You are History!

You can interpret this title in two different ways: either as a winner or a loser. One can interpret this as making history in a positive sense where one’s actions change history for good. However, I wish to use this term to represent the underrepresented side. I use this phrase in negative connotation in way to establish that for many societies listed in the book, they lost in the fight against the dominant power. This win-lose binary is prevalent in the third section of stories compiled by Linqvist. I chose to analyze the portion of the book under “History of the Future” because it references different books with a common theme. Every history is told from the winner’s side and each novel represents different societies being alienated and exterminated. Each section elevates an “us versus them” mentality where the winner is justified to annihilate their opponent (whether they are Chinese, Japanese, or African) because they do not see them as equals. This type of dehumanization is critical because it creates a culture where killing is a crime but not through the bases of one’s race and where they reside. It also goes back to the critical definition of racism stated by Ruth Wilson Gilmore: 

                “Racism, specifically, is the state sanctioned or extralegal production and exploitation of group-differentiated vulnerability to premature death”.

“Premature death” applies to non-Whites or non-English speaking individuals and it propagated through institutionalized actions such as murder proposed by the state. It puts into the question whether the demotion of “savage” really belongs to the groups being purged and whether the “United Man” should be categorized in that context. 

It is also important to point out was how Lindqvist used an oxymoron to display the complexity of this section. What exactly entails as the history portion of the future? The use of time distortion is important because it is what we use to experience these future events. The second section (In The Beginning There Was the Bomb) gives a concrete explanation of the history of the bomb yet Lindqvist chose to approach the next chapter with references that are fictional novels. These novels resonate because while fictional, they are influential to extremists (see Turner Diaries and 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing). 

The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building two days after the bombing (Taken from Wikipedia)

I would like to conclude that this section exemplifies that you are pretty screwed if you aren’t part of the majority and will be forever enslaved under this culture of a White-dominant society. If you fit into the category that is not the “White Man” or identify as the “United”, you probably already have been “disintegrated” (Section 57). This “purge” or “Great Extermination” (Section 56) depicts a dystopian world for people of color and unfortunately for these individuals…the “History of the Future” really means that their “Future is history”.