Time Zero

Abstract Nuclear weapons’ effect on time is similar to their effect on space. They produce Ground Zero and Time Zero. Their effect is so totalizing that the belief of many people of color, that the weapons are racialized, might seem ridiculous. The first atomic bombs were dropped after only one test, when a possibility loomed that they would destroy all life. But they were dropped on an enemy people who were racialized by the bomb’s most ardent defenders. Soldier-scholar Paul Fussell, who insisted that the bomb saved his life, also insisted that the Pacific War was a race war. Since 1945, activist writers and scholars of color have called the bomb the whitest of weapons. Furthermore, the mandate for colonization and racism is extermination of all “brutes” – a mandate most efficiently realized by a totalizing weapon. Ultimately, Time Zero forecloses the future, and the mandate for the future, especially among racialized others, must include disarmament.