Alien Constructions: Science Fiction and Feminist Thought

1. Cultural Chameleons

1. Cultural Chameleons Anticolonial Identities and Resistance in Octavia E. Butler’s Survivor and Dawn It is in the process of the creation of selfhood that self-cognition occurs, identity is taken on, and a politics is initiated. —Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, Real and Imagined Women O ctavia Butler’s work foregrounds the experiences of female characters and therefore can be understood as part of a feminist tradition in science fiction literature. However, her representations of black heroines differentiate her writing from much of feminist science fiction. In 1984, Ruth Salvaggio noted in her article ‘‘Octavia Butler and the Black Science-Fiction Heroine’’: In a sense, Octavia Butler’s science fiction is a part of the new scenario [created by feminist science fiction], featuring strong female protagonists who shape the course of social events. Yet in another sense, what Butler has to offer is something very different. Her heroines are black women who inhabit racially mixed societies. Inevitably , the situations these women confront involve the dynamic interplay of race and sex in futuristic worlds. (Salvaggio, ‘‘Black Science-Fiction Heroine’’ 78) Butler is one of the few black science fiction writers publishing in English (others include Samuel Delany, Steven Barnes, Charles Saunders, and Nalo Hopkinson), and her work needs to be understood within the context of the traditions of the genre. Her work reflects a concern with the invisibility of the black experience in popular imagination, particularly in science fiction1—a concern shared by Sheree R. Thomas, editor of Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Dias- 44 DIFFERENCE, IDENTITY, AND COLONIAL EXPERIENCE pora: ‘‘Like dark matter, the contributions of black writers to the sf genre have not been directly observed or fully explored’’ (Thomas xi). The invisibility of blacks in science fiction refers not only to authors but also to readers, as seen in the persistent claim that black people do not read or write science fiction. Adele S. Newson dispels this claim as a ‘‘widespread myth’’ that is ‘‘fed by the notion that [blacks] cannot afford to indulge in fantasy’’ (390). And Samuel R. Delany, in ‘‘Racism and Science Fiction,’’ recalls Harlan Ellison’s point that the pulp writers of early popular magazines were known only by name, and there was no way to tell the ethnic origin of the contributors or their gender: ‘‘[W]e simply have no way of knowing if one, three, or seven of [these writers]—or even many more—were blacks, Hispanics, women, Native Americans, Asians, or whatever. Writing is like that’’ (Delany, ‘‘Racism and Science Fiction’’ 384). It is important to destabilize claims of silence, for they themselves often have the effect of silencing. But it is also necessary to recognize the racism of the genre—in its texts as well as in its communal boundaries (such as conventions, conferences, awards, etc.). Delany’s account of a painful encounter during an award ceremony in 1968 reflects how racial identities are ascribed to us by racist United States society. A well-intended joke reminded Delany during the award ceremonies, No one here will ever look at you, read a word you write, or consider you in any situation, no matter whether the roof is falling in or the money is pouring in, without saying to him- or herself (whether in an attempt to count it or to discount it), ‘‘Negro . . .’’ The racial situation , permeable as it might sometimes seem (and it is, yes, highly permeable), is nevertheless your total surround. (Delany, ‘‘Racism and Science Fiction’’ 391) In an interview a little less than twenty years later, Octavia Butler recalled that an editor of a science fiction magazine voiced his belief that black characters should not be included in science fiction stories since their presence would distract the reader from the story. ‘‘He stated that if you were going to write about some sort of racial problem, that would be absolutely the only reason he could see for including a black’’ (Beal 18). Next to the racial politics of the science fiction community, the texts themselves often either propagate a typical liberal color blindness or CULTURAL CHAMELEONS 45 are racist—openly as well as implicitly.2 One extreme is the refusal to deal with ‘‘actual’’ racism, which results in an abstraction of the issue into metaphors and avoidance of any treatment of existing power structures . Frances Bonner observes this phenomenon in ‘‘Difference and...