Kindred

by Octavia E. Butler

Free speech and press hadn’t done too well in the ante bellum South.

How lovely it would have been to say, None of your business, bitch! Instead, I spoke softly, respectfully. ‘In Mr Franklin’s room, ma’am.’

‘The ease. Us, the children . . . I never realized how easily people could be trained to accept slavery.’

As though the Germans had been trying to do in only a few years what the Americans had worked at for nearly two hundred.

Like the Nazis, ante bellum whites had known quite a bit about torture – quite a bit more than I ever wanted to learn.

Repressive societies always seemed to understand the danger of ‘wrong’ ideas.

‘See,’ Nigel told me later with some bitterness. ‘’Cause of Carrie and me, he’s one nigger richer.’ But before the Weylins, he was properly grateful. ‘Thank you, Marse Tom. Yes, sir. Sure do thank you. Fine clothes, yes, sir . . .’

Strangely, they seemed to like him, hold him in contempt, and fear him all at the same time. This confused me because I felt just about the same mixture of emotions for him myself.

It was dangerous to educate slaves, they warned. Education made blacks dissatisfied with slavery. It spoiled them for field work. The Methodist minister said it made them disobedient, made them want more than the Lord intended them to have.