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THE SUBJECT OF RACE IN AMERICAN SCIENCE FICTION
VOLUME I
By

Sharon DeGraw

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fiilfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of English

2004

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ABSTRACT
THE SUBJECT OF RACE IN AMERICAN SCIENCE FICTION
By

Sharon DeGraw

Using three primary authors, I discuss the evolution of racial subjectivity as
constructed in American science fiction over the course of the twentieth century.
Written during the first decade of the twentieth century, Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars
series exemplifies not only the multi—generic nature of early sf, but also a normative
racial triangle of author, protagonist, and audience. Within this Anglo male triangle, a
false universalism ofperspective is constructed. Therefore, the issue ofrace
paradoxically is elided, even as Burroughs utilizes racial essentialism in his portrayal of
theAnglomaleprotagonistandtheotherracesthisprotagonist emounters. Racial
essentialism firmly links biology and culture, creating stable, race-based identity.
Furthermore, Burroughs links racial essentialism with the concept of progress to place
Carter at the pinnacle of a racial hierarchy. While Burroughs' scientific racialism reflects
that of the scientific community and the anti-immigration movement in the United States
at the turn of the century, the speculative element of the sf genre afl‘ords an element of
racialegalitarianismaswell. Itisthissmallseeduponwhichlatersfwritersbuild.

During the 19308, George S. Schuyler wrote a science fiction novel, I_3_la_cl_(_lflg
More, andasefialforalargelyAfi'ican-Americanaudience. TheAfi‘ican-American
protagonists of both these narratives joined with the audience and Schuyler‘s ancestry to

invert the normative racial triangle of early science fiction. For this reason, Schuyler and

his texts have been consistently placed in the genre of African-American literature, rather
than tint of science fiction. Unfortunately, this literary context prevents a more positive
reading of Schuyler's texts, one which acknowledges Schuyler’s ground-breaking
portrayal of a constructed concept of race and racial identity. Schuyler created an
individualistic, highly variable concept of race at odds with the racial essentialism still
widely accepted throughout the United States.

It is not until the 19603 and the career of Samuel R Delany that the two genres of
science fiction and African-American literature converge more fully. Delany expands on
Schuyler's racial constructionist approach to identity, including gender and sexuality in
addition to race. In such works as The BM of Beta-2 and Trouble on Triton, Delany
explores the repercussions of a multiple and variable postmodern subjectivity for the
maintenance ofracial identity in the filture. By exploring racial issues firmly within the
boundaries of the sf community, Delany has helped open the door for more direct and

extensive racial investigations within the genre.

Copyright by
SHARON DEGRAW
2004

In memory of my mother, Marilyn DeGraw.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First, I would like to thank Dr. Robert Shelton for his continual encouragement, insight,
and patience. Without him, I would not have finished this project. In addition, Dr.
Katherine Fishburn has been instrumental to the theoretical development of my ideas.
Finally, I must acknowledge the support of my family. My father and mother always
encouraged my educational endeavors and have helped me with my graduate studies in
too my ways to name. Likewise, my husband has always believed in me and, since the
birth of our son, has been a wonderful babysitter. Finally, my sister has done everything
she could the past few years to get me to graduation. Thank you all for your help—I
certainly needed it.

 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

SECTION 1
BURROUGHS ................................................................................. 1
In the Beginning ...................................................................... 1
Edgar Rice Burroughs ............................................................... 13
The American West ................................................................. 25
The American West (in)to Mars ................................................... 40
Mars ................................................................................... 66
Progress ............................................................................... 75
Notes .................................................................................. 79
SECTION 2
SCHUYLER .................................................................................. 88
Criticism and Context .............................................................. 88
Black No Mom ..................................................................... 125
Notes ................................................................................. 167
SECTION 3
DELANY ..................................................................................... 176
Delany's Diflerence(s) ............................................................ 176
The Alternatives .................................................................... 191
on T ' on. ............................................................... 250
Notes ................................................................................. 291
APPENDIX .................................................................................. 308
WORKS CITED ............................................................................ 309
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In the Beginning

The genre of science fiction is widely considered to have started with Mary
Shelley’s Frankenstein, published in Great Britain in 1818. However, as Robert Scholes
and Eric Rabkin note in a brief history of sf, “When Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein,
science fiction had neither a name or any recognition as a separate form of literature [and
t]his situation lasted for a century” (7). Such generic ambiguity and critical retrospection
mark the field of science fiction studies. In a more comprehensive history of science
fiction, Edward James highlights the sharp rise in Englishlanguage texts dealing with the
future from the 18505 onward. He states that “[t]hroughout the [19*] century, most of the
respected (male) writers of fiction in the United States had dabbled in what we could call
Si” (Salem 33)‘. However, “[s]f was first named, and first became a genre, in the sf
magazines published in the United States before the Second World War” (James, m
66). In such a literary context, early writers of science fiction were not consciously
writing within the genre. In fact, many wrote with other genres in mind. For example,
when Edgar Rice Burroughs began his writing career in the 19103, he wrote adventure
fiction for all-fiction magazines. We simply classify many of his texts as science fiction
from a contemporary critical vantage point. ERB merits special attention from Edward
James because he is “probably the most influential of the writers who began in the pulps”
(mice 45). Given the lack of generic formation before the first decades of the
twentieth century, it is not surprising that “[m]any of the important names in the early sf
magazines hadialready written Sf for several years in the general fiction pulps” (ibid).
' The sf texts were simply published alongside other popular adventure tales—the westerns _

of Zane Grey, the Afiican adventures of H. Rider Haggard, and the northern stories of

 

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Jack London, for example.2

In the United States, the combination of a "fin de siecle" feeling (James, M1192
31), an increase in literacy, and a growing interest in “science and technology” led first to
the inclusion of science fiction in cheap, all-fiction pulp magazines and then the
increasing specialization of these magazines up through the 19305 (Scholes and Rabkin
35). In his book, The Creation of Tomorrow: F iftv Yea_r_s of Magazine Science Fiction.
Paul Carter chronicles the rise of the pulps and their association with sf. Carter begins
the first chapter with Hugo Gemsback because he founded and edited Amazing Stories,
“the first periodical in the world devoted solely to science fiction” (4). In addition, as the
editor of several pulp magazines in the 19208 and 19303, Gernsback had a formative
effect on the evolution of the genre. As Edward James asserts, “The creation of specialist
sf magazines was a recognition of the existence. of a genre, and once that genre was
named, in the late 19205—first as ‘scientifiction’, and then as ‘science fiction’-—we get
Our first attempts at definitions. It is no coincidence that the first definitions came with
the coiner of those names, Hugo Gernsback” (52). Both Carter and James emphasize
Gemsback’s scientific positivism and the tremendous influence of the “Gernsback-
Sloane-Tremaine-Campbell [editorial] guidelines” on science fiction (Carter 18).
Education of the public, progress, and extrapolation were all key components of the
editors’ focus on science. However, despite this scientific emphasis and attempts to
define the genre accordingly, science fiction has always had a dual nature in which the
fictional format is equally important as the science. Gernsback, for example, suggested

that the ideal sf text wOuld be one quarter science and three quarters romance (James,

 

Science 52). In this context, Carter notes that some sf writers “were simply impatient at

 

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the necessity for interrupting their storylines to get the science straightened out. They
were, after all, writing for cash for magazines published as men’s-adventure pulps in
which fast action was the sine qua non” (l9). Edgar Rice Burroughs was one such writer.
He serves as a representative early sf writer in his incredible output and the multi-generic
aspect of his work. Due to the generic ambiguity of early science fiction—its lack of
theoretical definition and roots in other literary genres—Burroughs combined adventure
fiction, romance, and sf, often in one text. In fact, despite giving Burroughs a prominent
place in their histories of the science fiction field, both Carter and James oppose ERB to
Gemsback’s scientific focus. James asserts that “[t]here was little or no pretence at
scientific correctness in Burroughs,” and James follows the lead of Brian Aldiss, another
sf historian, in labeling Burroughs’ work as escapist and thought-stifling (529% 45-6).
While the debate over the definition and generic boundaries of science fiction
continues to this day, a strong uniformity of perspective existed in other key areas of the
early sf field.3 First, a single, highly individualistic action hero took center stage in the
majority of the texts due to the literary roots of American sf in adventure fiction. This
heroic protagonist was almost always male and of Anglo descent. The protagonist’s
textual dominance, heroic nature, and representative status all combined to convey the
normalcy and universalism of the Anglo male perspective. The hero represented not only
his country and/or race, but also ideal manhood and the entire human race (in opposition
to aliens).4 Many times the protagonist also narrated the story, obscuring even the
possibility of competing perspectives. Within western culture, explorers and adventurers
were historically white males. However, the gender and racial/national origin of the

protagonist stemmed from that of the authors, editors, and readers of early science fiction

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as well. In effect, a triangle of racial and gender similarity existed, composed of the
protagonist, the authors and editors, and the audience.

The sf authors and editors are the second element in this Anglo male triangle.
Female authors were the exception in the science fiction field up through the 19605 due
to the general sexism of patriarchal western culture, the professional fields, and the
publishing industry. More specifically, the strong exclusion of women from the sciences
and the overwhelmingly male audience of adventure fiction and sf promoted male
authorship. Paul Carter notes that, prior to 1940, author C. L. Moore “stood virtually by
herself” in the sf field (180). As most writers promote their own values and beliefs, and
these are usually grounded in their personal identity and experiences, the uniformity of
perspective between the male authors of science fiction and their protagonists should not
be surprising. John Taliaferro, for example, calls Burroughs’ protagonists “his fictional
alter-egos” (22) and explores the connections between Burroughs’ pride in his “Anglo-
Saxon lineage” and the similar background of his protagonists (19). Taliaferro also links
the personal beliefs of Burroughs to the larger cultural context of early twentieth-century
American: “All of his plots [...] boil down to survival of the fittest, a theme both romantic
and political. Burroughs, like so many of his contemporaries, believed in a hierarchy of
race and class” (19). Like their readers, the sf authors were heavily influenced by the
Anglo-centric, patriarchal society in which they lived. Not only did they cater to the
masculine ideals of their young, male audience, but also the authors held similar ideals
due to the shared culture. In addition, the large and continuous output required of authors
by the pulp magazines hindered the creation of less stereotypical characters. Few authors

had the time or motivation to move beyond generic formulas or to question accepted

 

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social norms. Furthermore, some sf editors actively promoted an Anglo male
protagonist. For example, Isaac Asimov describes the influential editor of Astounding
magazine, John Campbell, as “tak[ing] for granted, somehow, the stereotype of the
Nordic white as the true representative of Man the Explorer, Man the Darer, Man the
Victor” (qtd. in Carter 77). The close gender and racial correlation between the science
fiction triangle of editors and authors, protagonists, and readers fostered the universality
of the Anglo male perspective.

As they tried to sell their material, science fiction authors and editors catered to an
overwhelmingly young, male audience. In the chapter Paul Carter devotes to the
“Feminine Mystique in Science Fiction,” he acquiesces with Joanna Russ’
characterization of the typical sf reader as an adolescent boy, at least in the early years
(173). Even as Carter points out the general aging of sf readers by the end of the 19405,
he maintains the over-all masculine make-up of the audience (ibid). Edward James
explicitly, and somewhat condescendingly, links Edgar Rice Burroughs with a young,
masculine audiencie:

he was published in Britain as a writer of stories for boys; tales of interplanetary

derring-do were suitable for boys and Americans, but not for British adults. And,

it is fair to say, those intrigued by Burroughs’s brand of romance tend to be
captured young: few young males can resistriding in their imagination on a six-
legged thoat across Barsoom’s dry sea-beds [...] alongside John Carter. (SW

46)

John Carter, the protagonist of Burroughs’ Mars series, was not a “boy,” since only adult

males could completely fulfill the multiple functions of a hero—including great physical

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strength in adventure fiction. Yet, the young men reading such texts clearly identified
themselves with the hero. The authors and editors of sf texts knew this identification and
vicarious participation would be limited by a heroine.

Furthermore, one day these young male readers would grow into men and
positions of adventure and power would be open to them. While interplanetary
exploration was not feasible in the early decades of the twentieth century, the young men
could realistically envision themselves as adventurers, explorers, and national envoys. In
her book Primate Visions: Gender. RaceLand Nature in the World of Modern Science.
Donna Haraway titles the first chapter “Teddy Bear Patriarchy” because Teddy Roosevelt
was a real-life icon of turn-of-the-century western man. Haraway explores the
connections between “Nature, Youth, Manhood, [and] the State” in the Roosevelt
Memorial atrium of the Afi’ican Hall, located in the American Museum of Natural
History, and she highlights the close association of young males of this time period with
poWerful and world-renowned men like Roosevelt (27). The former president’s rough
and dangerous adventures, including safaris to Afiica and explorations of the Amazon,
served as an ultimate, but real-life example of manhood. After reading one of the many
accounts of Roosevelt’s life, the adventures of John Carter would not seem so farfetched
to young Sf fans.5 In fact, Haraway draws such a fictional parallel in her text by
prefacing the chapter on Roo-sevelt with a quote fi'om Burroughs. Both Brian Street and
Edward James connect juvenile males, adventure fiction, and imperialism in their
discussion of turn-of—the-century British literature as well. Within this context, young
male readers not only identified with the Anglo male protagonist, but also sought to

emulate him in the real world. Thus, the authors created protagonists with the readers’

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ideals in mind and, conversely, the readers utilized the protagonists as role models. With
such a close association between the audience and the protagonists, early science fiction
readers normally did not question the primacy of the Anglo male perspective.

In addition, the dominance of this Anglo male perspective combined with an
emphasis on science and technology to restrict the speculative element of early American
science fiction. Since inventions and technical gadgets were the primary focus of early
speculation, more abstract concepts like identity, gender, or race often were neglected.
Paul Carter, for example, sets up the first installment of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars
series as the progenitor of a long line of stereotypical science fiction. From the Old West
hero, John Carter, to the Western American setting of Mars, to the Indians disguised as
Martians, “[t]his Western Mars [...] was to reappear again and again in pulp science
fiction” (62). According to Paul Carter, “this Western Mars,” and its Anglo-American
male perspective, dominated the large sub-genre of Martian sf up through the first half of
the twentieth century. It was not until 1970 that John Campbell wrote a eulogy for
Burroughs’ Mars, entitled “Goodbye to Barsoom” (Carter 69). Furthermore, this
tendency to superficially and stereotypically transform Earth and terrestrial culture from
the Anglo male perspective extended across the solar system: “Mars as nineteenth-
century frontier America and Venus as nineteenth-century frontier Afiica had a mythic
appeal that pushed aside all demands of scientific exactitude” (Carter 65). Mercury and
Jupiter were exoticized as “Asian port cities” as well (Carter 68). Paul Carter’s summary
of the “general archaizing and Westemizing of the space fiontier” foregrounds the
stereotypical tendencies and multi-generic roots of early science fiction, as. well as its

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Paul Carter begins the second section of his chapter, “Under the Moons of Mars:
The Interplanetary Pastoral,” with a quote from Leslie Fiedler which grounds the Anglo-
American male perspective in the Other of American “Indians” (66). Although clearly
not the main focus in early science fiction, such Other(s) were essential for the formation
of the Anglo male perspective. The heroism of the Anglo male protagonist required a
negative type against which to be gauged, and the tension between the protagonist and
the Other(s) provided the textual action or conflict. For example, females served as
secondary characters for romantic purposes and sexual titillation. In addition, the women
provided both a foil and a motivation for the characteristics culturally ascribed to males:
courage, power, and action. Characters of ethnic, racial, or national backgrounds other
than Anglo-American or Anglo-European usually functioned as villains or stereotyped
representatives of an exotic locale. Finally, aliens were mostly a thinly disguised
substitute for any of these multiple Others. In her book Aliens and Others: Science
F iction, Feminism, and Post-modemism, Jenny Wolmark links all three of these character
groups and discusses how “the alien has been usedto represent Otherness” in sf texts
(28). Including an Other, however, always creates the potential for subversion of the
primary viewpoint. To forestall such a possibility, the sf authors subordinated,
caricaturized, and/or vilified the Other(s). For example, in his discussion of the
exceptional science fiction writing of Stanley G. Weinbaum in the early 19305, Paul
Carter asserts that, “[u]nti1Weinbaum’s time, the reader’s choice in extraterrestrial life-
forms was usually between human beings (some of whom were very, very good) and

monsters (most of which were very, very bad)” (73). Weinbaum merits attention from

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Carter, despite his extremely short career, because he created an alien character who “has
an intellect at least as good as the hero’s own” and, as a result, broke “clean away from
both the Burroughs and the Wells stereotypes of life on Mars” (ibid).

