The Bell Riots and Us

A fictional future-past speaks volumes about our present shame

Gabriel Bell would have been born a year after me, if he’d been real.

And he would have died last week, too, becoming a hero and a symbol for a cause that would transform US society and pave the way to a better world.

But he was dreamed up by writers of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, for a two-part episode titled “Past Tense”. In this science-fictional outin…