Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana’s life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.
This is an unflinching, unrelentingly confrontational book that goes after racism with a chainsaw in one hand and a gun in the other. The very best approach there is.
“Don’t want to hear no more ’bout it!” She had raised her voice sharply. That was unusual, and it seemed to surprise her as much as it surprised me. “Don’t want to hear no more,” she repeated softly. “Things ain’t bad here. I can get along.”
She had done the safe thing—had accepted a life of slavery because she was afraid. She was the kind of woman who might have been called “mammy” in some other household. She was the kind of woman who would be held in contempt during the militant nineteen sixties. The house-nigger, the handkerchief-head, the female Uncle Tom—the frightened powerless woman who had already lost all she could stand to lose, and who knew as little about the freedom of the North as she knew about the hereafter.
After coming to grip with the idea that she’s really time-traveling Dana at first retains her distance, observing without becoming part of it, but as her stay becomes longer and she’s exposed to more of the plantation life she becomes more acclimated to it, and more so when she loses some of the protection she’s been granted due to her peculiar, supernatural relationship with Rufus Weylin: over the course of the text she is whipped twice, and it horrifies her that this brutality is stealing away her sense of self, the reality of her life in the twentieth century where she has rights and can marry a white man.
And I went out, God help me, and tried to do the wash. I couldn’t face another beating so soon. I just couldn’t.
When Edwards was gone, Alice came out of Carrie’s cabin and began to help me. I felt sweat on my face mingling with silent tears of frustration and anger. My back had already begun to ache dully, and I felt dully ashamed. Slavery was a long slow process of dulling.
Once Rufus has understood that Dana shows up when his life is in danger–and that the power to not rescue him rests in her hands–he becomes both afraid and codependent on her, and because he can hardly live with the idea that a black woman might have power over him, he alternately tries to win her affection and lashes out at her. His time is inhumane, uncivilized, ruled by savages, and while the Weylins are slightly less bestial than some they are still just as much savages as any other of their breed. There are moments where Rufus shows potential for humanity, but each time he’d turn around and exhibit the “low cunning of his class.” What fledgling trust Dana has in him proves misplaced time and again as he piles one unforgivable act on top of the next, from participating in slave trade to rape to ultimately an act that severs his connection with Dana for good.
The writing is simplistic, but the content is brutal, the conclusion of Dana’s and Rufus’ relationship coldly unsentimental, and entirely realistic. A lesser writer would have been tempted to have this play out differently. A white author would absolutely have thrown in a sympathetic antebellum white, with shades of Mighty Whitey; a white writer might have written Rufus as redeemable rather than a devolved, degrading creature that he is. A white writer would have written Dana’s white husband as the perfect liberal; Butler instead writes him exactly like a liberal twentieth-century white man.
Kevin frowned thoughtfully. “It’s surprising to me that there’s so little to see. Weylin doesn’t seem to pay much attention to what his people do, but the work gets done.”
“You think he doesn’t pay attention. Nobody calls you out to see the whippings.”
“How many whippings?”
“One that I’ve seen. One too goddamn many!”
“One is too many, yes, but still, this place isn’t what I would have imagined. No overseer. No more work than the people can manage . . .”
“. . . no decent housing,” I cut in. “Dirt floors to sleep on, food so inadequate they’d all be sick if they didn’t keep gardens in what’s supposed to be their leisure time and steal from the cookhouse when Sarah lets them. And no rights and the possibility of being mistreated or sold away from their families for any reason—or no reason. Kevin, you don’t have to beat people to treat them brutally.”
“Wait a minute,” he said. “I’m not minimizing the wrong that’s being done here. I just…”
“Yes you are. You don’t mean to be, but you are.”
I don’t know how a white reader would react to Kindred, but I quite hope the white reader would be made to squirm. This shouldn’t be a comfortable read to one of them, not even if they declare themselves a great anti-racist whose ancestors didn’t have slaves.
Beth Bernobich (@beth_bernobich)
/ September 8, 2012I’m white. I think it’s a damned good book. Uncomfortable for white people, yes, but it *should* be.
Jha
/ September 8, 2012Ugh this book so good
It is so in-your-face, and she does it without theorizing anything at all, just plain facts describing the situation, and yet, a perfect portrait of the problem of white liberal sympathy: that it’s not enough, reparations are in order, and there is nothing white people can do to offer reparations individually except by working towards a mass culture of accountability for historical brutality, an uncomfortable effort that anyone with privilege will find intolerable and white supremacy will block every which way.
acrackedmoon
/ September 8, 2012I loved the sections where Dana’s white husband says utterly stupid shit and fails to get it, like:
sleepwhenidie
/ September 8, 2012You know, I’ve been reading the blog for a while, and I have to ask a question which may sound stupid and offensive. Who is ‘White People who should squirm even if their ancestor didn’t own slaves’? More to the point, why should they?
I’m Jewish. My father’s family is from Yemen, my mother’s from Poland. My ancestors have no possible complicity in slavery. They didn’t have the ability to be complicit in it. They didn’t even have the power to say ‘we object to this’ – they either didn’t know or would be disregarded because they were Jews. I didn’t feel guilt as a White Person over this book. I felt guilt as a human being over this book. Guilt that such an attitude would exist, that so many people would be complicit in such a travesty, that so many more would do nothing to stop it. I think people should feel the same kind of guilt towards the (Jewish side of the) Holocaust for example, despite not being European, or anti-Semitic, or anything. I refuse to accept some special burden of guilt because I have light skin and my mother’s family had it for a very long while. Should some people feel more guilt, because their ancestors and their ancestors’ society supported and enabled slavery? Probably, yes. But to blame all ‘white people’ and cast collective guilt on them for being white is to go the opposite direction.