Throughout American history, dominant Anglo-American male identity has been
constructed in contrast to the multiple Others of Native Americans, African-Americans,
women, Asians, and Euro-Americans of other national origins. 6 However, when science
fiction was emerging in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century, a
new Other was developing—a massive influx of eastern and southern European
immigrants in what became known as the New Immigration. The same technolOgical and
scientific changes which inspired science fiction combined with this New Immigration to
fuel racialism and the increasing popularity of the eugenics movement. In Bordering on
the Body: The Racial Matrix of Modern Fiction and Culture. Laura DOyle provides a
useful summary of the eugenics movement in the United States at the beginning of the
twentieth century. Overtly combining science” and politics, eugenics connected scientific
theories with social reform: 7

Eugenics held that ‘racial degeneration’ in Western nations threatened what the

contemporary political writer Benjamin Kidd called ‘the struggle of the Western

races for the larger inheritance of the future.’ According to eugenicists, only
racially responsible reproduction could reverse this trend and ensure success in

the global economic struggle. (Doyle 11)

A5 a result, outspoken anti-immigration advocates formed the Immigration Restriction
League in 1894. “IRL leaders believed there was a racial foundation to American

nationality, that heredity was more powerful than environment, and that the new

 

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immigrants were racially inferior” (Brimis). Acting on these beliefs, the anti-immigration

leaders wrote articles and books with titles like Edward Ross’ “American Blood and

 

Immigrant Blood” (1913) and Madison Grant’s The Passingg of the Great Race (1916).
Politically, their efforts culminated in the passing of the Immigration Act of 1924, which
imposed stringent quotas on southern and eastern European countries. The legislation
heavily restricted the immigration of national and ethnic groups like Italians, Poles, and
Jews, while encouraging immigration from western European countries. It also
formalized the complete exclusion of Asians initiated earlier with the Chinese Exclusion
Act of 1882. At the same time, the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 forced Native
Americans to assimilate completely to Anglo-American ideals, like private land
ownership, or lose their tribal territory completely. These simultaneous, multiple
exanmles of American racialism and nativism reveal the increasing pressure being
applied to the Anglo-American male position at the turn-of—the-century. Threatened, the
Anglo-American men asserted their normalcy, universality, and superiority using the new
discourses of science and race.

The dual aspect of science reflects the paradoxical position of Anglo men. The
need to prove their normale and universality called for a uniform standard and overt
scientific objectivity. On the other hand, the need to assert their superiority led to the
underlying subjectivity of their scientific practice and discourse. In Primate Visions.
Donna Haraway begins with the historically dominant association of science with fact
and literature with fiction (34). From this position, “the natural sciences seem to be
crafts for distinguishing between fact and fiction” (4). In most early science fiction, the

viewpoint of the protagonist is allied with Western science. Therefore, it seems

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completely reliable, without bias, and the unquestioned norm. This emphasis on
objectivity combined with the scientific positivism of most early sf to paradoxically both
support and erase the dominance of the Anglo male perspective. As Haraway chronicles
in Primate Visions, the history of western science tells a story of progress which entails
the ever-increasing suppression of its own fictional nature (4).

Within the rapidly developing sciences of biology and anthropology, for example,
race became a scientifically constructed term with overtly objective and authoritative
connotations. Natural and social scientists tied both race and ethnicity to the physical
body, and biology served as an anchor for individual and collective identity. It was
widely believed that behavior, intelligence, and even morals had their foundations in
ethnicity or race.8 For instance, Madison Grant, head of the New York Zoological
Society and trustee of the Museum of Natural History, claimed that,

New York is becoming a cloaca gentium which will produce many amazing racial

hybrids and some ethnic horrors that will be beyond the powers of future

anthropologist to unravel. One thing is certain: in any such mixture, the surviving
traits will be determined by competition between the lowest and most primitive
elements and the specialized traits of Nordic man; his Stature, his light colored
eyes, his fair skin and light colored hair, his straight nose and his splendid fighting
and moral qualities, will have little part in the resultant mixture.
Prescott F. Hall placed this “Nordic man” within the “Teutonic” or “Baltic race, [. . .]
which has always been distinguished for energy, initiative, and self-reliance” (297). In
contrast, the New Immigration consisted of “entirely different races—cf Alpine,

Mediterranean, Asiatic, and Afiican stocks. These races haVe an entirely different mental

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make-up from the Baltic race” (ibid). Edward Ross, future president of the American
Sociological Association, collectively defined the new immigrants as “the lowest and
most primitive elements” of humanity, including the “Caliban type”: “from ten to twenty
per cent are hirsute, lowbrowed, big-faced persons of obviously low mentality.”9 He
classified the new immigrants as atavistic ancestors of prehistoric humans: “clearly they
belong in skins, in wattled huts at the close of the Great Ice Age.” Furthermore, Ross
described the new immigrant “soul [as] burn[ing] with the dull, smoky flame of the
pine-knot struck to the soil.” Such racial essentialism firmly linked culture and biology.
Personal identity was conceived as a whole and stable entity with its roots in collective
racial “types.” 1

As the preceding examples vividly illustrate, the subjective aspect of this
scientific discourse becomes most clear in the ranking of these “types” within a racial
hierarchy which supports the dominant Anglo male position. In her book, The Idea of
Race in Science: Great Blitain 1800-1960. Nancy Stepan discusses the replacement of the
religious Great Chain of Being by a racial chain of progressive development, with
primitive, darker races at the bottom and civilized, fairer races at the top. The physical
components of this classification and division served as a static, essentialist base for the
cultural and historical ranking. A5 Nancy Stepan argues, it is not coincidence that this
scientific discourse, constructed by western European males, bolstered the existing,
hierarchy of race, culture, gender, and nationality.10 Doyle joins Stepan and Haraway in
emphasizing the subjective aspects of scientific discourse in her study of the connections
between the eugenics movement and literature of the twentieth century. Discussing both

American and British texts, Doyle asserts that “the contemporaneous development, on the

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one hand, of eugenics and, on the other hand, of the Harlem Renaissance and
modernism—with their common focus on racialized mother figures—emerges as no mere
coincidence” (9). The scientific focus and exotic locales of science fiction made this
popular genre susceptible to these racial theories as well. As a result, the racial triangle
of science fiction was connected to and supported by a pervasive crurent of racialist
discourse. Ostensibly objective yet fundamentally subjective, these racial theories were
commonly utilized by scientists, popular writers, and literary authors to bolster the
dominant position of the Anglo-American male.ll
Edgar Rice Burroughs

At the convergence of these generic and racial elements lies Edgar Rice
Burroughs. As noted earlier, even as sf historians downplay the scientific foundation of
Burroughs’ work and connect it with a juvenile audience, they give ERB a prominent
place in their histories because of his tremendous popularity and literary and cultural
influence. Scholes and Rabkin, for example, join Edward James in calling Burroughs
“the most popular” of adventure writers (11). Burroughs’ latest biographer, John
Taliaferro, asserts that since “the most conservative estimate [of Burroughs’ total sales] is
thirty million books sold during his lifetime [and. . .] that Burroughs’s titles have been
published in more than thirty languages [. . .], there can be little question that he was the
most widely read American author of the first half of the twentieth century” (13-4).
Much of Burroughs’ popularity stems from his immensely famous and influential Tarzan
series. However, Burroughs also wrote scientific romances, including four series taking
place on Mars, Venus, the moon, and within the Earth’s core. In fact, his first published

work was the first book of his Mars series, A Princess of Mars, serialized in Munsey’s

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all-fiction pulp magazine, All—Story, in 1912. In addition, Burroughs wrote four westerns
and a realistic melodrama entitled The Girl From Hollywood. Two of Burroughs’
westerns, The War Chief and its sequel The Apache Devil. differ from Burroughs’ other
works in that he conscientiously researched them, striving for historical authenticity, and
they are written primarily from a Native American point of view.‘2 The two Apache
westerns and The Girl from Hollywood reflect Burroughs’ desire to be taken more
seriously as a writer and to escape the “pulp ghetto” (Taliaferro 15). However, while all
three novels were published, Burroughs’ Tarzan and science fiction series remained the
staple of his literary oeuvre. Furthermore, as Taliaferro aptly observes, “[d]espite his
enormous appeal, his work is not taught in schools or welcomed in the American canon”
(ibid). In the age of pulps, Burroughs was king. Yet, he has only gained even qualified
recognition in the sf field, while science fiction itself has struggled for the same type of
literary respectability.13

Burroughs’ association with popular culture and juvenile literature has hindered a
serious critical discussion of his work and suppressed the significant racial component of
his texts. Before the advent of popular culture as a field of study within the academic
community, texts such as Burroughs’ were not considered worthy of serious critical
attention. Furthermore, the Anglo-American male mangle ’of protagonist, author, and
audience combined to obscure racial issues within early sf texts, and often literature more
broadly.” The widespread connection between science and objectivity has compounded
the problem. Today, Tarzan has taken on a life of his own and has escaped from a
connection to his original author. Whereas almost everyone in contemporary western

society has heard of Tarzan, the name of Edgar Rice Burroughs is largely unknown

14

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outside literary circles. When critics and popular audiences alike are more familiar with
the many multi-media spin-offs of his Tarzan series than Burroughs’ books themselves,
the racial foundation of his texts is lost. For example, how many viewers of Walt
Disney’s latest retelling of the Tarzan story realize that the original, textual Tarzan “is
also the son and rightful heir of England’s Lord and Lady Greystoke” and, “in later
episodes, he flies a plane, quotes Latin, and oversees English and African estates”
(Taliaferro 15)?15 Tarzan’s racial heritage was critical to Burroughs’ texts. As
Burroughs himself explained, “I selected an infant child of a race strongly marked by
hereditary characteristics of the finer and nobler sort, and [...] I threw him into an
environment as diametrically opposite that to which he had been born as I might well
conceive" (qtd. in Taliaferro 14). Even those who realize Burroughs created Tarzan
usually do not connect him with science fiction as well. For example, the hero of
Burroughs’ Mars series, John Carter, is the neglected step-brother of Tarzan, the
international celebrity. Finally, the sf community itself has come belatedly to an
examination of the issue of race. As late as 2003, for example, sf historian De Witt
Douglas Kilgore claims that, “[i]n the study of popular science and science fiction, [. . .]
despite its ubiquitous influence, race is virtually an undiscovered country” (9).16
Completely ignored by the literary establishment during his career, Burroughs has only
gained limited critical attention in the later half of the twentieth century by sf historians
and, more recently, by scholars interested in post- colonial studies and popular culture.
A more detailed and textual-based investigation of Burroughs reveals his interest
in the scientific theories of race gaining popularity during his career. While Scholes and

Rabkin correctly note that Burroughs “was a formula writer,” many of his texts contain a

15

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depth and detail of racial investigation that is surprising for such a prolific and popular
writer of this time period, especially within the genre of American science fiction (12).
John Taliaferro admits that Burroughs “never got much beyond sketching a monkey on
the title page” of the copy of Darwin’s The Descent of Man he owned (14). However,
Taliaferro insists that “[n]evertheless, he had acquired a layman’s grasp of one of the
burning issues of the post-Victorian era”——“the contest between heredity and
environment” (ibid). As noted earlier, Burroughs investigates this issue most directly in
his Tarzan character. An analysis of Burroughs’ sf texts reveals many of the Anglo-
American male biases associated with the eugenics movement in the United States as
well. It is no coincidence that the same year A Princess of Mars was serialized, the First
International Eugenics Conference was held in London (Taliaferro 227). In fact,
Taliaferro chronicles how Burroughs’ interest in eugenics continued to grow, even as the
topic became more controversial in the scientific community (228):
[Burroughs] was obsessed with his own genealogy and was extremely proud of
his nearly pure Anglo-Saxon lineage. [...] Over time, his fervid appreciation of
genetic predetermination led him to the radical fringe of Darwinism: eugenics. At
one point, he even wrote a column for the Los Angeles Examiner calling for the
extermination of all “moral imbeciles” and their relatives [...]. In an unpublished
essay, “I See a New Race,” Burroughs offered his own Final Solution to the
world’s problems. (19)
While it is important to note that Taliaferro’s assessment of eugenics as “the radical
. fringe of Darwinism” comes from a contemporary and more popular standpoint, the

negative connotations he attaches to the term legitimately stem from the biased, often

16

  
 

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oppressive, and sometimes genocidal use of the discourse in Western history. For
example, Taliaferro goes so far as to connect Burroughs’ position on eugenics with that
of Adolf Hitler (19). Burroughs rarely explicitly utilized eugenics in his fiction, but
evolutionary theory appears sporadically and racial typing plays a prominent role in all of
his texts.

In Burroughs’ fiction, his belief in racial theories primarily took the form of
stereotypical racial characterization. For instance, all of Burroughs’ heroes are Anglo
males. Even the hero of his relatively inclusive Apache series, Shoz-Dijiji, finally
discovers he is the kidnapped son of Anglo parents. This opens the way for a romantic
and sexual relationship with a white woman, and Burroughs “nimbly sidestep[s] the
unspeakable eventuality of miscegenation, a well-exercised Burroughs taboo” (Taliaferro
224). Furthermore, Shoz-Dijiji, inexplicably refrains from some traditional aspects of
Apache culture, such as scalping, before he learns of his biological ancestry.17 A
biological member of the Anglo race, Shoz-Dijiji represents a legitimate racial type
according to scientific theories of the time period. Therefore, he cannot betray his
civilized white blood, no matter his cultural environment. As Taliaferro succinctly
observes, “[b]lood [...] always tells, an axiom that Burroughs stresses in nearly all of his
stories” (15). Conversely, Burroughs often negatively characterizes members of differing
races. “[I]n the Tarzan stories,” for example, “blacks are generally superstitious and
Arabs rapacious” (Taliaferro 19). True to his adventure story roots, Burroughs utilizes
racial Others as foils for his Anglo heroes. Taliaferro also notes that, “[o]n Mars, the
races descend from a Tree of Life and, like fruit, are color—coded red, green, yellow, and

black” (ibid). The “color-coded” Martian races Taliaferro lists here are literally aliens, in

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contrast to Burroughs Anglo, terrestrial hero. Although Burroughs does create a white
Martian race, they remain relatively hidden and secretive. A Martian creation myth of a
Tree of Life reveals Burroughs’ interest in evolutionary theory as well.

The negative connotations of racial theory and its fictional utilization are often
well deserved. Yet, when Taliaferro associates Burroughs with Adolph Hitler and a
“radical fringe” of science, an exceptional area of his writing is eclipsed (19). In addition
to the stereotypical and hierarchical aspects of racial theory, Burroughs utilized the
speculative potential of sf to question and revise accepted notions of race. First, during
Burroughs’ early career eugenics was widely popular. It had connotations of objectivity
and authority because of its scientific associations, and many Considered it an important
tool in progressive social reform. While certainly biased, prejudiced, and often
scientifically inaccurate, Burroughs should not be judged by post-Holocaust standards.
As Taliaferro himself admits, “[e]ven as he was stressing Tarzan’s and John Carter’s
superior bloodlines, [Burroughs] honored the Algeresque notion of the common man
pulling himself up by the bootstraps”(19). It is this side of Burroughs, the more
democratic and egalitarian side, that surfaced in his science fiction and not the Tarzan
stories.

