ENGL1102 Notes
2/8/2012
“Space Travelers” by Derrick Bell
· Presentation on Space Travelers
o Derrick Bell
§ Born November 6, 1930 in Pittsburgh
§ Was a lawyer
§ Worked for DoJ for a short term
§ Worked high profile cases with the NAACP
§ One of the first African American Deans
§ Taught at Stanford and Harvard
§ Involved in the Civil Rights Movement
§ Considered very radical
o Critical Race Theory
§ Academic field studying race with regard to racism and political power
§ Conceived by Derrick Bell
§ Heavily influenced all of his works
· Societal imbalance
· Racism/segregation
o 60’s-70’s Race Relations
§ Tense period due to racism against African Americans
§ Racism was part of Southern ideology
§ Derrick Bell worked many desegregation cases
§ Elements from this period recur in Bell’s works
o Historical Context for “Space Traders”
§ Racism still present in the 90’s
§ Civil Rights issues
§ Stereotypes still existed
§ Lack of racial diversity
o “Space Traders”
§ Runs from January 1, 2000 to January 17, 2000
§ US economy is in shambles
§ Aliens say they can solve all of the US problems in exchange for all African Americans in the US
§ Protagonist, Gleason Golightly, deals with the moral dilemma on how best to overturn “The Trade”
o Allusion
§ Allusions to Slave Trade, lack of rights for black WWII vets
§ Three Fifths Law allusion in the form of suspended citizenship
§ Issues present in the story reflect problems with America in the 1990’s
o Symbolism
§ Gleason Golightly pun
§ Reagan depicted as the perfect politician
§ Apathy of corporate America
· Only want to stop the trade so that they can keep making money
§ Ends with chains and little clothing
o Themes
§ Hidden racism in society
§ Dilemma between winning an underhanded fight or losing “the good fight”
§ Repeat of slave trade
· Class Discussion of “Space Traders”
o Law-makers of the time were upset by the story because it said that a lot of what they fought to defend was wrong
o Government is very unrepresentative of minorities
o Used short story form in order to reach a wider audience
o Science fiction allows him to exaggerate things a lot and make points without having to defend them
o Could be seen as a shortcut, making a legal argument without having to use sources and defend his statements
o Trying to say that emotion always gets in the way of legal decisions
o Pro-Trade Reasons
§ Should be an honor, patriotic to save America by leaving with the aliens
§ Like joining a war
§ A lot of people just said they wanted them gone because they caused problems
§ Said that the US was built on white supremacy, so that now we should do like we did in the past and sacrifice black rights in order to help white people
o Anti-Trade Reasons
§ Business people don’t want it to happen because they will lose money
§ Jews could empathize with the problem, but also didn’t want to be the new scapegoats in America
§ Many people took the moral high ground
· Some said, if we set a precedent of destroying a race, couldn’t it happen again?
