African-American sci-fi author Octavia Butler’s Kindred relates one Black woman’s journey toward discovering/accepting her familial racial diversity. Published in 1979, Dana’s revolving Present-to-Past tale invites a social commentary that in itself transcends time and racial disparity; as the title suggests, Blacks and Whites in the United States share a deep heritage. Thirty years later, President Barrack Obama is arguably the most visible real-life illustration of Butler’s we-are-all-related theme. Obama identifies as Black, but has never denied—and is in fact proud—of his white heritage; this is a lesson Dana must learn.
Not Just Names in a Book
In the novel, although Dana successfully identifies as being Black, she too is of biracial ancestry. Central to her genetic heritage are plantation owners Tom and Rufus (Marse Rufe) Weylin, Alice Greenwood and Hagar—one of Alice’s children sired by Rufus, who will eventually be a great-grandmother to Dana.
By courtesy of references in a family Bible, Dana already knows of Hagar; however, her trips to the Past help her better understand the biracial circumstances from whence her great-grandmother came.
Together But Separate: The Effects of Slavery on Blacks and Whites
Through Dana’s travels, Butler demonstrates the devastating effects slavery had on both Black and White families, even in the slave/master dynamic. At the master’s whim, slaves were often sold or sent away with absolutely no regard for their own or their loved ones’ feelings about the forced separation. Furthermore, bonds of friendship that might have developed between Blacks and Whites—particularly among the children—were disregarded. This was, perhaps, the most egregious felony committed by the perpetrators of (to quote Abraham Lincoln) “the peculiar institution” known as slavery.
One must also acknowledge the embarrassment/humility a white slave owner’s wife must have felt when looking upon racially-mixed progeny who undeniably resembled her husband. As has already been noted, Dana’s own heritage was partially the result of Rufus and Alice’s relationship, and although Rufus had no wife to suffer through his indiscretions, he himself was tormented because his genuine love for Alice as a man conflicted with what was expected of a plantation owner in the antebellum South.
Always Some Present Part of Us in the Past
Dana’s in-the-Past murder of Rufus Weylin is the only way to free herself from him, and she loses an arm trying to escape from his death-grasp and return to the Present. The severed arm is symbolic of the fact that at least part of Dana will always be connected to that time and place. Furthermore, whenever she sees or feels that now-empty sleeve, she will be reminded that, since she probably will never again journey back in Time, a part of her will always be missing: that part that semi-belonged on/to the Weylin plantation.
And what of Kevin, Dana’s Present-day Caucasian husband? Certainly he suffers, along with her, the events and circumstances of her journeys to ancestral times. His White skin is no protection; by loving a Black woman, even in an age where it is far more acceptable to do so, he is almost as susceptible as she to the lingering aftereffects of her heritage.
Separate But Together: Americans Connected by the Past
For these and many other reasons, then, one must give more than passing thought to the novel’s title. By using the single-word title Kindred, Octavia Butler intends to firmly remind readers that, Black or White, Americans are inextricably intertwined by the slave-related events of the Past. And, even if one truthfully (albeit self-righteously) denies any miscegenation or slave-holding in one’s personal ancestry, as a member of the human race, one is naturally included in the American “family” – we all are the kindred children of our commingled pasts.
Butler, Octavia. Kindred, 1979, Beacon Press, Boston(ISBN 978-0-8070-8369-7)
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