Because the science fiction genre emphasizes invention, exploration, and
speculation, authors can utilize the genre to question traditional boundaries, social
conventions, and hierarchies. As mentioned earlier, the speculative element of early
American sf usually took the form of technical inventions and exotic extraterrestrial
settings. Burroughs’ more extensive, detailed, and sometimes egalitarian investigation of

race in the Mars series was not the norm in early science fiction. A racial analysis of

18

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Burroughs’ sf texts, while often illustrating the societal and scientific biases of the time '
period, also reveals some sites of more open and truly imaginative racial exploration. In
an extraterrestrial setting, largely free from Earth history and cultural norms (on a
narrative level), sf authors have more license to construct alternative realities. The
convergence of new, science fiction elements with the terrestrial concept of race could
lead to a mOre egalitarian ethos. The fiction can combine with the science to revise even
the mosfobjectively or subjectively entrenched theories. The new context for ethnicity
and race not only places it outside of Earth history, but also the larger and more inclusive
galactic and/or global setting makes more narrowly national or ethnic/racial differences
seem of lesser importance. In addition, race itself expands in definition: biological or
ethic “races” are joined by the more inclusive “human race.” Within a multi-planet

context, the races of Earth become united in a single human race with a common

1.18 The more

terrestrial culture. The Other is no longer terrestrial but extraterrestria
imaginative and expansive space ofi‘ered by science fiction allows authors to create
alternative relationships which challenge or undermine traditional power hierarchies. For
example, whereas Tarzan can never escape the ramifications of his noble blood, John
Carter can acceptably marry a red Martian princess, be the proud father of hybrid
terrestrial/alien offspring, and ultimately renounce terrestrial society entirely for a life on
Mars. Burroughs’ characters or “types” representing specific, scientifically—authorized
racial groups remain largely essentialized, separate, and hierarchically positioned;
however, some individual (exceptional) platonic, romantic, and/or sexual relationships do

develop in the science fiction. These relationships cross and blur social and biological

racial boundaries and, as a result, challenge the traditional hierarchies which exist in

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other areas of Burroughs’ text(s) and the stability of racialist identity.

Burroughs’ first science fiction series best illustrates these generic and racial
characteristics. The first installment of the Mars series, A Princess of Mars, was not only
Burroughs’ first published work (1912), but also contains the seeds of his later
writing—topically, generically, and in choice of protagonist. First, a basic topic or theme
of Burroughs’ fiction is the concept of progress, with its foundation in European ideology
and subsequent growth in America. Both the genre(s) and the protagonist of A Princess
Qf_M_ar_s are intimately linked to this progress as well. A multi-generic narrative, A
Princess of Mars begins with the (relative) realism of the western genre and then moves
to an extraterrestrial setting which combines aspects of colonial literature, the scientific
romance, and adventure stories. Burroughs uses the literal geographical and
chronological progress of his protagonist, John Carter, as a vehicle for charting this
generic movement. Carter’s personal progress symbolizes the larger progress of western
civilization as well—historically, culturally, and racially. As a typical Anglo-American
hero, the character of John Carter foregrounds the ideological base of the concept of
progress, specifically progress defined as positive, inevitable, and racially/ culturally-i
based. Of course, progress also entails a continual dynamic of change and movement;
progress can never end. The result is the almost compulsively restless movement of the
text generically and Carter physically, both of which translate to constantly changing I
settings as well. By the turn of the century, when Burroughs begins his writing career,
there remained few areas of the globe “unknown” to the western world. Therefore, this
need for constant movement, and the exploration and expansion it inspires, engendered

the increasing popularity of extraterrestrial settings for adventure stories. Kilgore

20

combines the concept of western progress and outer space in this need for a new
“frontier” (11). Building on “the nineteenth-century notion that conquest and empire are
the logical modus operandi of any progressive civilization,” the extraterrestrial focus of
science fiction “represents twentieth-century American culture’s attempts to deny the
possibility of limits to its physical and metaphysical reach” (ibid).19

In Primate Visions. Donna Haraway more broadly discusses the restlessness of
“civilized man” and its connection to both the tropics and outer space:

Space and the tropics are both utopian topical figures in western imaginations,

and their opposed properties dialectically signify origins and ends for the creature

whose mundane life is outside both: civilized man. Space and the tropics are

“allotopic”; i.e. they are “elsewhere,” the place to which the traveler goes to find

something dangerous and sacred. (137)
While Burroughs’ Tarzan series directly reflects such an investigation of the origins of
man through the intersections of the tropics, primates, and “civilized man,” his Mars
series embodies similar interests within the larger scope of space. Paul Carter focuses
exclusively on the (American) western aspects of Burroughs’ Mars. However, Burroughs
constructed a Martian bricolage of modern and ancient, multi-generic elements. Mars is
(a habitable planet with dead seas and ruins, barbarous green people, jungles, and lost
civilizations. Much like the tropics of Tarzan, this Mars reflects the archaic tendencies of
. fantasy and some science fiction. Simultaneously, Marsisupports a civilized culture of
red people who possess advanced weapons, technology for atmospheric control, and
mechanical travel. John Carter both fights with a sword and travels by air.20 By

combining the tropics and space in one planet and one narrative, Burroughs combines the

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past and the future of mankind, man’s origins and his destiny. This allows Burroughs to
chart the progress of humankind from beginning to end from a Euro-American
perspective. Such progress entails many diverse and oftenintertwined elements: the
social, cultural, historical, and geographic, as well as material, technological, religious,
and biological. The great length of this list effectively highlights the pervasive and
foundational role progress plays in western civilization.

Burrroughs’ American focus in the Mars series adds a unique spin to the western
European concept of progress. While the Tarzan series deals with many of the more
traditional European colonial issues, in the Mars series, Burroughs places these issues
within the American colonial context of slavery and western expansion. The American
West is the equivalent of the European tropics. Burroughs clearly subscribes to
American exceptionalism, situating the United States as the pinnacle of western progress.
In this way, Burroughs uses his protagonist to build on, and sometimes revise the western
concept of progress. As Burroughs charts the development of the United States, from
eastern slavery to the western frontier to the technological future of twentieth-century
America, he creates a New World hero, John Carter, who far outstrips an Old World
Tarzan. Burroughs begins with the American West as a third “elsewhere,” an elsewhere
embodying both the future of Americans in the form of manifest destiny and also the
past, as the frontier or Wild West has effectively ended by the time Burroughs writes his
' first Mars book. He examines the specific characteristics of American progress, utilizing
ethnic comparisons and hierarchies to promote American values such as individualism,
the cultivation of land, and capitalism. In his choice of protagonist, Burroughs illustrates

the centrality and mastery of Anglo men in the origins of humankind or man’s past and

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also man’s destiny or the future. As a prospector, adventurer, and Indian fighter, as well
as a former Confederate soldier, John Carter is the epitome of the warrior hero. Yet, lest
he be perceived as uncivilized or a savage, Burroughs personally attests that Carter
represents the ideal gentleman. Thus, Carter confronts and conquers rather than
intemalizes and values the wilderness or the savage. Nature and the ethnic Other are
resources for developing and/or illustrating Carter’s masculinity and the frontier
characteristics of physical conflict, a strong physique, courage, and individualism. While
the native Other remains an anachronism, incapable of change or adaptation, John Carter
embodies progress and swiftly and easily moves between environments and cultures and
embraces the futuristic elements of the modern world.

The generic and geographical movement of the text to Mars entails the
transformation of a racial Other into an alien Other. The Native Americans of the West
become a multi-racial Martian society. On one level, an extraterrestrial Other is a
welcome replacement for terrestrial othering focused on ethnicity, race, nationality, or
gender. As mentioned earlier, the existence of an alien Other can foreground the unity of
the human race. Yet, such a fictional transformation also suppresses the importance of
race to human society. The real prejudice and oppression experienced by many groups is
eclipsed, and any explicit discussion of race is effectively forestalled. Simultaneously,
the guilt of oppressors is obscured and any redress of grievances becomes more difficult.
In the creation of aliens, sf authors avoid specific details of ethnic or racial Others as
well. The creation of an alien entails no research, let alone understanding or empathy for

an oppressed group of people. In fact, due to the fictional license of the imaginative

character, an alien Other can be either more negative or more positive than a racial Other.

23

  
  
 

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Burroughs, for example, represents the norm for early sf authors when he transforms the
existing, highly negative stereotype of Native Americans, from the western segment of
his Mars series, into even more terrible and alienating green Martians. On the other hand,
his representation of red Martians is more favorable than that of the natives in many
American and European colonial and post-colonial texts (whether Native American or
Indian). In either case, however, the sf author can stress the fictional basis of the
extraterrestrial character if anyone questions the similarity to existing terrestrial groups.
With all of these underlying motivations, as well as the generic impetus of alien
plausibility, it is no wonder that the portrayal of characters representing real-life racial
Others was uncommon in early science fiction. While Burroughs clearly utilizes such a
racial/alien transformation, he is atypical for an early sf author in his extensive portrayal
of Native Americans and aliens based on specific racial groups. In addition, the multi-
generic and geographic setting of A Princess of Mars explicitly draws attention to the
racial/alien transformation rather than suppressing it. Burroughs directly and extensively
explores race and racial theories in his texts and, in doing so, creates the potential for
dialogue and change.

In A Princess of Mars, as Carter moves from the American West, and the
historical, social, and literary limitations of Earth, Burroughs’ vision expands. In
addition to existing terrestrial hierarchical relations privileging Anglo men, western
progress is increasingly associated with the American ‘progressive’ ideals of equality and
diversity. In this way, Burroughs maintains the concept of American exceptionalism
while undermining some aspects of western progress in the Mars context. Furthermore,

the single, ethnographic viewpoint and Anglo-American bias of John Carter are

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challenged by the creation mythology of one of the Martian races and the history of Mars
itself. Burroughs utilizes the imaginative, liberating potential of the literal unknown—the
future elsewhere of outer space and its complementary literary genre of science
fiction—-to explore, question, and revise the cultural and racial hierarchies established in
other areas of the text.
The American West

Writing in the early 20th century, Burroughs chooses to begin the Mars series
within a specifically American past—the western frontier. Taking part in the turn-of-the-
century “wilderness cult,” Burroughs followed prominent Americans such as Theodore
Roosevelt in promoting a return to frontier characteristics (Nash 141). With the frontier
“moribund,” “the qualities of solitude and hardship that had intimidated many pioneers
were likely to be magnetically attractive to their city-dwelling grandchildren” (Nash 143).
The mechanization and urbanization of western progress was considered by some to be
fostering decadence and a general weakening of masculine and national virility.2| For
example, Roosevelt’s “trips to the West where the virile virtr‘res abounded were real-life
pilgrimages in search of the ‘race-hardening’ experience of the frontier” (Dyer 169).
This wilderness nostalgia, and its roots in sexual, gender, and racial insecurities, helps
explain why Burroughs chose the American West and elements of the western genre for
the beginning of his first published narrative. He logically started with the wilderness
geographically closest, most familiar to himself and his readers, and most fimdamentally
and uniquely American. It is no coincidence that Zane Grey and his westerns rivaled the
popularity of Burroughs at the turn of the century.

Within the context of science fiction, Burroughs reminds Americans of their virile

25

past as a springboard to their equally virile, imperialistic future. John Carter needs a
Wild West in order to demonstrate his physical abilities, his self-reliance, and his
superiority in comparison to the ethnic Other of Native Americans. He cannot be a
warrior hero in the geographical and social confines of a modern city; in pre-WWI, at-
peace American society, violence and physical conflict were largely unacceptable modes
of behavior. Nor could Carter as easily demonstrate his superior cultivation and civilized
nature without the extremity of contrast offered by natural savages.22 In addition, for
Burroughs’ modern (urban) reader, an exotic or unfamiliar locale would be essential for
the adventure and escapism of both the main character and the reader’s own vicarious
participation. It is telling that Burroughs personally fits the template of the urban dweller
who writes of thrilling adventures and manhood-developing hardships on the frontier.23
Burroughs did have some personal contact with the American West: as a youth he visited
his older brothers on their cattle ranch in Idaho, and he served in the Seventh Cavalry at
Fort Grant in the Arizona Territory for 10 months. However, he had no contact with
Indians beyond those in the US. military, he saw no actual combat, and his wilderness
forays were of short duration.24 The American West was an elsewhere for Burroughs, as
it was for his main character, John Carter, and his readers.25 Furthermore, like Roosevelt,
Burroughs does not promote a Romantic or spiritual oneness with nature or the concept
of the noble savage. The primitive does not have any intrinsic value in and of itself; the
wilderness and savages are resources for the construction of a superior white, western
manhood. The comparisons between civilized and savage'or primitive people this
process entails illustrate the general rightness, the historical actuality, and the

inevitability of western, American progress.

26

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Frederick Jackson Turner had heralded the end of the frontier in his highly
influential essay, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History.” He first read
his essay at the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition in July of 1893, an exposition
that Burroughs actually attended as a youth growing up in Chicago. The expo was
organized as “a celebration of the remarkable progress the United States had made since
Columbus’s arrival four hundred years earlier. Toward this end, they built a neoclassical
‘White City’ along the shores of Lake Michigan, which they packed with a vast array of
marvelous displays of American know-how”(Taliaferro 34-5). Although there is no
record of the specific exhibits or events Burroughs attended, the expo as a whole
illustrates a complex nexus of themes running through Burroughs’ later writing. First,
the expo portrayed the future of western man culminating in dominant white American
society, as the White City reflects, and its technological/scientific progress. Also, the
urban location of the expo promoted the development of large, cultured urban centers like
Chicago. Since progress can only be measured by the opposite, however, the expo also
embodied man’s past. A more positive past took the form of the neoclassical revival.
Within this context, America is the heir of ancient Greek civilization, represented as the
root of western civilization. Conversely, exhibits of various primitive cultures
represented a more negative past:

America brashly announced its arrival at the summit of the human pyramid: no

culture was more advanced than that of the United States, a tout delivered most

plainly in the Anthropological Building, where displays of ethnic costumes and
handicrafts fiom around the world served as quaint counterpoint to the brilliant

American inventions of the surrounding White City. (Taliaferro 35)

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This cultural ‘progress’ was supported by scientific exhibits as well. “Science spoke even
louder than trinkets in the Anthropological hall, and thousands of tourists, curious to see
where they ranked on the scale of human progress, lined up to have their heads
measured—‘anthropometry,’ it was called—by a team of anthropologists” (ibid). Within
this ‘progressive’ cultural and scientific context, Turner’s essay on the end of the
American frontier becomes another example of the superiority of Anglo people and
culture, as well as the inevitability of their succession of all other people. Primitive,
native, generally darker-skinned cultures and people were the first to face elimination or
subjugation. In the ‘natural’ and ‘universal’ evolution of people and cultures such a
model of progress entails, Native Americans become anachronisms who are destroyed or
assimilated and the (western) frontier ends as Anglo, particularly American, civilization
expands and develops (Turner 1 1).

This larger cultural picture and its progressive, western values are symbolized on
a smaller scale in the characters of the Mars series. John Carter represents the civilized
white American male whose identity is simultaneously based on the rough frontier and
comparison to culturally, historically, and biologically primitive natives——Native
Americans and Africans. Tumer’s history of the American frontier fleshes out the picture
of Carter as a fiontiersman—that unique American who combines the characteristics of
both the civilized European and the savage Native American:

the frontier is the outer edge of the wave—the meeting point between savagery

and civilization. (3)

The frontier is the line of most rapid and effective Americanization. The .

wilderness masters the colonist. It finds him a European in dress, industries,

28

tools, modes of travel, and thought. [...] It strips off the garments of civilization

and arrays him in the hunting shirt and the moccasin [... H]e shouts the war cry

and takes the scalp in orthodox Indian fashion.26

In short, at the frontier the environment is at first too strong for the man. He

must accept the conditions which it furnishes, or perish [...]. Little by little he

transforms the wilderness, but the outcome is not the old Europe. [...H]ere is a

new product that is American. (4)
Turner emphasizes the changes that take place as the European comes into direct and
sustained contact with the “wilderness” and its native occupants. However, like
Burroughs, he rejects total assimilation, or in European ideology, reversion to the
primitive. First, the strenuous, perilous, and unfamiliar conditions of the American
wilderness and the savage behavior of the Indians justify an eye-for-an-eye, savage
physical response from the civilized Europeans. If European settlers occasionally lapsed
from their civilized natures and were guilty of Indian massacres, it could be justified by
the pressures of the environment and the savagery of their opponents—all external
factors. Furthermore, the most important element in the process of making an American
is the “transformation” of the wilderness. Through confrontation with and civilization of
the primitive, Europeans became Americans—a “new product” superior to the old
European type.

