We Don't Know What to Do with Time Travel

 “Not only did this moment serve as a testament to the fact that the cannon of films we studied was overwhelmingly white—the only Black characters present, if any, were monstrosities in one way or another—but it also forced me to consider my racial identity, my locality, my proximity to monstrosity and death in ways that my white counterparts would never be asked to do, especially not in a classroom setting such as this.” — Sherronda J. Brown

Time travel: one of the most prominent and interesting factions of the science fiction genre. Time travel is a tricky concept to execute well. Going back or forth in time often proves to have many consequences for main characters, and we can all agree that if we were allowed the gift of time travel, our world would ultimately crumble. For a multitude of reasons, I just do not believe that we, as a human race, have the capacity to think outside of our own experiences, and very little understanding of how one event may have triggered an entire line of others. But this discussion is not surrounded by my idea of time travel; instead, I turn to Sherronda J. Brown’s article I want Black time travelers to be a threat to the status quo. 

In this article, Brown discusses the impact that time travel can make on the Black experience. She proposes a rather interesting point: the reason Black people are often said to ‘not be able to time travel’ is because of the threat they would impose on the often white characters that do time travel. Being a film major in college, Brown was confronted with the abundantly white films she studied in school, and upon receiving an assignment, realized the stark contrasts in her experience to her white classmates. This extended beyond the idea that time travel is a very delicate thing to mess with, because for her, and the few other Black classmates she had, traveling back in time could pose a real threat to her life. 

What time, before the 21st century, would really be safe? 

Therein, Brown proposes a travel back in time before all this evolved. Before the ships sailed, before the pillages and horrifying events in history.  Is this the answer? Maybe, and Brown’s complete disregard for her herself, the realization that she may seize to exist, is a powerful indication to her disdain for our world today. So if time travel ever happens, if the world we exist therein no longer is the way we experience it, what does this mean for us all? To take upon yourself the decision to make your life better does not mean that the life of someone else will not be altered as well. That another race would not have been subjected to the same horrors is naive. So are we simply trading one for the other? And who is to say that trade is fair? Then again, what we exist in now is not fair at all. To have any answers is to pretend to be God.