Why Do Racists Persist In The America Of Rosella Tolfree?

Is Racism is Tribalistic

It's Hard to Eliminate

As a writer, it would be simple for me to say that America was a utopia of brotherly and sisterly love. A place where racism is no more.

​But, Rosella Tolfree’s world is a dystopia filled with serious ecological disasters pushing the limits of human civilization. Under such circumstances, it’s not abnormal for humans to resort to tribalistic behaviors to protect what little resources remain. Here, globalization has completely collapsed and nations have become completely isolationists.

This alone doesn’t explain the persistent racism in Rosella’s America. To understand why this problem persists, as a reader you need to understand the complex legal tradition of hate speech in America. It’s been my observation, for all it’s good intentions, that since the creation of hate crime laws back in 1968, based on the same protections afforded to anti-discrimination, there’s been a social attempt to identify, label, show, and expand the definitions of hate and racism. Meanwhile, there are Supreme Court decisions on hate speech. So while today there are many trying to stamp out hate speech, the truth is even the FBI recognizes the right of people to express hate speech within specified limits.

The Supreme Court has continued to allow what many (and myself included) would consider as evil to persist in America. It’s because of these decisions I’ve kept this evil in Rosella’s world since it would be consistent with the ecological dystopian realities. To make matters worse, in Rosella’s America the US party system has splintered (more on this later). Thus classic hate groups have gained political footholds. All of this adding tension to a tense future filled with technological wonders and ecological disasters.

With all this being said, not that there haven’t been changes in Rosella’s America concerning racial issues. Case in point, the Vilmme Genocide Reparations Trails resulting in the passing of the Tyler-Hinton Slave Reparations Act.

Further, because of the changes in weather patterns, people globally started to include genes to produce higher concentrations of melanin in their cloned children to protect them from higher concentrations of ultraviolet radiation. As a result, more people in Rosella’s America were actually “browner”. Socially blurring race ideologies based on skin color.

Finally, many people have tried to control free speech for a long time in the U.S., and they persist even in Rosella’s world. I consider the best science fiction story of our times on this subject is Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. I like the 2018 movie version featuring Micheal B. Jordan.

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Image: London Black Lives Matter Peaceful Protest from Vauxhall to Westminster. By Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona, Source Unsplash, Unsplash License (Processed using Adobe Splash).