Foreshadowing Theodore Roosevelt and the Wilderness Cult, Washington Irving
touted the benefits of American frontier life in 1835. “Several weeks of camping
convinced him that nothing could be more beneficial to young men than the ‘wild wood

life ...of a magnificent wildemess’” because it encouraged the positive American values

29

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of independence, masculinity, and bodily strength (Nash 73). Irving wrote, “we send our
youth abroad to grow luxurious and effeminate in Europe; it appears to me, that a
previous tour on the prairies would be more likely to produce that manliness, simplicity,
and self-dependence most in unison with our political institutions’” (ibid). Physical
confrontation with the primitive environment and native occupants was believed to foster
the ideals of hard work, self-reliance, virility, and physical conquest. This connection
between individualism and masculinity in American ideology is not a coincidence.
European males, women, slaves, poor white men, children and Native Americans were
perceived as dependent, physically weaker, or lazy; they were not capable of achieving
true individualism or self-reliance, and therefore, were not included in American
democracy. Conversely, ideal American men must be self-reliant and individualistic;
men were associated with the frontier; and white, property-owning American men were
the only persons worthy of firll access to the democratic system and the rights it entailed.
Turner argues that the frontier inspired the fundamental American values of
individualism and democracy: “the frontier is productive of individualism [...]. The
tendency is anti-social. It produces antipathy to control. [...] The frontier individualism
has from the beginning promoted democracy” (30).

As the ideal American hero, John Carter embodies all of these positive
characteristics. As a frontiersman, John Carter is a thoroughly civilized man who
confronts and conquers savage environments and native people. The influence of the
primitive on the Euro-American male is not (normally or ideally) the creation of an
amalgamation—a semi-civilized human. Rather, the essential civilized nature of a

European acquires uniquely American, positive characteristics through exposure to the

30

primitive. In a complex intersection of sexual, gender, racial, and national hierarchies,
particularly after the wilderness and the American savages have been largely subdued or
destroyed, we see the primitive, the natural becoming positive influences in the creation
of a unique and superior (white) American male type. John Carter represents on an
individual level what the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition represented on a
collective level——America and Americans are the next step in the geographic, cultural,
racial, political, and historical progress of western civilization.

The fundamental and pervasive nature of the biases and hierarchies involved in
the creation of Anglo-American manhood is most apparent when investigating a highly
influential and positively constructed concept like individualism. Burroughs follows
Irving and Turner in associating individualism with the American West; however, John
Carter’s individualism also springs from the American South. Before his foray into the
American West, Carter grew up in the antebellum South and was known as a “typical
southern gentleman of the highest type” m v). Within this context, the
hierarchical, slave-based individualism of the plantation ‘aristocracy’ plays an equal role
in Carter’s character as the democratic individualism of the frontier.27 Hence, Carter’s
individualism is connected with a more civilized society and one in which the racial
othering is, paradoxically, more obscured. As a fictional narrator and character within
the text, Burroughs asserts that “our slaves fairly worshipped the ground [Carter] trod”
(ibid). Burroughs’ uncritical affirmation of slavery here, particularly the constructed
complicity of the African-American slaves in their own oppression, coincides with his
personal connection to the southern, slave-owing class. Using the first-person and

signing his own name to the Foreword, Burroughs places himself with the story: “My

31

d Wane! u. bipl. age-Hay!

first recollection of Captain Carter is of the few months he spent at my father’s home in
Virginia, just prior to the opening of the civil war” (ibid). This allows Burroughs to
emphasize a branch of his family tree of which he was excessively proud:

Shaping truth into romance, [Burroughs] preferred to stress those relatives of

Mary Evaline Zieger Burroughs [his mother] who had settled in Virginia in the

eighteenth century, including John Coleman, after whom Burroughs named his

second son. In his mind’s eye, he was the direct descendant of the fighting
cavaliers of the Old Dominion, and in several of his novels he attributes the
gallantry and valor of his heroes expressly to their Virginia lineage. (Taliaferro

27)

John Carter fits this template perfectly, even down to his part in the Civil War—a captain
in the Confederate Army.28 By placing Carter within the context of the antebellum
South, Burroughs intends to emphasize Carter’s highly civilized nature and his
superiority as a civilized, white male in comparison to the less privileged members of
hierarchical southern society (slaves, blacks, women, poor whites, etc.). As a character in
the text, Burroughs would embody similar characteristics through his connection to John
Carter. Likewise, the authorial Burroughs would occupy an elevated position in tum-of-
the-century, New Immigration American society.

A more critical reader questions this highly positive perspective on Carter and the
relationship between his position in society and his personal attributes. The American
individualism and democracy of the frontier are different from that of the antebellum
South. Furthermore, both the antebellum South and the frontier are based on ethnic and

racial othering and power hierarchies. Whereas Burroughs and Turner participate and

32

even promote these in their writing, many (particularly current) readers note the
discrepancy between the American ideals of individualism and democracy and their
historical basis in racism, sexism, and ethnocentrism. Contemporary critic Kristin
Herzog, for example, argues that “The frontier [...] more than any other influence, made
the American novel more individualistic and more male-centered than English fiction of
the nineteenth century. [. . .] The violence and vigor of the frontier world and the lack of a
native cultural tradition fostered the American Adam’s disregard for persons different
from himself” (xvii-xviii). In a similar manner, British author DH. Lawrence
undermines the “blood brother theme” (56), “democracy,” and the “nucleus of a new
society” (59) offered in James F enimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking novels. A 19th-
century precursor of John Carter, the protagonist of the Leatherstocking series, Natty
Bumppo, embodies the frontiersman—the essentially civilized white man who is also
“hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer” (68). Like John Carter, Bumppo is a “man who turns
his back on' white society. A man who keeps his moral integrity hard and intact [. . .],
who lives by death, by killing, but who is pure white” (69). Cooper, Turner, and
Burroughs promote the frontier-stimulated, American values of individualism and
democracy, but by associating these values exclusively with (male) whites, they illustrate
the hierarchical basis of these values in America. In addition, Turner and Burroughs (in
terms of the West and theSouth) gloss over the oppression, conflict, violence, and death,
particularly of the ethnic or racial other, that occurs when such discrepancies exist.
Burroughs’ brief mention of the Civil War and Tumer’s “series of Indian wars” (9) and
his metaphor of the frontier as “a military training school” (15) remind the reader of the

cost involved in the creation of white, male heroes.

33

This combination of hierarchies and biases that underlies purported American
ideals is illustrated in the self-reliance of the American hero as well. In a brief synopsis
of the American literary tradition of the American Adam and its “white” and “male-
centered[ness],” Kristin Herzog asserts that “egalitarianism in America casts the
individual in a lonely role without heritage or tradition. The American Adam has to
achieve everything he does or becomes” (xvi). Unlike his European counterpart, the
“American folk hero has ‘no parents, no past, no patrimony, no siblings, no family, no
life cycle [...]. He seldom dies’” (ibid).29 In A Princess of Mars, Carter begins the
narrative by denying his past before the age of thirty, insisting that he does not age
normally, and admitting he has died several times: “I am a very old man; how old I do
not lmow. [...] I cannot tell because I have never aged as other men do, nor do I
remember my childhood. So far as I can recollect I have always been a man, a man of
about thirty. [...] I do not know why I should fear death, I who have died twice and am
still alive” (Princess 11). Carter does later marry and have a child, continuing the “life
cycle,” because Burroughs included an element of the romance genre in the series as
well. However, this focus on individualism and self-reliance, as well as the indestructible
or immortal nature of the American hero, coincides with Donna Haraway’s argument that
white travelers to elsewheres are usually portrayed as lone, intrepid individuals. They
courageously enter an unknown space (like the tropics, outer space, or the American
West) without the direct assistance of others. As representatives of civilized, western
(white) culture, they are insistently portrayed as “alone” despite their interaction with
ethnic or racial Others (Haraway154). Thus, Carter begins his story cut off from white,

western civilization—his family, his native South and the eastern United States, and even

34

his mining partner——as he fights for survival against Native American Others. Even as
Carter builds relationships with the Martians over time, he remains the sole representative
of Earth and always is set apart—physically, culturally, and nationally.

Logically, Carter should be defined as the Other in the American western context
and the alien in the Martian context, since he is within a society different from his own.
However, within western ideology, from the Anglo male perspective (author, publisher,
protagonist, and historically audience as well), Carter is the unquestioned normative hero.
Haraway highlights this contradictory repression of historically-specific racial, gender,
and cultural markers in an attempt to collapse white, western man with “universal man”
(i.e. all human) (186). On one level (precisely because he is an egalitarian American),
John Carter is a universal hero with universal cultural values. On the other hand,
Burroughs goes out of his way in the Foreword to give us some historical and
biographical background with clearly situates Carter as a white, cultured southern
American. As Haraway notes, the implicit or indirect racial, gender, and cultural markers
are essential for the construction of ethnic, racial, and national hierarchies (153). John
Carter is a universal hero precisely because he is a white southern gentleman and former
Captain in the Confederate Army.

Closely examining the representation of Native Americans and Carter’s
relationship to this first ethnic Other reveals the importance of othering to the
construction of Anglo male identity and the material progress so fundamental to western,
particularly American ideology. According to Haraway, Carter is searching for
“something dangerous and sacred” in his travels; he finds both in the same ethnic

Other—Native Americans (137). Carter finds “danger” in the threat of hostile Indians,

35

 

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who kill his partner and chase him to an abandoned and mysterious cave. Here he
escapes from the “danger” through the “sacred”: as the “savage face[s]” peered into the
cave, “[e]ach face was the picture of awe and fear”; as a “low moaning sound issued from
the recesses of the cave,” the Indians departed so hastily that one of them was
accidentally pushed from the steep trail to his death (Princess 17-8). Playing on the
conventions(s) of first contact between Europeans and natives, Burroughs sets up this
scene as if the Native Americans were deathly in “awe and fear” of Carter himself,
reacting to him as if he were a god or of supematural origin (ibid). Certainly such a
response from the natives would reflect the Europeans’ construction of their own
superior, rational identity and the inferior, gullible, superstitious nature of primitives.
Burroughs’ representation of the superstitious nature of Native American people reflects
the larger Euro-American conception of both women and ethnic or racial Others: “From
earliest times until today, women have been described, like the nonwhite races, as more
passive, less logical; more imaginative, less technically inclined; more emotional, less
incisive; and more religious, less scientifically oriented” (Herzog xi-xii). On this
mysterious note, Burroughs leaves the American West and turns to Mars. Using the
American West as a framing device maintains the illusion of Carter’s god-like nature and
heightens the narrative suspense as well, for we leave Carter’s body in the cave until the
very end of the text.

We do not find out the true reason for the Native Americans’ fears until the last
chapter of A Princess of Mars: the darkness of the cave hid “the dead and mummified
remains of a little old woman with long black hair, and the thing [she] leaned over was a

small charcoal burner upon which rested a round copper vessel containing a small

36

quantity of greenish powder” (158). Furthermore, “[b]ehind her, depending from the roof
upon rawhide thongs, and stretching entirely across the cave, was a row of human
skeletons. From the thong which held them stretched another to the dead hand Of the
little old woman [...]. It was a most grotesque and horrid tableau” (ibid). It was not
Carter, then, who prompted the fearful response of the Native American men but a
powerful, deadly, and perhaps sacred place. From Carter’s Anglo-American perspective,
a grave site becomes a “grotesque and horrid tableau.” Burroughs symbolizes the
mystery or Otherness of the Native Americans as an old witch woman or shaman with
magic powders, a kettle, and human skeletons. This association of Native Americans with
age, immobility, decay, and death emphasizes the anachronistic quality and destiny of -
natives within the concept of western progress. Burroughs’ choice of a (dead) woman as
the symbol for Native American culture and the connection between women and
“nonwhite races” foreground the feminization of Others also (Herzog xi). For example,
Laura Doyle examines the scientific theory of paedomorphism and its “alignment of all
women with the ‘lower races’ by suggesting that both embodied the childhood of
humanity. [...] Certain races and the female sex represent, in this theory, ‘older’
evolutionary forms beyond which other ‘younger’ races and the male sex have evolved”
(65). Thus, cultural anachronism is conjoined with and proven by a biological
anachronism. This biological basis for cultural differences, or sexual and racial
essentialism, served as a scientific rationale for the oppression of these groups.
Burroughs further emphasizes the feminization of the Other through a complex
native matrix composed of the unknown, the sacred, the dangerous, and the “grotesque

and horrid” (Princess 158). This matrix serves as a resource for the spiritual and physical

37

 

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rebirth of Euro-Americans. Having mysteriously lost his ability to move, Carter lies in
the dark cave (a ‘womb’) until “possibly midnight” (Princess 18). Then, giving a
“superhuman effort” of the mind (and specifically not the body), Carter feels “something
g[i]ve, [...] a momentary feeling of nausea, a sharp click as of the snapping of a steel
wire,” and he realizes that he has separated from his body (18-19). In a literal
manifestation of the mind/body split of western culture, Carter becomes totally mind or
spirit and remains disconnected from his physical body until the end of the text.
Conversely, the feminine racial Other is only represented by a body, with no mind or
spirit attached. As Burroughs utilizes a feminine and racially-other body for the
concentration and strengthening of his male protagonist’s metaphysical qualities, we see
the gender and racial hierarchies attached to the western mind/body division.30 Carter
assures himself, and the reader, that he is not dead; he has been physically reborn in
another body, exactly like his old one except it was “naked as at the minute of [his] birth”
(19). Finally escaping from the “grotesque and horrid” womb of the cave/a Native
American/woman, Carter is mysteriously teleported to the planet of Mars in a spiritual
rebirth. John Carter not only shares the same initials as Jesus Christ, then, be similarly
“rises from the dead,” emerges from a dark “tomb,” and asserts his immortality. The
mind/body split and its hierarchical connotations in western society stem, in large part,
from the valorization of the spirit and denigration of the body in Christian theology. In
the Martian context, John Carter mirrors Jesus Christ in the emphasis on his difference
from the people and society surrounding him as well. Carter may be alone in an alien
world, but he is perfect, more powerful, a “messiah” to others, and ultimately invincible.

Of course, the mind/body division experienced by Carter hints that he may only

38

be dreaming the subsequent Mars sequences. While such a theory is plausible, it would
only reinforce the power of the male intellect or spirit, as Carter mentally creates another
whole world. In contrast to the Native American woman and her “grotesque and honid”
womb, Carter would be associated with the mental and artistic abilities of the authorial
Burroughs in this case. Furthermore, Carter returns to Mars on many occasions over the
course of the series. It is rare in scienCe fiction or u/dystopian writing for a dream motif
to happen more than once. In fact, some critics argue that science fiction should not
utilize the dream motif at all because it undermines the rational or scientific foundation of
the genre. In contrast to the European legacy of writers such as Jules Verne and HG.
Wells, Burroughs chooses racial othering to facilitate space travel, rather than modern
technology and science. It is through the exoticism and appropriation of a native or
ethnic Other that Burroughs empowers his hero. Because of the long history of ethnic
othering in the United States, particularly of Native Americans by Euro-Americans,
Burroughs’ readers generally do not question the logic or credibility of this maneuver.
One elsewhere gives birth to another elsewhere; one ethnic Other is a stepping stone to a
more distant planetary racial Other.

Certainly, Carter cannot stay in the West indefinitely, even with the author’s
fictional ability to go back in time. Carter must move on as the West is settled and
cultivated by pioneers and the Native Americans restricted to reservations and battled
into ‘submission.’ The Other, the source of power and identity for the hero, has been
destroyed—through disease, warfare, isolation, and assimilation. The western frontier
may be ended, as Turner notes in the last paragraph of his essay “The Significance of the

Frontier in American History,” yet “[h]e would be a rash prophet who should assert that

39

the expansive character of American life has now entirely ceased. Movement has been
its dominant fact, and [...] American energy will continually demand a wider field for its
exercise” (37).
The American West (in)to Mars

If the United States was the next step in the geographical and social progress of
western civilization, and Euro-Americans had since fulfilled their duty to reach fiom
coast to coast and “displace inferior races,” as well as create an advanced cultural and
technological society, then what was the next logical step (Dyer 60)? European
colonialism had merged into American imperialism and, at the turn of the century, United
States foreign policy was encompassing greater and greater physical boundaries. From
the east to the west coast, from the North to the South, and from the North American
Continent to Latin America and the Pacific islands, the United States was conquering
physical territory and establishing a military, political, and cultural hegemony. Following
American history, Burroughs moves from the South to the West and from the West to a
combination of the imperial elsewheres of the tropics and outer spacch—merging them in
his characterization of the planet of Mars. Burroughs’ choice of an interplanetary rather
than terrestrial setting, specifically of Mars, is not surprising in light of the following
factors. First, by the turn of the century, most areas of the terrestrial world had been not
only ‘discovered’ and explored, but also colonized by European countries. There was no
room, no ‘blank spaces’ left for an American hero to conquer in the terrestrial present or
future; once out of the past of the American West, modern, cutting—edge, nationalistic

American society called for the most ambitious movement of all—outside of the known

World. Space, the final frontier—a well-known phrase to contemporary Americans

40

thanks to the Star Trek series of the second half of the twentieth century.

