In 1979, Ocatvia Butler published Kindred. I had not read any of Butler’s work before this and I now am hooked. There is much reflection to go through in the fact that I didn’t know her work…I am glad to know her work now and sad it was not part of my life earlier.

Kindred has so many themes that are relevant to our time. The book follows Dana, a young Black woman living in 1976 who is taken back and forth through time to her ancestors in a pre-Civil War Maryland plantation. She is jostled between her reality as a 1976 freewoman and one of a pre-Civil War slave.

There is some divine serendipity. I finished the book on Martin Luther King Jr. Day this year.

Power is a constant theme in the book.

SPOILER ALERT!

At one point, Dana and her husband, Kevin (a white male writer), are both pulled back in time to the Weylin plantation. Dana is later called back to 1976 LA but Kevin is left behind. Dana stays in 1976 for 8 days until she is pulled back to Kevin and the Weylin plantation of the year 1815. What she soon finds out is for Kevin, and all others at the plantation, it had been a whole 5 years she was gone. Time did not work in unison between her two realities.

Eventually Dana and Kevin find each other in 1815 and make their way back to 1976. While home Dana questions what Kevin did over those 5 years:

“One more thing. Just one.”
He looked at me questioningly.
“Where you helping slaves to escape?”
“Of course I was! I fed them, hid them during the day, and when night came, I pointed them toward a free black family who would feed and hide them the next day.”
I smiled and said nothing. He sounded angry, almost defensive about what he had done.
“I guess I’m not used to saying things like that to people who understand them,” he said.

Kindred by Ocatvia Butler (Chapter: The Storm)

Kevin entered 1815 with a certain power or privilege along with knowledge of what is truly right and to come.

He brought the future to bear and did his part to support the oppressed and marginalized.

What is the future that each of us can bring to bear? We have a power and privilege and can see a world that is to be. What is our role? What can we do? If someone asks us if we helped a cause, would we be able to say “Of course I was!”

I cannot recommend this book more highly. Thank you to my wife, Kelly, who introduced me to Octavia Butler.

Power is pervasive even when it is exposed for what it is.