For the first time in history, extraterrestrial beings have announced an impending visit to the United States. The whole population watches as ships land on the East Coast and the aliens walk on water toward them. They make a simple announcement: they have gold to solve the country's debt crisis, de-pollutants to solve the climate crisis, and safe nuclear energy, all of which they are prepared to offer to the country - in exchange for the country's Black citizens.

Immediately legislatures are called into session to discuss the proposal. Millions of callers give their opinions - most whites in favor of the trade, most blacks not. The President's cabinet members offer various justifications for the trade - the overwhelming benefit of the aliens' offerings, the lessened burden on social services without Black people, the alleviation of racial tensions, and the argument that leaving would be a patriotic duty any of them would take on if asked. The President calls on Gleason Golightly, a conservative Black economics professor, to weigh in. Golightly appeals to the moral side of the argument, backing his vehement opposition to the mass exile with a review of the many times in American history leaders considered and rejected the proposition of sending Black people away. The Cabinet did not budge in their opinions, and Golightly was left dejected at his mistake, having always considered himself one who could win over white politicians with cunning.

An Anti-Trade coalition drafts bills and responses to counteract the proposal, as well as a plan to evacuate and hide Black people in the worst-case scenario. Golightly speaks at their convention with the argument that they should accept the trade with enthusiasm and convince white people that Black people would be receiving a better future - a prospect which would enrage white people and reverse the trade. Again, his proposal is rejected.

Fortune 500 CEOs balk at the prospect of losing the profit they make off Black people, and launch massive media campaigns with images of mixed-race couples, appealing to the country's pathos. Jewish organizations condemn the trade as analogous to Hitler's 'final solution', but are intimidated out of their organizing plans by the government. The Televangelists of America herald the call from the aliens as God's will, and organize a rally depicting dutiful Black people boarding a ship resembling a sacrificial alter. Groups in favor convene a constitutional convention and introduce a twenty-seventh amendment, requiring 'special service' calls by Congress to be headed by all citizens, to be ratified. They proclaim that the Framers' intention was to build an all-white country, and attempts to the contrary have failed. While pro- and anti- trade groups riffed back and forth in the media, the Supreme Court and public opinion sided with pro-trade, and the amendment was ratified. Thousands of Black people were killed trying to escape. On Martin Luther King Day of that year, the Black population was rounded up, stripped, and sent into the spaceships.