The planet of Mars was a logical choice for the specific interplanetary setting, as
Mars was named after the Roman god of war and John Carter represents the ideal
warrior. From his 20th-century perspective, influenced by the national obsession with
virility and physical activity, Burroughs could be speaking autobiographically when he
has Carter reminisce: “My attention was quickly riveted by a large red star close to the
distant horizon. As I gazed upon it I felt a spell of overpowering fascination——it was
Mars, the god of war, and for me, the fighting man, it had always held the power of
irresistible enchantrnent” (Princess 20). Furthermore, Mars had been attracting the
attention of scientists and popular writers for sometime previous to Burroughs’ writing of
the Mars series. John Taliaferro chronicles the astronomical interest in possible Martian
life starting in 1879 and connects Burroughs’ fictional depiction of Mars to that of
Gustavus W. Pope in 1894 and HG. Wells in 1898 (67).

Burroughs choice of an interplanetary setting for his first science fiction series
reflects his specifically American bias as well. While the United States was a colonial
and imperial power, like its Old World predecessors, Americans chose to foreground
their superiority over Europeans in terms of the revolutionary values of freedom and
equality. In other words, they chose to ignore or interpret their own imperial attitudes
and activities in a more benevolent light than that of other Eur0pean peoples. This can
be seen in Burroughs’ own work as he chooses a European, specifically a member of the
English nobility, as his main character in the Tarzan series because it takes place in
colonial Africa. On the other hand, as an egalitarian and freedom-loving American, John

Carter travels alone, outside of a specifically delineated colonial or imperial context and,

41

once on Mars, supposedly outside of terrestrial history altogether. Furthermore, in
moving from the historical context of the American West to the imaginative setting of
Mars, Burroughs transforms Carter’s perspective as narrator from that of an interested,
clearly biased frontiersman to a more detached, objective observer of alien native life.
Burroughs attempts to ground the narrative and its hierarchies in more modern, scientific
language and theory. The Mars series becomes science fiction not only in terms of an
interplanetary setting but also in the narrative perspective and interests and the
technological and cultural features of the various Martian societies. Thus, Americans are
associated with the most modern, enlightened, and unbiased characteristics—socially,
materially, and in literature. Like Burroughs’ construction of America’s frontier past,
then, American ethnocentrism played a large role in Burroughs’ movement from the
American West to Mars. The interplanetary imperialism is a continuation of the
geographical and cultural aspects of western progress, while the post—terrestrial setting
elides American imperialism-and foregrounds the American political values of freedom
and equality, also a part of western progress. In either case, (white) Americans become
the chosen people of the chosen mode of living—westem progress.

Thus, while Burroughs may be moving to a locale and genre which promise
freedom from the boundaries of terrestrial life, in promoting Euro-American progress, he
largely retains the infrastructure of existing ethnic, racial, gender, and cultural
hierarchies. As a result, Mars becomes a unique and complex mixture of all three
elsewheres—{he American West, the tropics, and outer space. As Brian Steet notes, “It is
significant that both Edgar Rice Burroughs and Conan Doyle also wrote science fiction.

There is something in common between creating an alien society in remote parts of this

42

earth and on distant planets” (21). In many ways, Burroughs’ Mars becomes an
exaggerated version of the American Dream—an ideal American hero/colonizer struggles
but quickly rises to the very top of a foreign society because of his physical prowess,
merit, and his participation in (and embodiment of ) western progress. Burroughs’
specifically American ethnocentrism is first revealed in the changes he makes in the
existing concept of Mars as a habitable, evolutionarily older planet, as civilized or more
civilized than Earth. The writings of astronomers Giovanni Schiaparelli (1879), Camille
F lammarion (1892), and Percival Lowell (1885-1908) had helped to form the tum-of-the-
century theory that “the present inhabitation of Mars by a race superior to ours is very
possible” (Taliaferro 66). Burroughs begins with this model, but manipulates the time
element involved, making the older, more advanced civilizations of Mars representative
of the Old World. Therefore, the American hero allies himself with the most recent,
melting pot culture/race on Mars—-the red Martians, who have striking similarities to
Americans and American culture—and quickly proves himself the superior of every
Martian he encounters, regardless of race or culture. Burroughs’ continuation of the
status quo is most evident in the analogy he creates between the American West and
Native Americans and literally another world with alien life forms. He emphasizes the
difference or Otherness of the native Earthlings as they are literally transformed into
aliens, while John Carter remains the same. The hierarchy of races and cultures is
exaggerated within the imaginative setting; as the Native Americans are transformed into
insect-like Martians, Carter’s superiority and “universal” or normative nature become
even more pronounced. John Carter-American, Anglo/universal hero-not only conquers

the New World, but the Old World (via the Mars inversion) and another entire planet.

43

Before turning to specific elements of Burroughs’ transformation of the American
West into Mars, a brief examination of his fictional revision of the existing model of
Mars would be helpful. Burroughs’ celebration of progress and maintenance of existing
hierarchies, and the western optimism and American bias these reveal, are brought into
sharp relief by comparison to an earlier fictional account of the planet of Mars which
follows the Flammarion model more closely. In HG. Wells’ The War of the Worlds
(1898), he creates Martians who embody the full and horrifying fruition of western
progress. Burroughs reverses this model in order to promote western and particularly
American values. Mars is utilized by both Burroughs and Wells as a means of cultural
comparison and social critique, but from Wells’ British, socialist perspective, Mars
becomes a dystopic warning about western progress, while from Burroughs’
individualistic, capitalist perspective, Mars becomes yet another frontier which proves the
validity of western progress. Wells exposes the hypocrisy and unreality of Burroughs’
idealistic emphasis on freedom, equality, democracy, and capitalism.

Wells’ Martians are contemporaneously more intelligent, civilized, and
technologically adVanced than Earthlings, and it is the Martians who invade Earth for the
purpose of colonization. Wells first places the Earthlings in the position of less
developed life forms within an evolutionary framework:

And we men [...] must be to [the Martians] at least as alien and lowly as are the

monkeys and lemurs to us. The intellectual side of man already admits that life is

an incessant struggle for existence, and it would seem that this too is the belief of
the minds upon Mars. Their world is far gone in its cooling and this world is still

crowded with life, but crowded only with what they regard as inferior animals.

To carry warfare sunward is, indeed, their only escape from the destruction that,
generation after generation, creeps upon them. (Wag 14-15)
Thus, the Martians are only following the ‘laws of nature’; it is ‘survival of the fittest,’
and they are more advanced than humans in every way. The detached and objective
perspective of Wells’ narrator allows’him to note the hypocrisy of Europeans as well.
Reversing the position of Europeans within colonial ideology and power hierarchies, he
vividly reminds them of their own violent subjugation of natives:

And before we judge of them too harshly we must remember what ruthless
and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as
the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its inferior races. The Tasmanians, in
spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of
extermination waged by European immigrants, in the space of fifty years. Are we
such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?
CM! 15)

This colonial reversal reveals the ruthlessness, destruction, and materialism of western
imperialism and also stimulates sympathy and understanding for native people. In
contrast to Burroughs, Wells utilizes Darwinian theory and language to reveal the moral
inferiority rather than superiority of Europeans [Americans] and the hypocrisy of their

3, 6‘

civilized behavior. Europeans, and all imperialist powers, become “nasty monster[s]”
who inspire “disgust and dread” (23). Furthermore, while initially successful in their
colonial ambitions, eventually the Martians succumb to unexpected natural forces which

destroy them completely and leave the humans/natives decimated but capable of survival.

This is a dire warning indeed about the possible fate of imperialist powers; perhaps they

45

too are not invincible, ‘naturally’ destined to prevail because of their more developed
historical, cultural, and technological evolution. Whereas Wells reveals the negative
underside of colonialism and ethnic othering, Burroughs’ belief in American equality,
democracy, and manifest destiny allows him to overlook the same aspects in an American
context.

Burroughs continues the American tradition begun when Europeans first started
immigrating to North America and which reached full force with the colonial rebellion
from England—the concept of America as a fresh start, as a more perfect embodiment of
western ideals, and the frnal fruition of western culture. Hector St. Jean de Crévecoeur,
for example, described colonial America as “the most perfect society now existing in the
world. Here man is free as he ought to be, nor is this pleasing equality so transitory as
many others are” (44). In terms of western progress, de Crévecoeur explained that
“[h]ere individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and
posterity will one day cause great changes in the world. Americans are the western
pilgrims who are carrying along with them that great mass of arts, sciences, vigour, and
industry which began long since in the East; they will finish the great circle” (46).
Burroughs continues the expansionist policy of western society, while eliding its
colonial/imperialistic aspect, by having John Carter travel to Mars where he meets
intellectually, culturally, physically, and technologically inferior Martians. Even though
there are a few examples of more advanced Martian technology, like the flying ships,
Carter’s general superiority is illustrated by his position of prominence and power
throughout the entire planet; every new group of people he meets eventually recognizes

him as an equal or superior. In the case of the “black pirates of Barsoom,” Carter reveals

46

their superstition and religious fraud and they offer him their throne after their defeat
(SM 57, 189; mm 8). Without the extreme contrast of Wells’ earlier dystopic,
European vision of western progress, however, the utopic nature of Burroughs’ American
vision in the Mars series would be obscured.

Burroughs begins the analogy between the frontiers of Earth and Mars through the
setting or planetary environment. Brian Street emphasizes the “unreality which prevades
many descriptions of exotic land and their inhabitants” (21). Within this context, Carter’s
descriptions of the Arizona landscape clearly reflect the “unreality” of another world and
foreshadow the similar descriptions of the Mars landscape contained on the same page:
“Few western wonders are more inspiring than the beauties of an Arizona moonlit
landscape [...,] as though one were catching for the first time a glimpse of some dead and
forgotten planet” (Princess 20). A few moments later Carter remarks, “I opened my eyes
upon a strange and weird landscape. I knew that I was on Mars” (ibid). To reinforce the
interplanetary analogy, Carter himself immediately notes the similarity between the
Arizona and Mars suns: “It was midday, the sun was shining full upon my naked body,
yet no greater than would have been true under similar conditions on an Arizona desert”
(21). The common unreality of the West and Mars illustrates the othering of native
cultures, their anachronistic quality, and the “alienation” of the western hero/reader/writer
from native peoples and cultures (Street 21-2).

All of these elements are embodied in Roy Harvey Pearce’s examination of
American attitudes towards Native Americans and the importance of the concept of
“savagism” to American identity. Pearce’s analysis provides a more detailed, 19th

century western context for John Carter, in contrast to Paul Carter’s brief summary of the

47

stereotypical western Mars Burroughs created. Pearce observes,
For the American before l850—a new man, as he felt, making a new world—was
obsessed to know who and what he was and where he was going, to evaluate the
special society in which he lived and to know its past and its future. One means
to do this was to compare himself with the Indian who, as a savage, had all past
and no future. The final result was an image of the Indian as man out of society
and out of history. (135)
It is important to note the self-centered and imaginative use of natives by Anglo men
emphasized in this passage. As fictional characters and as objects of scientific and
historical study, natives or primitives are constructed by and for the needs and desire of
Anglo men. In this case, like Haraway, Pearce analyzes the association of primitive
people from foreign lands with the past and stagnation and Anglo men with the future
and progress. The American West and Native Americans provide an early American
version of the primitive, exploration, and colonialism; other terrestrial natives, like the
Philipinoes during the Spanish-American War, and extraterrestrial natives provide
subsequent venues for similar ideology and actions. In his book, Wilderness and the
American Mind. Roderick Nash highlights an additional factor in the perceived unreality
of “exotic lands and their inhabitants” (Street 21). Burroughs’ description of the
American West participates in the Euro-American ideology which criticizes Native
American cultures for not properly utilizing the land; civilization involves transforming
this ‘empty’ and ‘unused’ land (i.e. wilderness) into farmland and towns. As Nash
summarizes, for “primitive man [..., s]afety, happiness, and progress all seemed

dependent on rising out of a wilderness situation [...]. Gradually man learned how to

48

control the land and raise cr0ps. Clearings appeared in the forests. This reduction of the
amount of wilderness defined 'man’s achievement as he advanced toward civilization”
(9).31 Again, Native Americans are associated with the past and the primitive in terms of
a lack of civilization and also in their association with American wilderness (Nash 28).
The primitive, anachronistic qualities of the Native Americans and their improper use of
the land and natural resources both served as justifications for western colonialism; as
they were not a part of western progress, they did not deserve their land, and their
culture(s) must give way before a superior mode of living—future-oriented,
developmental western progress.

Pearce’s insights into the connections between (white) Americans and ethnic
Others foreground the importance of hierarchical comparisons to the construction of
Anglo manhood, as well as the development of specifically American identity, values,
and concepts. First, a brief overview of John Carter’s relationship to both the terrestrial
and extraterrestrial natives is in order, setting up the more extended analysis of the
similarities between the Native Americans and the Martian natives which follows. Once
the common setting has been established, Carter meets the first Martian natives/aliens, a
race of green, insect-like humanoids, who bear a striking resemblance to the Native
Americans he has just encountered. In case the green skin coloring and insect features
confuse the reader, Carter himself calls the green men “warriors, for I could not
disassociate these people in my mind from those other warriors who, only the day before,
had been pursuing me” (Princess 24). In this way, Burroughs uses the green men as an
imaginative vehicle for promoting firndartrental values and concepts involved in the

ideology of western progress: Christianity, individualism, capitalism, and evolutionary

49

progress. By transforming the Native Americans of the American West into insect-like
aliens, Burroughs emphasizes the (assumed) lower physical order, more primitive culture,
and lesser intelligence of native peoples. This leaves Carter (white, southern male) as the
representative of American society and its ideals.

Consequently, Carter often analyzes the Martian natives and their culture(s) as if
he were Haraway’s (contradictory) “universal” and superior Anglo-scientist. As he notes
biological and cultural characteristics, Carter takes part in the western discourse of
scientific discovery, exploration, and classification associated with colonialism, empire,
and ethnic othering. The cultural bias of the observer or ethnographer is most evident in
the descriptive language used in the representation of the natives. It is through Carter’s
interested/privileged point of view and his representation of native cultures and peoples
' that Burroughs indirectly reinforces dominant, Anglo, Christian, ‘American’ values and
beliefs. Much like the creation of many imaginative u/dystopias, the multiple elsewheres
of the Mars series involve a biased observer. From the home culture of the
author/audience, the observer's main focus is a foreign society and its difference.
Without this (direct or indirect) comparison and the hierarchy of cultural values it creates,
without the ethnic or racial Other in Burroughs’ texts, Anglo manhood and American
identity could not be constructed. Due to the first-person narrative; the exaggerated
portrayal of Carter as a hero; the construction of Carter as both a universal and a white,
southern male hero; and the lack of alternative viewpoint, the text as a whole promotes
the same cultural hierarchy—ethnic/racial, national, economic, gender, political—as does

John Carter.

Burroughs first utilizes the American valorization of Christianity to promote

50

western progress. Similar to earlier representation of Native Americans in the West, the
Martian natives are viewed and judged through a spiritual lens. Carter’s descriptions of
the green men augment the negative qualities of such a native association, reveal a
dominant ideology underlying native representations, and emphasize the motivation
behind the construction of Others. Further developing the spiritual representation of the
Native Americans, begun in the darkness and unreality of the cave scene and the Arizona
landscape at night, Carter describes his first view of a large encampment of “half a
thousand red warriors” and the body of his (Anglo) friend Powell “[u]nder the clear rays
of the Arizona moon” (Princess 14). Previously Carter and Powell “were wont to ridicule
the stories [they] heard of the great numbers of these vicious marauders that were
supposed to haunt the trails, taking their toll in lives and torture of every white party
which fell into their merciless clutches,” but Carter becomes “positive” that the Apaches
“wished to capture Powell alive for the fiendish pleasure‘of torture” (12-3). Similar to
these descriptions of Native Americans, the green Martian natives are described as
“devils,” “huge and terrific incarnation[s] of hate, of vengeance and of death,” and a
“materialized nightmare” (23). In addition, “[t]he death agonies of a fellow being are, to
these strange creatures [the green Martians], provocative of the wildest hilarity, while
their chief form of commonest amusement is to inflict death on their prisoners of war in
various ingenious and horrible ways” (29). In this way, both native groups are portrayed
as embodying a spiritual darkside. They are “devils” (or witches) associated with
darkness, night, the moon, nightmares, and the negative qualities of hatred, torture,
revenge, and death. Within this context, natives are the antithesis of the positive qualities

and symbols associated with Chfistianity——light, love, angels, forgiveness, compassion,

51

life,‘ and divine revelation.

