Octavia Butler's 'Kindred'

Octavia Butler's 'Kindred' and Science Fiction

   In a sense you can say science fiction struggles with representation (specifically accurate representation) but I feel that we see diversity having more to do with the writers than the genre as a whole. Which isn't to say science fiction as a whole does or has not changed over time, but its not so simple as the same old writers simple changing their minds. Its a common thought that writing feels more real when it comes from first hand personal experiences or emotions.  In the case of Kindred, this was not a white person making the conscious choice to research and write about a woman of color. This was a woman of color writing about a clearly, very emotional journey of her own. The discussion of race covers drawn out socially acceptable abuse toward a specific group and how it cultivates a culture of silent victims. The main character sees herself become subdued and compliant as she is forced to spend more time on a the plantation. 

More importantly the book discusses how there weren’t many differences between the characters of different times. Dana eventually became a part of the plantation and even got used to physical abuses by the plantation owner, his wife, and even Rufus. It gets so bad, once Rufus begins treating her terribly- sending her out into fields to be whipped and beaten for her trying to save his father- and she still does everything she can for Rufus and to save his life. She realizes that the people during the times of slavery were still people. That the slaves were people just like her,  coming to the same ands as her as they all worked on the plantation. Her and Alice had already experienced freedom and so they both refused to stop seeking it. However, slaves that had never experienced such a thing refused to try at all or even talk about it for fear of the consequences. Only when she becomes aware of her own compliance, and begins to experience Rufus’ selfish cruelty does she take her will back. Ironically, this is the very action that sends her home. Her unwillingness to simply become a slave because that was what was socially expected and demanded of her was what forced her to leave and never return to slave times. 

Its interesting looking at her initial confusion as to why her ancestor was white and no one ever mentioned it. She passes it off initially as her family holding a rightful bias and not wanting to mention anything. This is very clearly shown to be an assumption based on the thoughts and actions of people in her own time period. Perhaps that would be the most likely reason now, but then the mostly likely reason a white man and an black woman had kids, and that those kids never mentioned that their father was white, was because he had raped the mother. It was a legal and very common occurrence at the time- however it never crosses her mind until she has to watch it unfold. You can see her hope for Rufus, her hope of changing him into a better person. You can think that him eventually marrying a black woman must mean that he grows up to become a very moral person.  Butler plays us as the reader this way as well. We’re all rooting for Rufus. In the way that stories are told, of the white hero conquering old immoral concepts of race to become a better person. But maybe we should've taken the hint that the main character was not white and so this change in character was never going to be in Rufus.  No, this was about a black character being forced to realize the true and not so distant atrocities of her cultures past.  Of the not-so-watered-down reality of slavery and how similar people now are to people then. 

Bridgette Olavage