Seeing Through Color

Throughout Octavia Butler’s Kindred, there are instances of both tension and compassion between white people and African Americans. These happen across time and space, whether it is in 1976 or 1815. By showing positive approaches to communication between these two separate races, Butler shows how easily friendship and equality could be achieved. On the other hand, Butler points out through tension that African Americans were still somewhat segregated in 1976 similarly to how they had been nearly 200 years earlier.

Two of the main characters in this story, Kevin and Dana, are an interracial married couple that lives in Los Angeles in 1976. Although the two are happily married, they met under poor circumstances. Dana, an African American woman, is the employee of a self-described “slave market” (52). At this labor agency, Dana works right along side low-functioning alcoholics, first-time workers, and “usually a poor crazy old street lady who talked to herself constantly” (52). This is truly the bottom tier of the labor market at the time, which is similar to the slave labor of the early 1800s. While employed at the “slave market”, Dana meets Kevin, and the two begin to date. Even though at this point slavery had been abolished for over 100 years, their new relationship was met with some animosity. Buz, a coworker of Dana comments that the two are making “chocolate and vanilla porn” (56), while another woman tells Dana that her and Kevin are “the weirdest-looking couple she had ever seen” (57). Even Kevin assumed that Dana’s college career had ended due to her flunking out (56). Society’s disapproval of their relationship shows how little had been achieved since the abolition of slavery.

However, Kindred features multiple instances of friendship and love between African Americans and white people. For example, Dana’s reason for time travel is so that she can help Rufus, a white boy. Even though Rufus is raised by a plantation owner, he is luckily not too negatively affected by his upbringing. As a young child he is friends with a free African American girl named Alice who he would later go on to marry, which is yet another instance of an interracial marriage. Additionally, Rufus is friends with an African American boy named Nigel who is one of Rufus’ father’s slaves (59). Rufus’ inability to have prejudices against African Americans was a rare occurrence at the time, but Butler uses it to show how simple it can be for people of all races to coexist happily.

Unfortunately, Rufus’ friendship with these people does not do them any good. Alice’s father, a slave owned by Rufus’ father, is taken from his house in the middle of the night and brutally assaulted by Klan members. Alice’s mother, a free African American woman, was also battered severely by the Klansmen (35-37). Later on, Rufus’ friend Nigel is potentially put in danger because he is sent to the main house to find Rufus’ father. By leaving Rufus alone, Nigel is breaking the rules. Even though Nigel is only going off to find help, his punishment would only be determined on “whether anybody’s made Daddy mad lately” (60). Even as a white male, Rufus is not able to save his friend Nigel or Alice’s parents from the wrath of his father.

The negative outlook on Kevin and Dana’s relationship in 1976 is a reflection of the actions of people like Rufus’ father many years earlier. By showing interracial friendship, marriages and compassion for one another, Butler believes that this negativity is something that could easily be overcome. After all, if a child is able to see passed the color barrier, adults should have no problem doing the same.