Although Burroughs does not promote Christianity directly in his writings, his
language and characterization here take part in the larger good/evil discourse stemming
from the western/American valorization of Christianity and the intersection of religion
with morality, nationality, race, and imperialism. In a complex web of associations, the
‘pagan’ spiritual beliefs and practices of native peoples are an evaluative criteria for their
classification by Europeans as savages or primitives. Conversely, their characterization
as savages, primitives, or natives includes a historical, ideological, and linguistic legacy
of spiritual/moral denigration and/or demonization. From the Puritan perspective, for
example, “the natives were not merely heathens but active disciples of the devil” (Nash
36). Thus, the association of native peoples with spiritual darkness, mysticism, and
superstition is a criterion for their classification as uncivilized—such a definition
reflecting the comparison and hierarchical cultural values being utilized in such
classification (Christianity, progress, land ownership/cultivation, etc.). Furthermore, the
lOng tradition of primitivism and savagism in European and Anglo-American thought and
practice usually entails the representation of natives as spiritually inferior, deviant, and/or
anachronistic. Burroughs’ Mars series is a good illustration of this cultural, linguistic,
and literary legacy.

Finally, the spiritual othering of natives justifies the suppression of their culture
and/or race. Within the larger historical picture, we see the immorality and pagan
classification of native peoples serving as a rationale for Euro-American colonialism and

imperialism. Renowned American forefather, Benjamin Franklin once wrote of Native

Americans:

52

Their dark-coloured bodies, half-naked, seen only by the gloomy light of the
bonfire, running after and beating one another with fire-brands, accompanied by
their horrid yellings, formed a scene the most resembling our ideas of hell that
could be well imagined. [...I]f it be the design of Providence to extirpate these
savages in order to make room for the cultivators of the earth, it (seems not
improbable that rum may be the appointed means. It has already annihilated all
the tribes who formerly inhabited all the seacoast... (Lawrence 21)
Franklin illustrates his western, American bias as he attributes the demise of the Native
Americans solely to their own immorality and divine intervention, eliding the material
contact and conflict between the Native Americans and Euro-Americans. Burroughs’
southern slavery, western expansion, Indian fighting, and representation of the green
Martians are logical extensions of such colonial American views. Because the Apaches
and the green natives are immoral—they attack innocent, out-numbered whites solely for
the purpose of torture—Carter is justified in killing as many of the natives as possible.
On the other hand, the negative spiritual and moral representation of natives
allows them to act as a foil to the hero. They provide an enemy or adversary to illustrate
the hero’s extraordinary attributes and the superiority of his race and cultural values. For
example, John Carter illustrates his heroism, his goodness and morality by attempting to
rescue his friend, even after it is clear that Powell is dead. Furthermore, Carter's attempt
is in the face of overwhelming odds and the extraordinary viciousness and cruelty of his
native opponent. Whereas the natives attack, unprovoked and for the purpose of torture
only, Carter loyally rescues a friend. The American natives “mutilat[e]”; Carter saves

from mutilation (Princess 14). The green natives attack a peaceful flying ship (43) and

53

plan to torture and kill a defenseless young woman for entertainment (49); Carter protects
and eventually frees the previously-unknown prisoner. Thomas Dyer’s analysis of
Theodore Roosevelt and his relationship to Native Americans clarifies the paradox at the
heart of the Wilderness Cult: how to promote fighting abilities, while also maintaining
cultural hierarchies. As Dyer notes, “[i]f the white advance were to be heroic, and the
white frontiersman were to be judged an able, virile fighter in the idealistic mold
Roosevelt cast for him, then the foe must be a redoubtable warrior too” (75). One answer
is to portray the natives as physically powerful, skilled in warfare, and cunning to serve
as worthy adversaries, but also spiritually/morally deviant or inferior in order to justify

. the hero’s actions as he fights, kills, and/or conquers them.

Carter, and the larger text, reflects the complex ideology of western, American
superiority by acknowledging the simplistic virtues of primitive societies, but
overwhelmingly critiquing such societies in so far as they deviate from the accepted
cultural, i.e. universal, norms of American society and its privileging of western progress.
This complex and powerfully ethnocentric viewpoint is most clearly seen in the
' description and evaluation of native cultures and their collectivity or communalism.
Because the natives refute the individualism and property ownership valued by western
culture, they are perceived as unnatural and lower in the social order. In a move similar
to the internalized and obscured oppression of the slaves on Burroughs’ family
plantation, the green natives are most overtly censored by a Martian of another race—a
red Martian princess named Dejah Thoris. Her impassioned and highly critical speech
embodies the values and hierarchies of western, American progress without jeopardizing

the scientific detachment of John Carter:

54

must you ever go on down the ages to your final extinction but little above the
plane of the dumb brutes that serve you! A people without written language,
without art, without homes, without love; the victim of eons of the horrible
community idea. Owning everything in common, even to your women and
children, has resulted in your owning nothing in common. You hate each other as
you hate all else except yourselves. (Princess 54)
Within western ideology, individualism and property are essential for civilization and
culture—a written language and the arts, a stationary abode, the nuclear family, and
romantic love. Although Thoris is a Martian, her speech is an adaptation of early
colonial, Euro-American descriptions of Native Americans. According to Reverend
Samuel Purchas, for example, “[t]he Indians are ‘so bad people, having little of
Humanitie but shape, ignorant of Civilitie, of Arts, of Religion; more brutish then the
beasts they hunt, more wild and unmanly then that unmanned wild Countrey, which they
range rather than inhabite; captivated also to Satans tyranny in [...] wicked idlenesse’”
(qtd.. in Pearce 7-8).32 This passage emphasizes the nomadic existence, the animalism,
and the lack of culture observed in the green natives by Thoris. Implied in the negative
evaluations of both the Native Americans and the green Martians is the necessity to
convert them to western, American values. They “need to be matured in rich, complex,
civilized humanity. The primary means to this are private property and the division of
labor, as these mark the end of human progress toward its goal of high civilization”
(Pearce 85).

According to westem, American ideology, a lack of individualism retards

progress because communalism stifles industry, competition, and invention—the

55

cornerstones of capitalism. Highly successful capitalist, Andrew Carnegie makes these
connections clear: “Individualism, Private Property, the Law of Accumulation of Wealth,
and the Law of Competition [...,] these are the highest result of human experience [...,]
the best and most valuable of all that humanity has yet accomplished” (400). Without
these values, the green natives will never progress. In fact, as Thoris emphasizes, they
are actually regressing towards extinction. Carter himself notes the impact of a nomadic,
communal lifestyle on the material advancement of the green natives; they are ill-suited
culturally and physically for civilized environments:
the creatures were entirely out of proportion to the desks, chairs, and other
furnishings; these being of a size adapted to human beings such as 1, whereas the
great bulks of the Martians could scarcely have squeezed into the chairs, nor was
there room beneath the desks for their long legs. Evidently, then, there were other
denizens on Mars than the wild and grotesque creatures into whose hands I had
fallen. (Princess 28)
Instead of a stationary existence in which the natives would construct permanent homes
for themselves and develop urban areas (i.e. become civilized), the green men wander
Mars and temporarily (and rather pathetically and laughably) occupy the cast-off and
clearly ill-suited abodes of civilized, “fair-haired” humans more like John Carter
(Princess 62). The communalism of the natives hinders their development, their cultural
and material progress toward western norms and ideals. While the increased size of the
green Martians may give them a physical advantage in the ‘wilds,’ this bodily focus fits
the previously mentioned native stereotype of great strength combined with moral

weakness.33 Rather than material and cultural progression, then, communalism promotes

56

the negative characteristics of hatred, animality, and "extinction." In Thoris’ speech this
extinction is placed within the context of Social Darwinism, making it seem natural,
inevitable, and without relation to the expansion of western peoples and culture.
However, the direct connections to western, American progress reveal the threat of
extinction for native peoples through conflict with dominant, white America and its
values of individualism, property, capitalism, and progress.

In his position as explorer and scientist, Carter reinforces the negative evaluation
of the green Martians and their communalism. He observes,

[t]heir mating is a matter of community interest solely, and is directed without

reference to natural selection. The council of Chieftains of each community

control the matter as surely as the owner of a Kentucky racing stud directs the

scientific breeding of his stock for the improvement of the whole.

In theory it may sound well, [...] but the results of ages of this unnatural
practice, coupled with the community interest in the offspring being held
paramount to that of the mother, is shown in the cold, cruel creatures, and their
gloomy, loveless, mirthless existence.

It is true that the green Martians are absolutely virtuous, [...] but better far
a finer balance of human characteristics even at the expense of a slight and
occasional loss of chastity. (Princess 67)

In this way, the natives are ‘scientifically’ classified as uncivilized or lower in the social
and natural order because of their unnatural and animal-like cultural practices. In their

rejection of both romantic love and sexual attraction, the natives foster a collective ideal

which actually places them below the natural animals. Carter’s emphasis on the

57

importance of the mother mirrors Thoris’ earlier speech as well; the concept of the
nuclear family underlies both their definitions of “home,” love, and ‘proper’ reproduction
(m 54). Even a ‘virtue’ such as chastity, whose acknowledgement should illustrate
the objective viewpoint of the western observer/scientist, is contorted to become another
characteristic which classifies the natives as subhuman. In a lengthy explication of _T_h_§
Sexual Life of Savages (1929) by ethnographer Bronislaw Malinowski, Marianna
Torgovnick emphasizes a similar combination of overt cultural bias with “substantial
faith in [the scientist-observer’s] authority and in the power of neutral observation” (4).
Burroughs constructs Carter not just as a universal and representative white, American
hero; in his position as first-person narrator, Carter becomes an explorer and scientist
who observes and writes as an ethnographer. In this way, Carter moves beyond the
tradition of gentlemen explorers such as Henry M. Stanley and Theodore Roosevelt. His
authority is not only cultural, historical, and/or political, but also scientific. The factual,
impersonal, objective reputation of science reinforces the reliability of Carter’s narrative
position and disguises cultural bias as natural hierarchies. In addition to Carter as an
ethnographic narratbr, Burroughs constructs a reproductive system for the green Martians
which reinforces the hierarchy of western, white, and civilized as superior to native,
colored, and primitive. As insect humanoids, the green Martians lay eggs which are
incubated collectively, in isolation from the adults, in large enclosures resembling reptile . '
nests. Thus, the green Martians are literally cold-blooded insects or reptiles who are
lower in the evolutionary order than mammals—animal or human. Their biological
inferiority is seconded by their cultural inferiority, as they differentiate themselves from

even many cold-blooded life forms by not individually (or as a nuclear family, husband-

58

wife couple) caring for a single ‘nest.’

The systematic and sustained resistance by native peoples to conversion attempts
by Euro-Americans contradicted and hindered the western, American concept of
progress—cultural, historical, geographic, economic, biological, etc. Like the
denigration and demonization of natives because of their resistance to Christianity and
the moral and cultural norms of Euro-Americans, natives were placed within larger
historical, cultural, and biological continuums which often had devastating effects. Roy
Harvey Pearce explains the historical and cultural continuums of progress utilized in
evaluating Native Americans and the price paid for their resistance to assimilation or
‘uplifting’:

The idea of history as progress made it possible fully to comprehend the culturally

earlier as the morally inferior, even as an environmentalist analysis of societies

made it possible to account for the contemporaneity of that which should have
been part of the past. Savagism could be known only in terms of the civilization

to which, by the law of nature, it had to give way. (104)

In a similar manner, John Carter first evaluates the green natives in terms of their

deficient cultural progress, but then he adds a biological component as well. In

describing the reaction of the green natives to Thoris’ civilizing speech, Carter links the

natives’ inferior cultural “customs” to their (presumably inferior) biological “heredity”:
that they were moved I truly believe, and if one man high among them had been
strong enough to rise above custom, that moment would have marked a new and
mighty era for Mars.

I saw Tars Tarkas rise to speak, and on his face was such an expression as

59

I had never seen upon the countenance of a green Martian warrior. It bespoke an
inward and mighty battle with self, with heredity, with age old custom [...]
(Burgess 54)
It seems there is the real potential for change, for progress, for civilization for native
people. However, true to the experiences of Euro-American missionaries, this optimism
quickly turns into an even more extreme and entrenched negativity as the natives resist
conversion/civilization/assimilation.

When another green warrior strikes Dejah Thoris, an unarmed and peaceful
woman, to the ground and places his foot upon her in‘a gesture of superiority and
contempt, he reasserts the common, primitive, non-chivalrous cultural values of the green
natives. Thus, the green men prove their resistance to change and to thinking and acting
independently of one another—rejecting the western ideal of individualism and
maintaining their collectivity. Furthermore, the hereditary basis for their primitive,
collective behavior emphasizes their biological inability to progress. In contrast to John
Carter’s freedom from the past, individualism, and self-reliance (represented by his lack
of ancestors and solitary status), the natives are fundamentally shaped by their past, by
their collective ancestral group. Within western ideology, this episode proves that the
natives are and always will be “historically anterior and morally inferior” to western
society, as well as biologically anachronistic and stagnant (Pearce 105). Euro-American
ethnocentrism and their pervasive‘belief in western progress prevented them from
comprehending or accepting the resistance of natives to their way of life. If the elements
of western progress actually meant beneficial, sustained, and natural change or

deveIOpment (i.e. the definition of progress), then it was incomprehensible to Euro-

60

Americans that anyone would reject such elements. As a result, Euro-Americans used
the biological components to explain the continued resistance of natives to their ‘logically
beneficial’ changes. Rather than admit that western progress was a faulty concept, Euro-
Americans constructed a biological essentialism for native races. In resisting the concept
of progress, then, the natives were perceived by Euro-Americans not as simply different
or neutral factors, but as vital threats to the western, American way of life; they retarded
western progress as a whole. F urtherrnore, because native resistance was based on
immutable, biological factors, the only real solution was the eradication of the race or
extinction of the native groups.

In addition to the hereditary basis of the native resistance, Burroughs more
directly utilizes the biological theory of progress, known as evolution, through Carter’s
- ethnographic perspective. Placing Carter’s scientific evaluations within the tum-of-the-
century context of biological evolution and American immigration highlights the
hierarchical and exclusionary basis of ‘objective’ science and the continued subjectivity
of ‘progressive’ thought. First, Morse Peckham asserts that “evolution may be
considered as a fairly straightforward metaphysical theory with a long history” that
existed prior to Darwin’s 1859 Origin of the Species (23). In fact, Peckham observes that
this existing metaphysical evolution “was not so much confirmed by [Darwin’s] theory of
natural selection as embarrassed by it” (ibid).34 Thus, Burroughs (Carter) actually takes
part in a long tradition of misreading Darwin’s work, choosing to promote metaphysical
or Social Darwinism which incorporates “values into a descriptive construct” (Peckham
20).” In contrast to Darwin’s “accident” (29), imperfect adaptation (31), and the

impossibility of total human comprehension of the physical world (3), metaphysical

61

evolution substitutes a “goal-directed process” of “simple to complex means from good
to better” (Peckham 29). The distinction Peckham makes between Darwinism and
Darwinisticism (Social Darwinism being a primary form of the later) highlights the
hierarchical and biased nature of the Euro-American viewpoint, even when encased in
scientific language and theory. Carter, for example, embodies Social Darwinism in his
description of the head chiefiain of the green men:
this monster was the exaggerated personification of all the ages of cruelty,
ferocity, and brutality from which he had descended. Cold, cunning, calculating;
he was, also, in marked contrast to most of his fellows, a slave to that brute
passion which the waning demands for procreation upon their dying planet has
almost stilled in the Martian breast.

