Monthly Archives: March 2015

Uncontrolled Contagion

As a student of political science and a current student of a class pertaining to the developing world, it is evident that the spread of western civilization and culture over time is a supremely problematic part of the world. It is common knowledge that western civilizations conquered and colonized the majority of the world, with countries such as England and Spain having colonies stretching across the globe. It is also generally understood that colonization ended, for the most part, after WWII. While it is true that many once colonized countries gained independence at this point, that does not mean that western countries lost their power over them. Many countries that were once the victims of colonization are still heavily dependent on those that had once been their colonizers.

The most evident ways of the lasting impact of colonization are a countries economy and its religion. On the continent of South America you see the lasting impression of Spanish colonization with the dominance of the Catholic religion. On the continents of Asia and Africa, you see a more economically based dominance with the economies of former colonies still relying on their colonizers to keep their economies afloat. This continued influence of the west on the “other” is echoed in Butler’s work quite effectively in The Patternist series. Continue reading Uncontrolled Contagion

Behavioral Norms and Species Inclusivity/Exclusivity

While reading Pramod Nayar’s essay, “A New Biological Citizenship: Posthumanism in Octavia Butler’s Fledgling,” I discovered that although Nayar succeeds in his argument—that Shori has biological citizenship as both a human and an Ina, and furthermore, Shori forms a new hybrid, posthuman species that erodes structural prejudices—the rhetoric of Nayar’s argument is seriously flawed in that the framework of his argument states that biological citizenship is achieved when an organism “performs a species memory,” (species memory meaning a culturally normative behavior) “that she has acquired not through genetic predispositions or her biology but through the apparatuses” given to her by the culture of her species. In other words, Nayar’s framework is based on the idea that an organism can be ontologically classified as a species when it follows the cultural and/or behavioral norms of the species. Nayar claims that Shoir’s identity is at first “uncertain because of her altered biology,” biology that “sets her outside of the [Ina] species border.” However, Nayar hypothesizes that Shori is indeed an Ina because of her subjectivity to Ina cultural apparatuses; to put it another way, Shori’s adoption of Ina cultural/behavioral norms—specifically, Shori’s adherence to Ina pedagogy and Ina ethics of care and mourning—is what makes her an Ina. Continue reading Behavioral Norms and Species Inclusivity/Exclusivity

Beyond the Mind – Journey to Mars

In the interview with Larry McCaffery and Jim McMenamin in 1988, Octavia Butler shared a lot about her Patternist Series which included her comments about once considering to include Kindred as part of the series. She argues that it simply did not feel like part of the series and that she wanted to go in a different direction, a more realistic path. Nonetheless, a few things Butler mentioned in this interview caused nostalgia, others provoked wonder of the past and future as I mention below. Continue reading Beyond the Mind – Journey to Mars

Tribalism in Clay’s Ark

While reading Xhercis Méndez’s article “Confronting the Rhetoric of ‘Black on Black Crime’: A Response to Derailing Strategies,” I was struck by what she wrote about how in minority activists’ quests to draw attention to issues in their communities, “communities and injustices become minoritized in their isolation from one another.” This got me thinking about the way that different groups in Butler’s work isolate themselves from each other, to the detriment of all. Ultimately, this brought me back to the questions we started the semester with: “what brings people together” and “what keeps people together?” Continue reading Tribalism in Clay’s Ark

Blake’s Privilege

Shama Nathan, of the Feminist Wire, recalls a time when she realized her privilege. While on vacation she encounters a young man who’s compliment “you talk like a white person” followed by “that’s why you’re smart.” Privilege surrounds every aspect of life. Nathan correlates whiteness to superiority. Octavia Butler weaves privilege in her texts, through her characters. Specifically in Clay’s Ark, Blake exhibits his privilege within the text. Blake’s status as a white doctor stresses his high-class status. Continue reading Blake’s Privilege

Childbirth and Transition in Mind of My Mind

 

