Colorblind Racism and Herrenvolk Republicanism: Contesting American Democracy in Octavia Butler’s Kindred
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This article explores the racialized historical continuity between the colorblind racist culture of the post-civil rights era and the formation of American democracy in the antebellum nineteenth century in Octavia Butler’s Kindred. The novel represents the 1970s as a culture where colorblind, neoliberal market universalism is prevalent and the 1830s as a germinal era of Herrenvolk republicanism. While the novel’s antebellum scenes correspond to the time when the political meaning of race underwent significant changes in American history, the 1970s alludes to the outset of the new racial system, a new political invention in the post-Civil Rights Movement United States. Such historical references to race and American democracy represented in Kindred illuminate the contradictory nature of American democracy and its political doctrine that have persisted throughout US history. Dana’s time travel is a rhetorical device to disclose the invisible continuity between these historical eras, illuminating the racist nature of American democracy and allegedly post-racial society. Through the alignment of democratic nation-building in the antebellum nineteenth century and its colorblind re-regimentation in modern US culture, the time travel in Kindred racializes the post-racial America where white supremacist polities have invented new meanings of race in order to maintain color lines. This trans-historical space shares with the novel’s literary ancestors, Richard Wright’s Native Son and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, a common concern for the adequacy of the novel genre in representing racial experience, locating itself within the formal tradition of modern African American literature.
Abstract
This article explores the racialized historical continuity between the colorblind racist culture of the post-civil rights era and the formation of American democracy in the antebellum nineteenth century in Octavia Butler’s Kindred. The novel represents the 1970s as a culture where colorblind, neoliberal market universalism is prevalent and the 1830s as a germinal era of Herrenvolk republicanism. While the novel’s antebellum scenes correspond to the time when the political meaning of race underwent significant changes in American history, the 1970s alludes to the outset of the new racial system, a new political invention in the post-Civil Rights Movement United States. Such historical references to race and American democracy represented in Kindred illuminate the contradictory nature of American democracy and its political doctrine that have persisted throughout US history. Dana’s time travel is a rhetorical device to disclose the invisible continuity between these historical eras, illuminating the racist nature of American democracy and allegedly post-racial society. Through the alignment of democratic nation-building in the antebellum nineteenth century and its colorblind re-regimentation in modern US culture, the time travel in Kindred racializes the post-racial America where white supremacist polities have invented new meanings of race in order to maintain color lines. This trans-historical space shares with the novel’s literary ancestors, Richard Wright’s Native Son and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, a common concern for the adequacy of the novel genre in representing racial experience, locating itself within the formal tradition of modern African American literature.
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