The thought that the divine Dejah Thoris might fall into the clutches of
such an abysmal atavism started the cold sweat upon me. Far better that we save
friendly bullets for ourselves at the last moment, as did those brave frontier
women of my lost land, who took their own lives rather than fall into the hands of
the Indian braves. (Princess 65)

Carter’s use of the term atavism appeals to the objective authority of science. However,
Carter reveals his Social Darwinism in such highly negative, evaluative words as
“cruelty, ferocity, and brutality.” His reference to the American West and the Native
American/pioneer conflict only emphasizes the biased or subjective nature of the
purported objective, universal perspective of scientific discourse. The scientific concept
of atavism relies on a hierarchical, value-motivated biological continuum as well—the

concept of progress. Finally, as mentioned previously, Euro-American used the

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biological basis of the social behavior and cultural norms of the natives to foreground
their inability to change as well.

These same issues become even more relevant in the context of the anti-
immigration debate at the turn of the century. If inferior ‘races’ are unable to change, to
assimilate, or in other words, to become good (like dominant, Anglo) Americans, then
their physical presence becomes a threat to American progress through the possibility of
interbreeding. American biological progress becomes a matter of protecting the ‘white’
race from the inferior blood of darker-skinned races. The threat of rape in Carter’s
passage reflects this concern. Similar to the arguments of many Anglo-American, anti-
immigration advocates at the turn of the century, Burroughs privileges blood over
environment. In 1912, Prescott Hall wrote, “Recent investigations in eugenics show that
heredity is a much more important factor than environment as regards social
conditions—in fact, that in most cases heredity is what makes the environment” (300).
The context of the anti-immigration debate reveals the racist basis of such biological
arguments. Hall and Burroughs utilize biology, heredity, and/or race to scientifically
‘prove’ the inferiority of people-of-color and the superiority of Anglo-Americans. Hall
targets the “barbarians” fiom Africa, Asia, and the “defective and delinquent classes of
Europe” (298)—those fi'om “entirely different races—of Alpine, Mediterranean, Asiatic,
and African stocks” (297). In A Princess of Mars. Burroughs constructs the green natives
as hereditarily, biologically atavistic—anachronistic and inferior. Not only are the green
natives not progressing towards civilization, they are actually ‘throw-backs’ to past
biological and cultural types.

Within this biological context, the natives are represented as anachronisms who

63

threaten civilized society, especially through interbreeding. The anti-immigration
emphasis on heredity over environment and the existence of racial characteristics imply
such a process for the United States. Prescott Hall quotes Professor Karl Pearson: “’You
cannot change the leopard’s spots, and you cannot change bad stock to good; you may
dilute it, possibly spread it over a large area, spoiling good stock, but until it ceases to
multiply it will not cease to be’” (Hall 300). When a green Martian threatens to rape
Dejah Thoris, it is not simply the emotional and physical trauma she would experience
that concerns Carter. As a representative of western progress, she symbolizes the pure
and privileged blood of white, American womanhood which must be protected from
contamination by the recessive biological characteristics of natives, of people-of-color, of
non-Anglo-Americans. She is the “race mother” upon whose procreative function rests
the entire race (Doyle 5, 27). The theory of evolution here is used to illustrate the
progressive racial characteristics of the white race and the static or regressive racial
characteristics of people-of-color, thereby justifying or explaining their extinction or
destruction and the continued and expanded power of Anglo-Europeans.

The pre-existing ethnocentrism of the Euro-American observer(s) combines with
the ideology of historical, cultural, and biological progress to prevent an unbiased
analysis of native cultures. As cultural theorist Renato Rosaldo argues, “the detached
observer’s authoritative objectivity resides more in a manner of speaking than in apt .
characterizations of other forms of life” (109). Houston Baker likewise foregrounds the
connection between the ethnographer and the larger cultural and political forces of her or
his home country. For Baker, ethnography is “a writing of the ‘Other’ out of relationship

to his or her native ground and into the sexual, commercial, voyeuristic fantasies of

64

imperialism” (386). Donna Haraway supports both of these critiques of ethnographic
objectivity in Primer; Visions. As mentioned earlier, she discusses the similarities
between the traditionally diametrically opposed categories of ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’ (3):
“Scientific practice is above all a story-telling practice in the sense of historically specific
practices of interpretation and testimony” (4). In this way, Haraway, Rosaldo, and Baker
go one step beyond Peckham as they undermine even the objective, scientific, rather than
metaphysical, nature of Darwin’s work. By analyzing the (always) subjective element of
scientific study and the privileged viewpoint of (western, Anglo, generally male)
scientists, these authors highlight the hierarchical basis of science.
Using primatology as an especially fluitful lens for examining these issues,
Haraway also emphasizes the importance of the concept of progress to scientific study:
It is a story of progress flom immature sciences based on mere description and
flee qualitative interpretation [Carter’s method] to mature science based on
quantitative methods and falsifiable hypotheses, leading to a synthetic scientific
reconstruction of primate reality. But these histories are stories about stories,
narratives with a good ending; i.e., the facts put together, reality reconstructed
scientifically. These are stories with a particular aesthetic, realism, and a
particular politics, commitment to progress. (4)
Thus, the material progress is enmeshed in the progress of the mediating tools as well.
Although many contemporary writers and theorists are critical and/or wary of such value?
laden “narratives,” traditional western observers/scientists would feel doubly justified by
them, since both their methods and the material illustrate their superiority, their continued

progress. In A Princess of Mgr_s_, the material and historical progress experienced by John

65

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Carter is reflected in the narrative progress as well; the science of outer space is reflected
in the science of Carter’s narrative stance and style. The idea of the progress of
science—away flom superstition, emotion, values, and bias and towards a greater factual
‘truth’-lends authority to Carter and his text. The irony, of course, is that Haraway’s
observations reveal the fictional foundation of Burroughs’ science. Carter’s position and
viewpoints as a scientist are doubly fictional—science itself is a “story” and the Mars

series is science fiction.36

Mars

While Burroughs (re)creates a cultural and racial hierarchy in the Mars series
which privileges western man, there are several key areas in which this pyramid is
undermined. As discussed earlier, the imaginative setting of Mars allows Burroughs to
construct a planet which reflects his personal beliefs and views. In turning to science
fiction and outer space, Burroughs has a much greater creative license than in the
American West or even the tropics. One area he manipulates actually contradicts the
science-focus of the outer-space setting: Burroughs creates a Mars which embodies an
‘ideal’ synthesis of the civilized and the primitive—through the red Martians and their
society. Although this setting, contradictorily, illustrates the superiority of Carter as an
ideal warrior hero, it also undermines some aspects of western progress. In addition, flee
flom earth history, Burroughs creates an egalitarian brotherhood of fighting men,
composed of various Martian races. This band of Carter’s personal friends embodies the
American ideals of freedom and equality, outside of the hierarchical boundaries of actual
American society. The red Martians also represent the ideal of the American melting pot,

as they are a composite race made up of various, older ‘primary’ Martian races. The red

66

race stands in marked contrast to the strict boundaries between races and the fear of
interbreeding exposed in Carter’s observations on the green Martians. Finally, Martian
mythology reverses the evolutionary hierarchy of black/primate/stagnant/less developed
to white/human/progressive/advanced . In this way, Burroughs utilizes the story-making
potential of science, revealed bvaaraway, to question the racial and cultural hierarchy he
upholds elsewhere. The elsewhere of outer space and the genre of science fiction, then,

' offer the possibility of a revision of traditional power hierarchies, for a literal
‘progressive’ change.

The lack of a historical legacy in the Mars context allows Burroughs to create a
specifically American hero who represents ‘progressive’ American ideals, such as
equality and diversity, and whose relationships with Martian natives undermine some
aspects of western progress. Hence, we have greater discrepancy and conflict between a
more inclusive, egalitarian social model and traditional hierarchies in the Mars series than
in Burroughs’ Tarzan series or most other African narratives by European writers.
Marianna Torgovnick traces a progression in Burroughs’ Tarzan series flom “expos[ing]
the shaky basis of [existing] hierarchies” to the increasing “affirm[ation of] existing
, hierarchies, including the hierarchy of male over female, white over black, West over
rest” (46). Because Tarzan is British aristocracy and the Tarzan series takes place in
Aflica, the narrative(s) participates in the colonial ideals and practices of Europeans
historically and fictionally. As Tarzan matures, he cannot retain the innocence of
childhood; as he comes to understand who he is and his place in the world, racial and
cultural hierarchies are learned as well. Earlier European narratives of Aflica also set a

pattern for Burroughs to follow. From Henry M. Stanley to Rider Haggard, non-fiction

67

and fiction authors had utilized Aflica as a resource—for colonialism and imperialism,
for the construction of white manhood, and for the construction of narratives.37 In the
Mars series, there is no such historical legacy. In fact, the pre-existing scientific and
literary concept of Mars as a more civilized society than that of Earth meant that
Burroughs actually had to modify the existing template in order to make Carter a western
hero at all. In moving away flom the specific historical past of the American West and
the actual history of Earth completely, Burroughs reverses the progression Torgovnick
analyzes in the Tarzan series.

In the Mars context, Bturoughs revises the turn-of-the-century wilderness
nostalgia associated with the American West and also the terrestrial tropics. Outside of
the bounds of American history and society, Burroughs can create a native society which
is the ideal synthesis of primitive and civilized, that of the red Martians. The Martians
have developed advanced air transportation and atmospheric technology, and the red
Martians are interested in scientific activities (Princess 53). However, even the red
Martians, who represent the most developed (living) culture on Mars, exist in a medieval
society, with castles, hand-to-hand combat, and an aristocracy. Furthermore, they do not
have any industrial components to their society. The red Martians are not as civilized as
the ancient white race of Martians whose ruins dot the Martian landscape, but their
largely pre-modem society is the ideal combination of primitive and civilized elements to
appeal to Carter, and to a turn-of-the-century audience as well. Within this cultural
bricolage, Americans can both maintain their social privilege and physical comfort and
establish a pre-industrial relation to nature, complete with an opportunity to prove their

physical prowess. The red skin color of this composite group could be modeled on

68

eastern earth cultures generally perceived by westerners as “a midway stage between the
primitive and the civilized,” Egypt and India in particular (Torgovnick 60). Thus, the
green Martians represent the complete primitive, like the Native Americans in the
American context, serving as an ignoble enemy for Carter to battle so his heroism can be
continuously illustrated. The red Martians are constructed as an‘intermediary race/culture
so that Carter can both prove his superiority as a Euro-American and take part in a
romance.

This intermediary state is reflected in the climate, the clothing, and the
technological advancement of the Martians. First, the atmosphere is not only habitable
for humans, but the climate is semi-tropical. Therefore, the majority of Martians, and
John Carter, regularly live in a semi- to fully nude state of (un)dress. Certainly this
Martian social norm owes much to sex appeal, the fantasy genre, and western narratives
about the (usually colonial or imperial) tropics. However, the pre-modern, pre-industrial
state of the Martians (or their selective technological development) appeals to John Carter
to the extent that he becomes an active member of their community, establishes a family,
and pines for Mars when he involuntarily returns to Earth. Similar to Burroughs’
subsequent hero, Tarzan, Carter is metaphorically ‘born,’ completely naked and without
weapons, and finds himself in a dangerous, threatening foreign society. Both
protagonists have lost their technological advantage as Europeans. In becoming a
member of the foreign society, they both continue their primitive state of dress and hone
their physical qualities. However, the imaginary setting, combined with the red Martian
synthesis of primitive and civilized characteristics, allows Carter to more fully integrate

into this foreign culture than the Native American culture of the American West or

69

Tarzan within the colonial context of Africa. Likewise, Burroughs portrays Carter’s
cultural assimilation and racial interbreeding as natural and positive developments. Thus,
the limited or selective technolOgical development of the red Martians and Carter’s
unprecedented level of accepted cultural assimilation undermine some elements of
western progress.38

As Brian Street notes, however, the lack of clothing is a complex factor in that it
illustrates an acceptance of the cultural norms of the ethnic Other, while simultaneously
proving the physical equality or superiority of the Euro-American hero. Again, like
Tarzan, Carter “represents the merging of the accepted intellectual superiority of the
Englishman [American] With great physical qualities” (Street 20). Furthermore, like the
intermediate flontiersman of the American West, Carter’s genteel background and Anglo
blood ensure his position of superiority in a primitive or semi-primitive society. As a
result, Carter quickly becomes the most famous warrior on all of Mars, feared by his
enemies and revered by his fliends. Without advanced technology, armed with only a
sword and without armor, Carter ‘conquers’ a more primitive society on its own terms;
his only advantage is a more developed physical system due to the lessened Martian
gravity.

Carter’s warrior adventures also allow Burroughs to challenge the hierarchies
established in other areas of the Martian series through the creation of a diverse
. brotherhood of fighting men centered around John Carter. Carter slowly accumulates
fliends flom among all the races of Mars—green, red, black, yellow, and white—as his
adventures take him to the corners of the globe. Toward the end of the second book in

the Mars series, The Gods of Mars. Carter takes stock of his companions: “In that little

7O

party there was not one who would desert another; yet we were of different countries,
different colours, different races, different religions—and one of us was of a different
world” (135). These are the democratic, egalitarian ideals of American society clearly
expressed by an American, narrator and author. Adventure, fighting, male bonding, and
most importantly, the influence, leadership, ideals, and superiority of an Anglo-American
man unite otherwise separate and often conflicting societies.39 Returning to the concept
of American exceptionalism, John Carter symbolizes the unique and highly ‘progressive’
cultural factors associated with American society. Like the United States itself, Carter
represents tolerance, equality, and unity based on individual attributes and personal
worth, rather than external factors like heredity or material prosperity. Thus, Carter
embodies the complex American contradiction of hierarchy based on equality—because
of American exceptionalism, Americans deserve positions of greatest power. In fact, it is
the “duty” of Americans to practice colonialism and imperialism because they must bring
American civilization, including fleedom and democracy, to others (Roosevelt, "Nation"
245). Carter’s physical prowess, fighting abilities, and ‘military’ leadership reflect the
conflict and native resistance usually involved in instituting these egalitarian ideals
through such hierarchical systems.

Burroughs’ choice of a male, quasi-military group for the embodiment of
American egalitarian ideals illustrates his own experiences as well. It was only in the
American military that Burroughs associated with ethnic Others on a roughly equal
level-—blacks, Native Americans, and foreign immigrants (Taliaferro 40, 42). Thus,
Burroughs experienced ethnic and racial equality through a highly hierarchical institution

founded on physical force and conquest (in this case the continued submission of Native

71

Americans in the American West). 40 The military foundation of Burroughs’ American
equality reveals the individual nature of this equality. For example, individual Native
Americans, like the Apache scouts Burroughs met in the calvary, could prove themselves
worthy Americans by disassociating themselves flom their tribes and joining an official
American institution like the United States military. Cultural assimilation was the key to
equality and acceptance; natives, African-Americans, and immigrants were expected to
embrace American individualism and reject their particular cultural, ethnic, or racial
(collective) heritage. Thus, they became like John Carter and the construction of Anglo-
American heroes as solitary wanderers, without pasts or homes. Likewise, individual
members of various Martian races could prove themselves worthy of a close, egalitarian
relationship with John Carter by disassociating themselves flom their particular
cultural/racial communities. In this way, Burroughs can simultaneously promote
hierarchical racial theories as applied to collective groups and egalitarian ideals as

applied to particularly worthy (ethnic Other) individuals. He follows Theodore Roosevelt
in “feeling comfortably consistent with evolutionary ideology and the rhetoric of
equipotentiality alongside Republican politics in that [Roosevelt] allowed for the progress
of individuals to the leVel of white men even if the race as a whole remained backward”

_ (Dyer 105).

The biological characteristics of Martian evolution pose the most devastating
challenge to existing terrestrial hierarchies. A striking example of American diversity
and egalitarianism is the red race of Martians. As observed earlier, the red Martians are
the most civilized living race on Mars. They are also a composite race, the result of

“lalges of close relationship and intermarrying” among the white, the “very dark, almost

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“fair and beautiful daughter” of this racial mix, Dejah Thoris, that Carter falls in love,
marries, and produces a further racially—mixed child (ibid). In this case, Carter not only
breaks existing terrestrial racial taboos (including the miscegenation laws existing in
many states during this time period), but also terrestrial/extraterrestrial racial
boundaries.41 Only the green Martians are excluded flom this environmentally-motivated
and apparently positive racial intermixing. Within the American context, such a racial
philosophy is known as the melting pot, and Native Americans are conspicuously absent
flom the mix."2 Thus, Burroughs retains one race to represent the primitive, the race
most relevant to America, reputed to be inassimilable, and the one flom which Euro-
Americans desired the most materially. Nonetheless, the inclusive racial theory
embodied in the fictional evolution of the red race stands in marked contrast to the other
hierarchical, race-based tenets expressed in the narrative. I would argue that it is only
within the highly imaginative space of another planet that Burroughs is willing or able to
visualize the diverse, intimate community of the fighting band discussed above and the
more radical, racial intermixing of the red Martians. Within the context of actual
American society, as with the Native Americans/green Martians discussed earlier,
Burroughs maintains racial boundaries that are discarded outside of the specifics of
American society or Earth history more generally.