Kayla Marsh’s blog post “Trauma and Formation of the Self,” hones in on an incredibly important aspect of Butler’s work—the impact of experience on one’s self-perception. As Kayla puts it, “the mind protects itself from extreme stressors by physically changing the way that the brain functions.” In other words, negative experience can affect the way a person perceives and understands external stimulus; Kayla cites a student’s difficulty learning new material in an abusive home as evidence of how the brain can reroute its functions in a stressful situation. I would like to expand on Kayla’s post in order to illuminate Butler’s portrayal of trauma as a mechanism for self re-conception, and clarify the real life manifestation of trauma and self-conception.  It’s important to note that Butler’s fiction expresses the idea that any variety of experience can affect the way a person perceives himself/herself: from the improvement in Shori’s ability and confidence as she learns more about the circumstances of her life pre-amnesia, to less physical and more mental examples like Blake’s familiarity with being questioned about his relation to his daughters, Butler never lets readers forget the question of how experience—especially negative and traumatic experience—impacts one’s conscious. With this said, Butler’s commentary on the impact of trauma on the self is perhaps no more prevalent than in the process of transition, and furthermore, comparisons between childbirth and transition illuminate the ability of the traumatic event of transition to completely reformat how people perceive themselves. Ultimately, this illumination reflects the impact of traumatic experiences in real life, and creates a connection between Butler’s fiction and reality that exposes how vulnerable people are to negative criticism. Continue reading Childbirth and Transition in Mind of My Mind

Rape Culture and Patriarchy in Clay’s Ark

Clay’s Ark and Wednesday’s discussion made me think more about how desensitized our society is about violence against women. To give a bit of backstory, when I read the scene in Butler’s work (p.600-603) where the microbes in Rane’s body encouraged her to engage in sexual intercourse with one of her captors, I had to stop mid scene because it was so disturbing. What ensued could be argued as rape and at that point in my reading, I would have agreed that it was rape. Additionally, there were descriptions of the previous owners of the house, an older woman, a young girl and a young boy. They were tied up, dirty, bloody and abused. It came up in the class conversation that the description of the young boy’s torture was the more traumatic part of that scene. I agree that it was disturbing, the boy had his ears and genital cut off and he had bled to death. But why had that seemed more disturbing to people than the women treated that way? I think that feeling is a symptom of the combination of rape culture and patriarchy. Violence against women is normalized. Though boys and young men get abused, it is not talked about and it is rarely seen in media.  In an article on the feminist wire written by Shama Nathan titled, Elementary Feminisms: A Call to Young Women, Nathan talked about how rape culture has shaped our society. Nathan said in her article, “Being harassed or assaulted is something that most women have or will experience in their lifetime. Sexual violence too often is said to be the “realities of life” and therefore “normal.” I can attest to this occurrence. For example, before many women leave their homes, they think about if what they wear will illicit harassment.

This scene was really hard for me to read. I kept thinking that it was not fit for human consumption and asking why would Butler subject her readers to this. But then I membered that just because things are hard to digest does not mean that we should not talk about them. Maybe this was Butler’s intention. In her world in Clay’s Ark, the world has evolved in technology but had devolved in humanity. Brutal atrocities are happening on a high scale in this book. But is what is happening in that scene very far from what happens in our world? I do not think so. And the same reactions we had from the book, are the same ones we would’ve had in our real lives. In class a comment was made along the lines of, “what if that happened to someone I know?!”. This to me is the result of someone knowing that what they had read was disturbing and should not be something that happens in the world but it is misleading in that a woman should not have to be related to you in any way for you to care whether or not she is mistreated.

To go back to how rape culture and patriarchy are inter woven, I refer to a piece titled Masculinity as Homophobia , written by Michael S Kimmel. In the work Kimmel said, “Violence is often the single most evident marker of manhood. Rather it is the willingness to fight, the desire to fight”. It is not so much that violence is in man’s nature but they are socialized to be violent. So the violence inflicted by some men onto some women is brushed off as just another thing in life we have to deal with.  It takes a lot of unlearning societies unhealthy lessons to realize that this should not be the realities of life or considered normal.

