Kindred takes place in two wildly
different eras: 1976 and the early 1800’s. The early 1800’s is a time of
slavery, poor medical care, and manual labor. 1976 is a time of no slavery,
good medical care, and not much manual labor. But the more time Dana spends in each
place, the clearer it becomes that 1819 and 1976 are not as different as one
would expect, and the worst part of 1819 – racism – is still alive and well.
There are
many minor similarities, like how Tom Weylin’s home is repeatedly compared to
Dana and Kevin’s. But most of the 1976 sections talk about how racism is still
around. It’s certainly less than in the 1800’s (white people can’t legally own,
beat, or rape black people), but it’s pervasive. The hottest-button issue is
Dana and Kevin’s interracial marriage, which only became legal in California in
1948 and nationwide in 1967 following Loving
v. Virginia.
As a side
note, some states passed weird anti-miscegenation laws. Maryland’s law, in
addition to prohibiting black-white marriage, specifically made marriage
between black people and Filipinos illegal. Arizona’s law prohibited white people
from marrying anyone who wasn’t white, which had the side effect of prohibiting
someone who was only part white from marrying anybody. In Massachusetts, where
interracial marriage was legal since 1843, there was a law that prevented
couples from getting married in Massachusetts and moving back to their home
states (to circumvent those states’ laws) that wasn’t repealed until 2008, 41
years after there were any other states with such laws. Sorry, I got carried
away reading the Wikipedia article.
Anyway, Kevin
and Dana’s marriage is met with disapproval from both Kevin and Dana’s
relatives. This is especially shocking to Kevin, since he thought his sister
would be totally in favor. Dana’s aunt is mildly supportive (she wants
lighter-skinned grand-nieces and nephews), but her uncle is opposed. Opposition
to interracial marriage probably lasts to this day; in 2000, 40% of voters in
Alabama wanted to keep a clause in the state’s constitution prohibiting it (the
clause couldn’t be legally enforced anyway). When Kevin and Dana go to
Maryland, they find people who “looked at Kevin and me, then looked again”
(262). But they also see “black kids and white kids together”, which leaves
some hope that future generations won’t be so much like they were in 1819.
I think this is a good wrap up the novel and summarizes Butler's point well. We don't often think about how little we have progressed as far as equality since the civil war. Some of the biggest effects of slavery that Dana is aware of are the psychological ones, and in many ways those persist to this day. There are some things that simple legislation cant change, the attitudes of individuals towards each other. Legislation (especially slow, late, and insufficient legislation) cannot be the only thing we change in order to reverse stereotypes and put an end to the oppressive system, it needs to be the attitudes of people as well.
ReplyDeleteAlso non-marital things. Like think about the way that Dana reacts to seeing the plantation--as home. Like that shows how close the two eras are related, that months was all it took to make her feel at home in the other culture. If the culture's were as drastically different as we might delude ourselves sometimes, it would have been much harder to be capable of settling into the culture
ReplyDeleteThis title made me laugh when I saw it! The research you did for this blog post was very thorough, and I found the laws you put in there super interesting (and disturbing). It's crazy how things like that have changed very recently.
ReplyDeleteI feel like one of the central points Butler was trying to make with this novel was how even though we often think of ourselves in our modern environment as very separate from the injustice and cruelty of the antebellum era, in reality there are many ways we are still similar. The comparisons between Rufus and Kevin really brought this point home for me -- obviously, Kevin doesn't want to be like Rufus, and in most ways he isn't -- but out of the corner of her eye Dana finds herself seeing the similarities nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that as much as we like to think that these two eras are vastly different in terms of racial issues, Butler wants to show how interracial marriage is still a big issue in some areas of the country. And as such, it was all the more powerful that as subbies our WILL documentary was centered around that very issue.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that it took a relatively short time for Dana to get accustomed to life in the South also shows how it's not too hard to change from 1976 to 1819. I think showing that 1976 still has many of the characteristics present in the slave era is something that Butler tried to do.
ReplyDelete