Earthling dreams in black and white: space, representation and US racial politics in 'The space traders'

This article examines Trey Ellis's re-adaptation of Derrick Bell's 'The space traders' and argues that contrasting philosophy and aesthetics in the literary and visual works reveal what Houston Baker has termed 'generational shift'. The varying versions of 'The space traders' are examined for their distinct approaches to challenging racism and for theorising about whether it is even possible to end racial oppression in the United States. That both the fiction and teleplay imagine the prospect of whites trading blacks to space aliens as a solution to ending America's social and economic ills reflects the scholars' and artists' indictments of white supremacy in the United States. However, the divergences in plot, character and dialogue suggest intergenerational rifts. The contrasting effect is that Ellis's aesthetic choice to highlight complexion centres audiences' focus on intra-racial divisions of African Americans based on colour. Ellis's focus on black intra-racial conflicts moves the critique away from Bell's original challenge of the 'permanence' of white racial solidarity against blacks to Ellis's critique of blacks whose prescriptive ideas about black identity renders them impotent to proactively coalesce in the face of white supremacy.