Just for more interesting reading/watching you want: Tough Guise 2: Violence, Manhood, & American Culture

The Aspect of Growth in the Patternist Series

In the Patternist series, growth is a major concept. Although we haven’t read Patternmaster yet, so far each book in the series has an aspect about growth. In Wild Seed, the character Doro creates communities of people with special powers and forces them to breed with each other, desiring to make an empire of these kinds of people. In Mind of My Mind, Mary creates a “pattern,” originally by accident. This pattern connects many people together who have special abilities. In Clay’s Ark, there is an intelligent alien disease that eventually becomes an epidemic. Wild Seed and Mind of My Mind are different from the growth in Clay’s Ark in many ways, yet at the same time there are many similarities between the two types of growth. Continue reading The Aspect of Growth in the Patternist Series

False Assumptions in My of My Mind and “I’m a Black Gentrifier, But My Success Is Invisible”

Link: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/theslice/im-a-black-gentrifier-but-my-success-is-invisible-1-6-15

After I finished Octavia Butler’s Mind of My Mind, it occurred to me that my opinion of Mary drastically changed from the beginning of the book to the end. At the beginning, I actually found her to be quite likable because she was a typical teenager (besides her telepathic abilities) that was trying to find her way in life. By the end, I couldn’t stand her because she became so power hungry that she wanted to control anything and everything that was involved in her pattern. Ever since she was born, she was considered to be a huge success of Doro’s inbreeding program. In terms of telepathics, she was elite. However, being a black telepath exposed her to being condemned for the color of her skin instead of her actions. The effect of this was exemplified when Karl showed distaste towards Mary. At first, she automatically assumed it was because of her race and asked him how he felt about black people. Because this was not the case, Karl corrected her by stating that him not wanting her in his house had nothing to do with her being black. It had to do with the fact that he simply did not like her.

In Kashana Cauley’s article “I’m a Black Gentrifier, But My Success Is Invisible”, she was repeatedly asked if she was an East Village native because she was African American. Although she wasn’t ashamed of her race, she felt like it made her successes as a lawyer completely invisible to people in her neighborhood. She discusses how black individuals aren’t associated with being a part of the middle class and are typically considered to be an “other”. Kashana considers herself to be a black gentrifier, because she is part of a gentrifier group who is willing to pay high rent and had a successful job. Although she acknowledged that being a gentrifier isn’t always compliment, she explains that “we are the college-educated or entrepreneurial descendants of black people who had fewer opportunities than we had. We make the sort of money that college-educated and entrepreneurial white people make. We move to neighborhoods like the East Village because we are attracted to the same things as everyone else who moves there: the trendy and nationally-known restaurants and bars, the excellent shopping, the dog run and community events in Tompkins Square Park, the newly renovated running path along the East River.” Once Kashana moved to Prospect Heights, she felt more comfortable with her identity as a successful black lawyer. This was because of the fact that many hardworking individuals of color lived there. As a result, it’s inhabitants did not automatically classify her as an “other” because of her race.

So, how both of these texts relate to one another? Before she gained control of her fellow telepaths within her pattern, Mary was out-casted. Everyone hated her, and Jesse tried to bring everyone together in order to overthrow her. Although it may not have been for the right reasons, Mary was successful in terms of having an elite telepathic ability and being able to gather many individuals within her pattern. On the other hand, when she lived in East Village, Kashana Cauley was automatically assumed to be a member of a lower class because of her race despite the fact that she was a lawyer and had a professional and successful career.

Hero? Villain? Neither?

During our discussion in which we were to place the blame of the microbe epidemic on a specific character in Clay’s Ark, many of us pointed out Eli’s disastrous plan to keep the disease contained within a small settlement; every now and then infecting and adding new people into the fold. But it was Kayla’s comparison of the Clay’s Ark disease to AIDS that truly piqued my interest. In fact, I was quite upset that I had never made the parallel whilst I was reading the novel. As many of you know, AIDS when not combated with the proper therapy and medicine can kill rather quickly. Looking back, I can’t help but think of Eli as he attempted to help newcomers with proper treatment and training. His insightful knowledge of the microbe disease helped him keep his people alive and even proved to keep Keira alive when her survival was doubtful.

In 2013, the movie Dallas Buyers Club, briefly detailing Ron Woodroof’s fight against AIDS and prejudice through an underground medicinal market for individuals with HIV/AIDS,
premiered at theaters across the country and garnered commercial and critical success. Continue reading Hero? Villain? Neither?