The right's latest bogeyman, Derrick Bell, once pondered what would happen if aliens offered gold in exchange for America's black people.

Americans decided in 2008 that Barack Obama wasn't a radical black leftist, despite attempts by some conservatives to exploit his relationship with Jeremiah Wright and contact with Bill Ayers. Predictably, President Obama has not governed as a radical black leftist, or adopted the controversial rhetoric of a fiery preacher, or embraced the tactics of the Weather Underground. There is nevertheless another conservative attempt to persuade Americans that he's hiding something.

The evidence? A couple decades ago, Obama hugged the late law professor Derrick Bell after introducing him during a rally at Harvard Law School. You can read about Professor Bell here. Spoiler alert: there's no shame in having hugged him. True to its genre, the controversy is a big nothing-burger. But it has renewed interest in a provocative short story that Professor Bell published in 1992. Perhaps the easiest way to characterize it is "critical race theory meets sci-fi." It begins as alien ships unexpectedly arrive on earth. The aliens have a proposition for the United States.