The future ain't so bright after all

[bibliogramma]

Futureland, Walter Mosley

Futureland is a collection of nine inter-related stories set in the same bitterly dystopic future, sharing a cast of characters exploring the many faces of racism and classism in North America from a black perspective.

Story after story presents a future where all but the richest and most powerful people, the corporate elite, live out their lives struggling to keep above the divide between those who have jobs and homes, however precarious their hold on them may be, or fighting to survive once they have slipped below it and fallen into the underclasses, where return to the world above – literally as well as figuratively – is next to impossible and sometimes even doing the best one can isn’t enough to keep going. As Mosley develops his bleak picture of an America that has failed its citizens, he demonstrates in his primarily black protagonists a growing awareness among victims of this futureless society, that one way or another time has come for a change in the essential power relations of a world that had consistently promised freedom and equality, and equally consistently lied.

This is a work that should make white readers stop and think very hard about one of history’s lessons, that sooner or later, all empires crumble and all ruling classes are brought to their downfall.