Future Dystopia & Civil Rights
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In "The Greatest," the first story in Walter Mosley's collection Futureland, the setting is a not-distant-future, dystopian America, which retains its cultural and social skew in favor of the powerful and against the disadvantaged but which has evidently been politically reorganized with a view toward redressing certain grievances. The big social picture of Futureland--a failed attempt by American Nazis to generate a race war and assassinate all African Americans--is important to recognize because it is implicated in the way that people make choices and confront life obstacles. Indeed, in that regard, "The Greatest" obliquely suggests that African Americans as a group have achieved some measure of social and cultural advancement. Even so, there is also a measure of social dislocation. Thus it is that, in the future dystopic America, Fera Jones has an opportunity to become a sports superstar--though at the cost of a truly private life, though her achievement is a consequence of her physical freakishness (basketball-player tall and 260 pounds of fighting weight) and racial and sexual ambiguity, and though no accomplishment of hers can prevent her father from being cured of a pernicious pharmaceutical addiction. A double effect and what could be called a "half" effect of an imagined transformed future infuse "The Greatest." On one hand, Mosley invents for Fera a persona and history that programmatically violate preconceptions of American "types," whether the person be
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Some common words found in the essay are:
King Fera, Fera Jones, African Americans, Luna Land, Body Soul, Jesus Christ, Walter Mosley's, African American, Pulse Pulse, America Fera, african americans, african american, letter birmingham jail, measure social, au courant, jesus christ, america fera, luna land, birmingham jail, letter birmingham, called pulse,
Approximate Word count = 1026
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page)
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