In a 2001 essay inspired by that year’s United Nations Conference on racism, Octavia Butler
stated her position on the issue of tolerance and oppression:
What can we do to improve ourselves? Of course, we can resist acting on our nastier
hierarchical tendencies. Most of us do that most of the time already. And we can make a greater
effort to teach children to resist their hierarchical impulses and beliefs and to channel what they
can’t resist into sports and careers. Will this work? Well, it hasn’t so far. Too many people will
not, perhaps cannot, do it. There is, unfortunately, satisfaction to be enjoyed in feeling superior
to other people….Tolerance, like any aspect of peace is forever a work in progress, never
completed, and, if we’re as intelligent as we like to think we are, never abandoned. (“Un Racism
Conference”)
In an essay of 400-500 words, consider how the thoughts Butler expresses in the above excerpt
can or cannot be connected to the novel you read.