John writes below of the role of Derrick Bell in the development of Critical Race Theory back in the 1970s and 1980s, and in 1992 he published a short story called “Space Traders” that quickly became a staple in the black grievance literature about how hopelessly racist America is. You can read the whole thing at the link above, or just go with the Wikipedia summary:
Extraterrestrials arrive on Earth and offer to the United States gold, safe nuclear power and other technological advances in exchange for the government’s handing over of all black US citizens. The story posits that the people and political establishment of the U.S. would make such a transaction and pass a referendum to enable it.
The story takes place over seventeen days and follows a prominent black, conservative economics professor, Gleason Golightly, who is asked by the President to join his cabinet’s discussion of the proposed trade. He is adamantly against the trade, but the completely white cabinet believes the trade will fix the United States’ environmental and economic problems.
At this point, I can safely assume that whether Bell knew or intended it or not, the President and his cabinet in this scenario had to be all Democrats, because they are the only ones whose premises make this trade work. Ask yourself a simple question: Who is it that believes that in the balance sheet of society, humans are a liability (in other words, who believes the “population bomb” hypothesis?) while “natural resources” are the superior asset? It is liberals who believe this most fervently, not the advocates of free markets and individual liberty.
Liberals have long hooted at Julian Simon and others who argue that people are the “ultimate resource,” and not physical matter, especially not gold. So, what the Derrick Bell story really makes clear is which segment of opinion thinks African-Americans are a liability on America’s balance sheet, and, by implication, who the real racists are at the present moment. Only a liberal would find “Space Traders” to be a plausible scenario. Perhaps “liberal guilt” isn’t so silly after all. But they need to stop insisting that the rest of us have to join their collective guilt madness.
Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.