The Future Is Now

When I was a kid I was promised that by the year 2000 we would have cities that floated above the weather and flying "smart" cars that could whisk me to my friends' homes with a simple verbal command. I would have a domestic robot, I would eat all of my meals in pill form, and medicine would be able to cure everything. Where is all that? You'd think it was a lot closer to reality considering all the movies and literature that warn us of artificially intelligent robots rebelling against their carbon based masters, institutional eugenics, bureaucratic hyper-surveillance, and other warnings of technology gone mad.

What we do have is a climate changing because of our technological activities, Southern California traffic that is worse than ever, the fattest populace in history, and pharmaceutical R&D devoted to giving 90 year old men longer and firmer erections. C'mon I want to ride in a flying bus.

One thing that may in fact be right around the corner, though, are those great unitard body-suits everyone in the future seems to wear. Here's why: I am brown and I live, work, and go to school in areas that are predominantly not brown.* In Southern California as a whole, I don't really stand out, but there are a lot places I go that are pretty lily. Despite efforts against it, there are plenty of brown people like me- moving about freely, interacting with others, making use of social institutions and public places just like anyone else would. It's quite a challenge to stop that. Especially when the man makes it easier by running transportation infrastructure from the brown neighborhoods to the not brown for economic reasons. For example, with minimal English or other resources, I can drive or take a bus directly from Duarte to San Marino or from Azusa to Glendora. It's tough to check every bus passenger, making sure they are going to mow someone's lawn or babysit. And forget about checking every driver; even with profiling, they can't get everyone. Because of that freedom of movement, I sometimes don't fit, especially when I grow my beard out. Now, I'm a pretty smart guy but I could not say for sure that I would not run if some domestic security forces started yelling in my general direction waving assault weapons because of my profile. And could I really blame anyone if I was shot in the head 5 times because of that. I mean, how could anyone possibly know that I am not strapped with explosives. And if I hadn't shaved in a while, do you think the US domestic security forces would remember that, just like in England, more terrorist acts have been committed by white males than brown? I am practically asking to be stopped and interrogated, if not shot, by moving about as freely and brown as I do.

The solution: all weather, form fitting, brightly colored body suits. This isn't a solution that needs to be imposed either. I would bet donuts to dollars that if this option were made publicly available, after the first couple of regrettable shootings, the market would take care of everything. It would be difficult to hide explosives and weapons. Identification tags could go directly on the back and chest. Who wouldn't rather wear an orange unitard than a body bag?


* Make sure you always use predominately and predominantly correctly.