And yes, I know, I sound like a white defender or some such thing, defending whites blah blah blah. That’s not what I’m trying to get to. As a Jew, I understand and empathize with the continued existence of racism, and I think it’s a huge problem. But I think we should be careful with such words, because that’s exactly what gives ammunition to such people who claim ‘you’re all anti-white!’. It shouldn’t make just the white reader squirm and feel uncomfortable – it should make every reader who considers himself human squirm and feel uncomfortable.
Jha
/ September 8, 2012So, what, ACM needs to hold herself back from expressing how she feels because “such people” don’t have the wherewithal to hold themselves back from expressing their racism? Why not just hold those assholes accountable for their shitty claims? Is she hurting any real white ally by narrowing down her focus on who she wants to see uncomfortable and made accountable?
acrackedmoon
/ September 8, 2012No.
Inverarity
/ September 8, 2012People who think ACM is “anti-white” are inferior readers.
the twisted spinster
/ September 9, 2012Jews can be just as narrow-minded and prejudiced against POC as anyone else. Part of it is the way oppressed people are divided by the oppressor. But part of it is also that most Jews in the US are European and identify as white, and therefore get the benefits of skin privilege. No, that doesn’t mean your ancestors owned slaves, but it does mean certain doors are at least halfway open for you just because your ancestors came from Poland instead of Ghana. These are the bad facts, and all the politesse and protestations of empathy in the universe won’t change them.
susaneramirez
/ September 9, 2012If you read Kindred, you might catch on to one reason why that special burden of guilt you mention doesn’t depend on whether your ancestors were American slave-owners. (Hint: some of Dana’s ancestors were American slave-owners.)
If you are white in America today, some of your wealth is profit from American slavery.
saajanpatel
/ September 8, 2012Actually, this book does make me wonder about what caste/class privileges my ancestors enjoyed in India.
I actually think everyone who benefits from today’s global economy – which is far more exploitative than it needs to be – should read this, as well as anyone enjoying any benefits resulting from slavery and other forms of worker subjugation.
At the same time, there’s a definite need for this book in America’s educational system, which too often attempts to ameliorate the evils of slavery. I suspect the same to be true in Europe?
Luis F. Morales Knight
/ September 9, 2012I’m always leery of reading Octavia Butler since she Hurt My Brain back in the 1990s with the Xenogenesis trilogy. She was the first SF writer ever to truly, truly challenge me — but man, was that ever painful, and I’ve never forgotten it. She really is a national treasure. This book sounds great, ACM — thanks for highlighting it.
Darius Wilkins
/ September 10, 2012Actually, one of the most interesting things about Octavia Butler (in context of the previous thread) is that she did not write with particularly good prose, but does put out an overall good product out.
And thinking ah, after some good ole football, I’ll go over and check how Valente’s doing (hey, I’m fond of her personally, ya know?). And whatdya know, acrackedmoon is still the object of some unfulfilled angst. I understand writers can be sensitive souls, but I fail to see how some voice on the internet can inspire such commitment to eternal enemy-hood, worthy of banding together into a merry anti-ACM mob. And abuse other people who’s not with the program. It makes me a little mad. Sometimes, there is just no point in being especially kindly.
magpiewhotypes
/ September 13, 2012Rufus is scum, but I like that Butler lets Edana try to nudge him in the right direction. By making him a potentially redeemable character, it’s a lot easier to see part of yourself and your faults in him than if he was just a white monster. (I’m coming at this as a white reader.)
In a lesser novel, all the white characters would be absolute scum, except for the one nice white person who would make friends with the black protagonist, and then the black protagonist would suffer to help that one nice white person because see, racism isn’t systematic, it all happens because some white people in the past were jerks! White people who aren’t you, the white reader! (I’m looking at you, The Help.)
In addition, all the black characters would be super-helpful to the black protagonist because black characters can’t have any sort of negative or self-centered thoughts, despite the fact that they live as human property and are constantly subject to violence. Then they would “deserve it” somehow.
saajanpatel
/ September 13, 2012“I understand writers can be sensitive souls, but I fail to see how some voice on the internet can inspire such commitment to eternal enemy-hood, worthy of banding together into a merry anti-ACM mob. And abuse other people who’s not with the program. It makes me a little mad. Sometimes, there is just no point in being especially kindly.”
What makes it doubly “fascinating” is the pass you get for serving a liberal agenda that relies on Western views of what is progressive. So Hitchens, Maher – all great guys where anything sexist they say is forgivable.
I’ve seen at least two “If only ACM were like Hitchens…” comments.
thelovelyjazmin
/ September 16, 2012Kindred changed my life. WHO KNEW that scifi/fantasy novels could center on a black, american, FEMALE protagonist?! A high school English teacher assigned this novel and I did not read it. I was a “rebellious” teen who was bored with the same old white-washed historical fiction. As I bullshitted my way through the exam, I became really interested in the story. I went home and read Kindred in one night.
Then I stole the book.
Jenny Colvin (@readingenvy)
/ September 23, 2012I loved her parable books with the female-centric culture-rebuilding, definitely worth a read if you haven’t. And it looks like I need to read this one!
welltemperedwriter
/ September 26, 2012It’s not a comfortable read, and it shouldn’t be. My ancestors *did* have slaves, but I like to think I’d have found it an uncomfortable read regardless.