The Seed of Change

Each quarter, a group of students, faculty, and staff at WWU convene an environmental justice reading group to read and discuss recent texts. This quarter (Spring 2019) the group is reading Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy. The following entry reflects the group’s discussion last week.

The Seed of Change

By: Annika Mancini and Parker Hamel

 

This week, we concluded Octavia Butler’s book, Parable of the Sower, with a discussion of chapters 18-25. Our opening question asked how people felt between the relation between change and community in the book, and the change and community we see in our society.

 

To start, we talked about how the book made people feel. While Parable of the Sower had many violences occur; however, the end result seemed to leave people feeling hopeful. It provided a reimagining of community, outside the bonds of society and institutions. Those I was in discussion with talked about how many people refuse to reimagine themselves and how cities and institutions refuse to change, doing things how they have “always done.” It is clear that Butler wanted to plant this seed of reimagination in the mind’s of her readers, and from our discussion we saw that she succeeded. The parallels in our culture were clear, and throughout the book we saw a society’s resistance to change, that is still present today.

 

The first half of the book tourments the reader by discussing the resistance to change. We see characters that lack the ability to leave a community that is clearly falling into turmoil. As the book progresses we see that Lauren’s Earthseed begins to take root, and gives the characters the ability to embrace change. That lead to discussions about hopefulness. The trials and tribulations and the violence that all of the characters endured somehow ended in a seed of hope. A hope that love persists, and change can be an opportunity to grow.

 

In the post-book interview, Butler mentions that she wanted people to view Lauren as a god after death. Lauren’s Earthseed, depicting god as change, was an idea that allowed people to shape their own future. In other words, “shape god” and create their own change and community, for god is change. We talked about how a perfect utopia was pretty much impossible by our nature, but you could shift that framework.

 

Another parallel we saw to our culture today are subtle (and not so subtle) forms of slavery and discrimination that took place in the book. We noted that the institutions we saw in Parable of the Sower are not far from the institutions we live in today. This book was written in the 1990s, and 30 years later the police are still viewed the same. They still abuse their power and contribute heavily to systematic racism. The racism we saw in this book was also a clear nod to societies dysfunction and white folks continuation of racist practices. Multiple of the characters were people of color who “worked” on plantain-esque lands, and who were abused and raped by white people. They were not compensated, it was slavery. Butler’s point was clear. She utilized the realistic “dystopia” to create scenarios which are not far off from things that have happened, are happening, or could probably happen if American society took a turn for the worse. By doing this she brings to the forefront the realities that minorities continue to face in our world today.

 

We also related this to a few examples outside the book. Notable among these are privatized prisons, an institution resembling slavery and limiting rights. Our “justice” system engages in racial profiling, thus jails largely house minorities, plus privatized prisons make a profit off jailing more people. They are forced to do underpaid labor and you cannot vote in jail, at least if you have a felony, which can include minor drug charges. Not allowing people to vote is a major suppression of the voice of minority populations more often arrested, thus their voices are not represented. Once you have been put in jail it is harder to get employment, housing, etc. The U.S. also often uses immigrant labor for jobs most people would not take, without acknowledgement and with a constant fear of deportation and the use of dehumanizing language directed at them.

 

We talked about fear and distrust of police, similar to in the book. Why should POC call the police if it will only make things worse? For instance, blame could be and often is shifted to the victim and there are also court fees to pay, which are much more costly to poor minorities. We addressed activist deaths and how, during peaceful protests, there is often a huge police force, not to protect the protesters, but corporate investment and the natural flow of society. Women are often not acknowledged for domestic work and minorities are often underpaid.

Institutions also condition us to be blind in many areas. There are still many subtle forms of inequality imbedded in institutions that we easily accept as permanent and normal. We often choose ignorance when it comes to these subtle forms of discrimination.

 

Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower is a book that captures systems of oppression in a dystopian setting, not too different to those in place today. It tackles change from a hopeful angle, that challenges the very institutions we perceive as “normal,” which we often accept as they are and work within. “God is change” and only we can shape god. We must think beyond our institutions and shape new change, new community, so that we may shape a better world, a better god.

“All that you touch

You Change

All that you Change

Changes you.

The only lasting truth

Is Change

God

Is Change.”

– Lauren’s Earthseed verses – Chapter 1 of Parable of the Sower

by Octavia E. Butler