons, a black family living in Flint, Michigan during the Civil Rights Era. In a historical context, 1963 and the early 1990s have far more in common than one would expect. The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 following the church bombing in Birmingham, and yet race-based discrimination remains a problem even in our modern society via passive racism. This paper will analyze the ways in which Curtis’ The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 draws parallels between the time in which his is writing during and the time in which he is writing about. This analysis will also shed light on what can be called the “white

dominant races in an era of critical exchange. With the American Negro his new internationalism

The life of African Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries has been a truly storied past. One of the most astonishing aspects of African American life, in this period, is the degree to which it was heterogeneous. The experiences of African Americans differed widely based on geographic location, class, gender, religion, and age. Despite a high degree of variability in the experiences of Blacks in America, if one were to consider the sociopolitical fact that Black people as a group in America were a subordinate caste in dominant society, then it becomes possible to make certain overarching connections. One such connection is the presence of secretive subversive ideologies and actions. The existence of these secretive subversive activities is apparent if one examines the labor tendencies, the folklore, and the outward societal projections of black people. By briefly examining the labor practices of Black women in Atlanta during the latter part of the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries, The Uncle Remus tales, and cultural icon Louis Armstrong, one can deduce that secretive subversive actions and beliefs were an integrated aspect of Black existence during this period.

The reader is introduced to a term coined and repeated by Pratt throughout the piece, "contact zones." She uses this term "to refer to social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today" (Pratt 584). Contact zones were not necessarily a positive interaction because these social interactions usually came out of ignorance resulting into an obdurate conflict. Dubois The Negro in the United States and Griffith’s The Birth of the Nation, and Pratt’s very own Arts of the Contact Zone correlate through Pratt’s terminology of contact zone, autoethnographic texts,

Racism has repeatedly played a controversial role throughout the course of history. This is a topic fueled by the heated arguments of the parties on both ends of the matter, may it be the cry of the victim or defense of the offender. As described in the works of two members of ethnic minorities coping with the alienation they both faced in what is supposed to be the land of diversity, Firoozeh Dumas’ “The F Word,” and Brent Staples’ “Black Men and Public Space, racism is portrayed as a dark shadow cast upon those who may not seem to conform to the “norms” of western culture to the typical American. Such stereotypes and predispositions should not hold the power to classify and simplify human beings to one

“Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination” written by American author, feminist and social activist, bell hooks, dissects the dichotomy of black and white culture in a westernized society. Hooks utilizes the term ‘whiteness’ throughout her piece as an acknowledgment of the domination, imperialism, colonialism, and racism that white people have asserted among black people. This discipline progressively has evolved from history; through slavery and forth, leaving an imprint in