On Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler
Fledgling is a novel written by Octavia E. Butler, a black, female, science fiction writer. The novel centers on Shuri, a 53 year old vampire that has not matured beyond adolescence and thus has the body of a child. The book begins with Shuri awakening from amnesia, having been attacked. She later discovers that her whole family has been murdered. In my opinion, Shuri is representative of the black race. She is an “invention” of the older vampires whom are European and Middle Eastern in origin. Shuri was created as a solution to the vampires’ inability to bare the sun and awaken in the day time; however some of the older “purist” vampires view her as an abomination. Conversely, other vampire families exalted her because they hoped to improve through possession of her melanin.
One of the most striking elements of the story is that Shuri frequently has consensual sex with her adult symbiants (the humans that feed her). Many may be alarmed at the imagery of a child having sex with an adult; however this imagery is necessary to bring to focus the extreme inappropriateness of the rape of slaves imposed upon them by their kidnappers. The audience is jarred by the image of a child body having sex even though she is in fact 53 years old, understands consent, and has given it, but the rape of slaves including slave children barely gives one stir and is justified as being “long ago” and “those were the times,” with no real action having been taken to truly rehabilitate the descendants of the terrorized. The child-like body serves to awaken us to the fact that we have been desensitized to terror inflicted upon the black body due to the prevalence of terror that was allowed during slavery; terror that America has yet to fully, transparently, and honestly acknowledge, and America certainly has not faced atonement.
Butler mirrors the unwillingness to atone and hold accountable in the council of elders. The injustices imposed upon Shuri were obvious and evidenced, yet some elders refused to hold the offenders accountable due to loyalty, fear of holding the powerful/established accountable, a misguided agreement in the belief of black inferiority, and cowardly notion that the damage has already been done and thus atonement only causes more damage. These are the arguments that have been presented to the descendants of the kidnapped as excuse for lack of reparation and as a reason why retribution through blood is not justified. This inaction is commensurate with telling black people “we know that we built the financial surplus in this country through the kidnapping, enslavement, and terrorizing of your ancestors; a terror that was completely unregulated and included rape, murder, fear mongering, and other atrocities which left deep psychological scars on those that we kidnapped as well as their descendants; but we cannot take any action to repair that damage because to do so may offend the fragile disposition of your kidnappers, so it would be better if you could silently accept our injustice without trying make yourself whole in any way that may damage, offend, or make us uncomfortable. Please make us your greatest priority as we cannot bare the accountability for our own misdeeds.” This expectation is the subconscious chant of American society; it is a social contract that keeps us stagnant in inequality and racism which creates a powder keg of passive aggression and hostility. The populace is hyper vigilant as most wait for the other shoe to fall. Wouldn’t it be easier to simply acknowledge the wrong doing, take full accountability for all of the horrible deeds, determine all of the negative collateral damage, and genuinely do the work to fix it?
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