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23 Legal Stud. F. 315 (1999)
The Power of Narrative

handle is hein.journals/lstf23 and id is 325 raw text is: THE POWER OF NARRATIVE DERRICK BELL* The Space Traders' Solution is a racial parable written in science fiction form. In summary, on New Year's Day in the year 2000, great waves of huge vessels descend on the United States and their extrater- restrial leaders announce they are here to make a trade offer: Give up all African-Americans and in return they will leave for America the contents of their ships-enough gold to retire the national debt, a magic chemical that will cleanse America's polluted skies and waters, and a limitless source of safe energy to replace our dwindling reserves. Following roughly two weeks to consider the offer, heated public debate leads to a referendum that when approved, consigns all blacks to the traders. In the last dozen years, I have published four books of stories.1 By a large margin, the Space Traders story published in Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism, has received the most attention. It helped catapult the book into a brief best seller status, and it moved the film makers, Reginald and Warrington Hudlin, to make the story into an HBO film starring Robert Guililaume. As with many of my stories, I wrote Space Traders for my law students who were quite ready to acknowledge the involuntary sacrificial role blacks have played in earlier national policies: when the Constitution was written to protect slaveholders' property in a document committed to freedom for all, and when the Compromise of 1876 was fashioned to avoid a second Civil War by turning over to the South the protection of black rights, to name but two examples. They found it difficult, though, to imagine the country selling out the rights and interests of black Americans in this post-segregation era. I claim no expertise in the Science Fiction genre, but given the popularity of television series like Star Trek and the X-Files, listeners and readers are easily able to imagine my benign aliens arriving with an attractive trade offer rather than with massive, rocket assaults. And, more to the point, most audiences acknowledge that, if an offer of great wealth for blacks were made, a majority of Americans would ac- cept-particularly if the issue was submitted to a referendum in which voting was done in secret. * Visiting Professor, New York University Law School. Permission to republish The Space Traders was graciously provided by Basic Books. I AFROLANICA LEGACIES (1998); GOSPEL CHOIRS, PSALMS OF SURVIVAL FOR AN ALIEN LAND CALLED HOME (1996); FACES AT THE BOTOM OF THE WELL: THE PERMANENCE OF RACISM (1992); AND WE ARE NOT SAVED: THE ELUSIVE QUEST FOR RACIAL JUSTICE (1987).

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