Other biological or racial examples foster a more egalitarian ethos as well. For
example, the Martians perceive Carter himself as combining features of the different

Martian races: he has the white skin of the white race but the dark hair of the black race

(Gods 67). Furthermore, Burroughs subtly undermines the evolutionary tenets found in

 

 

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other areas of the narrative through the alternative perspective of a “Dator” or prince of
the First Born, the black race of Mars (68). As explained to Carter, the First Born are so
called because their “race is the oldest on the planet” and the emergence of all the other
races was dependent on the action of the “first black man” (ibid). Although there is no
other substantiation of this creation myth, created by the black race itself, Burroughs
never contradicts it or offers an alternative myth by a member of another racial group. In
fact, Burroughs reverses the evolutionary hierarchy of (black) primate to (white) western
man in transforming the apes of Mars into great white apes and placing the black race in
a position of prominence. It is the twisted remnants of the white race, the therns, that are
the most corrupt race on Mars. The ancient white race of Martians also serves as an
example of strict Darwinian biological theory rather than the Spencerian theory of
progressive biological and cultural evolution found in other areas of the text.” It is
explained that the highly specialized white race, a “highly cultivated and literary race,”
was forced to integrate with the other races in order to survive changes in the Martian
environment (Princess 62-3). Over the centuries “much of the high civilization and many
of the arts of the fair-haired Martians had become lost” (62). All that remains is the
composite red race, with its more “practical civilization”; numerous ruins which dot the
Martian landscape; and the inbred, bald, and corrupt white thems (ibid). The ancient
white race can serve as an example of the heights of western civilization and be used as a
comparison to the primitive culture of the green Martians, as noted earlier. However,
Burroughs also illustrates the flagility and vulnerability of such a specialized ‘organism’
in the face of larger environmental factors. He turns Spencer’s theory of “survival of the

fittest” on its head as he redefines “the fittest” to be the most primitive, uncivilized

74

(green) race rather than the white, ruling elite (Hofstadter 392-9).

Progress

Examining Burroughs’ use of the western concept of progress reveals the multiple
inspirations, contexts, and applications such a nebulous term can have. On one side,
Burroughs illustrates the ethnocentrism and ethnic othering involved in western progress.
On the other, some of the ideals associated with American progress, like equality, are
actually realized in Burroughs’ science fiction. Torgovnick traces the strangled potential
of Burroughs’ Tarzan series but does not attempt to explain either why Burroughs would
be interested in exploring less oppressive and hierarchical relationships or why he then
felt compelled to reassert the existing hierarchies. Perhaps the illogical nature of the
progression stymies such an investigation. The concept of western progress itself reflects
the primacy ‘of change in western culture, flom bad to good, undesirable to desirable,
primitive to civilized. Within this flamework, Burroughs would be expected to move
from more conservative to more liberal and flom a promotion of dominant hierarchies to
the possibility of alternative relationships. He should leave behind the prejudices of the
Old World, as de Crévecoeur asserts, and take part in the new, improved American,
egalitarian melting pot. Not only does Burroughs not follow this western, American
blueprint of progression in his Tarzan series, but also the alternation of the writing and
publication of his Mars and his Tarzan series (along with other series) reveals a
continuous and pervasive inconsistency in his political, social, and racial viewpoints.

The increasing emphasis on egalitarianism in the Mars series, for example, was
continually undermined by the increasing social and racial rigidity of the Tarzan series.
With no actual progression, either positive or negative, to follow, critics generally react in

one of two ways. First, many do not address the inconsistency of Burroughs’ views,

75

usually choosing to focus on his infamous racism or solely on his popularity as an
adventure writer.44 Others, like Torgovnick and Taliaferro, more accurately note the
inconsistencies but do not attempt to explain why they exist. Both of these critical
responses overlook the complexity of Burroughs and his writing, leading to a one-sided
characterization or a confusing, contradictory list of quotes.

Looking at the convergence of the western concept of progress with Burroughs’
writing reveals some possible origins of his inconsistencies. The multifarious definitions
and applications of the term itself lead to inconsistent usage. As I have tried to illustrate
with various American authors flom across the centuries, American ideology and society
have been split, flom the very beginning of European colonization, between the reality of
hierarchical power relations and the ideals of individualism, democracy, fleedom, and
equality. Acknowledging this contradiction or paradox, Toni Morrison argues that “[t]he
concept of fleedom did not emerge in a vacuum. Nothing highlighted fleedom—if it did
not in fact create it—like slavery” (38). Burroughs continues to embody this
contradictory stance in his writings of the twentieth century. As a western, American
hero, John Carter is both ideal representative of egalitarian opportunity and also southern
gentleman and Confederate war hero. Western progress embodies primitive/civilized
hierarchies, as well as increasing diversity and egalitarianism. Furthermore, the multiple
contexts, the progress of elsewheres in the Mars series—historically, spacially, and
generically—changes the definition and possibilities of western progress. In the
American West, egalitarianism only applies to John Carter, as a flontiersman, and
western progress means the eradication of the native Indian population. On Mars,

egalitarianism applies to a wider range of natives and races, and western progress means

76

cultural and racial assimilation with the natives. Western progress involves the concept
of the ever-expanding frontier; it necessarily leads flom the western flontier to terrestrial
imperialism to extraterrestrial imperialism and the imagined, possibly utopian space of
another planet. The setting, the time period, and the genre influence the author. With the
expanded possibility of outer space and science fiction, Burroughs emphasizes different
elements of western progress. The single narrator/protagonist unites the elsewheres,
while personally enacting these changes. John Carter’s contradictions and
inconsistencies, as well as the continual flux of his life, make him a more representative
American than if he embodied a single, static concept of American society.

While Burroughs certainly subscribes to many of the oppressive ideologies of his
time period and his personal racial, socio-economic, and gender positions, his science
fiction contains the seeds of ‘progressive’ change. He offers an example of the liberating
potential of science” fiction as his viewpoint becomes more egalitarian, diverse, and
inclusive when writing in the extraterrestrial space of another planet. While the sf field
as a whole continued to avoid and suppress the issue of race throughout much of the
twentieth century, an increasing number of individual sf authors followed in Burroughs’
footsteps. They not only addressed the issue of race in their texts directly and in depth,
but also many of these authors expanded the small element of potential found in
Burroughs' writing to include more inclusive and radical reevaluations of existing
hierarchies. Writing in the 19308, George S. Schuyler was the next author
chronologically to develop this aspect of Burroughs’ work. Utilizing the sf genre to

eXplore race in American society, however, Schuyler broke away flom the Anglo male

triangle of protagonist/audience/author reflected so strongly in Burroughs’ oeuvre.

77

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Likewise, he revised Burroughs’ racial essentialism. Considering the time period and the
powerful exclusion of race flom the sf genre, it is not surprising that Schuyler’s
contribution to the field has not been generally recognized as a result. In extreme
contrast to Burroughs’ popular adventure texts, the literary community consistently
associates Schuyler with criticism of the Harlem Renaissance. Despite their widely
differing literary reputations, however, Burroughs and Schuyler shared a little-known
interest in both science fiction and racial theories, which makes a comparison of their

texts a fruitful area of critical inquiry.

78

 

‘ James joins other prominent critics of American science fiction who link more
mainstream writers with the genre. In New Worlds for Old: The Apocalyptic
Imagination, Science Fiction, and American Literature, David Ketterer not only goes
back to the 19th century for the roots of American sf (singling out Edgar Allan Poe as one
such author), but also he pairs mainstream texts with sf texts to explore the connections
between them.

2 See Taliaferro 16.

3 See Darko Suvin’s Metamorphoses of Science Fiction and Delany’s linguistic theory of

 

science fiction for two such alternate viewpoints on the genre.

4 The dual denotation of race as multiple ethnic, biological, or kin groups within
humankind and also as collective humanity foregrounds the constructed nature of the
term and also its utilization within Self/Other dichotomies.

5 See The Works of Theodore Roosevelt (1925) for examples flom Roosevelt’s own
writings.

‘5 Toni Morrison’s Plafl'ng in the Dark offers a brief introduction to this phenomenon
within the context of Aflican-Americans. Brian V. Street’s The Savage in Literature is a
more extensive examination of the same phenomenon in regard to Native Americans.
Also, Hector St. Jean de Crévecoeur offers insight into early colonial America and the
competition and prejudice among white settlers—English, Scottish, German, etc. (45).

7 In addition to the New Immigration, Doyle rightly emphasizes the connection between

the eugenics movement and African-Americans and women.

79

 

8 The distinction often made in contemporary discourse between race and ethnicity was
not generally utilized in the first half of the twentieth century. What would be considered
an ethnic or culturally similar group today, such as Italians or Jews, was conceived as a
physically distinct group by most scientists and society more generally.

9 Ross’ negative, biological utilization of the racialized Caliban figure will be revised by
Houston A. Baker, Jr. in “Caliban’s Triple Play.” See 215-24 in the present text for more
on the Caliban trope.

‘0 See The Idea of Rage in Science: Great Britain 1800-1960.

H Prominent anthropologist Franz Boas became a strong opponent of these racial theories
in the first half of the twentieth century. In collections of his work, like Race and
Democratic Society (1945) and Race, Language and Culture (1940), he joined defenders
of the New Immigrants like Jane Addams and Grace Abbott in foregrounding the
importance of environment over heredity and the more democratic potential of cultural
assimilation over racial essentialism. See the present work, 110-14, for more on Boas.

‘2 See Taliaferro 215 and 219.

‘3 Samuel R Delany addresses the issue of Burroughs’ popular fiction in “Letter to a
Critic: Popular Culture, High Art, and the S-F Landscape” (1973). Similar to my own
analysis, Delany acknowledges the “slapdash writing, sloppiness, and vulgarity” of
Burroughs’ science fiction (Jewel-Hinged 15). However, he goes on to assert that
“[s]ome art survives in spite of [this]” (ibid). More specifically, “in some [texts], the
good is so infested with [the above negative characteristics] you cannot separate it out
(Edgar R., and William S., Burroughs, gnawing at the idea of civilization flom their

respectively fascist and radical positions)” (ibid).

80

 

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" Toni Morrison, for example, asserts that “in matters of race, silence and evasion have
historically ruled literary discourse. Evasion has fostered another, substitute language in
which the issues are encoded, foreclosing open debate” (9). As we shall see, the
transformation of ethnic, racial, and/or sexual Others into aliens within science fiction is
one such “substitute,” “foreclosing [an] open debate” of race within the field.

‘5 Similar to Disney’s The Lion King, the emphasis shifts to environmentalism in Tarzan,

 

a current and more politically correct topic/moral than evolution and racialism.

‘6 For example, De Witt Douglas Kilgore can only name two “full-length studies”
discussing “the political and social future of racialized beings in the genre” (9): Daniel
Leonard Bemardi’s §t_ar Trek and HistflRage-ing Toward a White Future (1998) and
Michael C. Pounds’ Race in Space: The Representation of Ethnicity in Star Trek and Star
Trek: The Next Generation (1999). As Kilgore notes, both of these texts focus on §t_a_r_*

Trek alone. Of course, Kilgore's own text, Astrofuturism: Science. Race and Visions of

 

Utopia in Space, is an attempt to remedy this situation. Kilgore does address the works
of Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke in detail; however, his focus as a whole is
more on popular science than science fiction. In this context, he does not address
Burroughs or George S. Schuyler, and Samuel Delany and Octavia Butler surface only as
minor notes.

‘7 I refer here to Apache culture as portrayed by Burroughs.

‘8 Of course, as the earlier discussion of the transformation of ethnic or racial terrestrial
Others into aliens makes clear, the connections between aliens and racial Others can be

either, and sometimes both, positive and negative. The common practice in science

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fiction of suppressing racial Others by transforming them into aliens also highlights the
ubiquitous attempt to avoid race in the genre.

‘9 Kilgore makes these claims specifically within the context of astrofuturism, a
literary/scientific/popular phenomena starting after World War H. However, I believe
these general claims apply to the earlier need for a new area of exploration also.
Kilgore’s connection to the American West supports this more general application: “[t]he
idea of a space flontier serves contemporary America as the west served the nation in its
past: it is the terrain onto which a manifest destiny is projected, a new flontier
invalidating the 1893 closure of the western terrestrial frontier” (1). Kilgore’s parallel
emphasizes the dual nature of science fiction as well. In addition to “its renewal of the
geographic tradition of imperialism,” astrofuturism “represent an extension of the desire
to escape the logic of empire and find some space beyond the reach of old powers and
obsolete identities” (11).

20 Of course the archaic tendency of science fiction has continued up through
contemporary texts. George Lucas’ Star Wars trilogy offers the best known contemporary
example of such a combination of hand-to-hand sword fighting and advanced mechanical
travel. Lucas’ focus on an individual white male hero mirrors that of Burroughs and
much early sf as well.

2‘ See Haraway and Taliaferro.

22 Here and throughout my discussion of Burroughs, I flequently utilize the terminology
of the time period and Burroughs’ racial perspective. Certainly, this does not mean I
subscribe to this point of view. In fact, one of the underlying motivations for this

chapter, as well as my entire project on the intersection of race and science fiction, is to

82

 

question such terminology and hierarchies. However, if quotation marks were placed

around every questionable term, the reader would be needlessly distracted.

‘3 See Nash, Chap. 3: “The Romantic Wilderness,” especially pages 51-2, and Lawrence,

Chap. 5: “Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Novels.” Both Nash and Lawrence

emphasize the discrepancy between the actual living conditions of ‘gentlemen’ writers

and their occasional excursions into the wilderness or the lives of their fictional

characters. Precisely because William Byrd, Washington Irving, and Cooper were not

flontiersmen themselves and, therefore, held privileged and detached perspectives, they

could write more positively of the wilderness and its influence on civilized, Anglo man.

Twentieth century writers follow the same pattern. Burroughs mirrored Zane Grey and

other popular western writers in hislargely urban background:
Owen Wister, author of one of [Burroughs’] all-time favorite novels, The
Virginian, was at heart a Philadelphia fop; Zane Grey, Burroughs’s closest rival
for sales between the world wars, had been a dentist in Ohio; Frederick Faust,
who wrote prolifically under the name Max Brand, was a Berkeley bohemian; and
Clarence Mulford, creator of the Hopalong Cassidy series, lived in Brooklyn.
(T aliaferro 189)

In the same vein, precisely because the American wilderness and its native inhabitants

were largely subdued, Burroughs could create a fictional past and a romantic hero in a

wilderness setting which would appeal to a 20m-century audience.

2“ See Taliaferro or Porges for biographical information on BurroUghs.

25 The tropics were an elsewhere as well; Burroughs never even visited Africa. Of

course, outer space was not a viable travel destination for anyone at the time.

83

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26 As mentioned earlier, however, Burroughs’ western narratives resist such an extreme
assimilation of the European or Anglo-American to ‘savage’ behavior such as scalping.
should not scalp people, despite being raised within a Native American culture which
valorizes scalping as an accepted and expected activity for males during combat. Of
course, this ‘authentic’ Native American culture is a fictionalized creation of Burroughs
as well.

27 See Frederick Douglass, especially his second autobiography, My Bondage and My

Freedom for an analysis of the autocratic, undemocratic, and therefore unAmerican

 

institution of southern slavery. In chapter 4, for example, Douglass describes the
plantation of his childhood: “In its isolation, seclusion, and self-reliant independence,
Col. Lloyd’s plantation resembles what the baronial domains were, during the middle
ages in Europe” (64). The hierarchical basis of southern individualism is further
emphasized in a later passage: “The idea of rank and station was rigidly maintained on
Col. Lloyd’s plantation,” equally among the whites as the blacks (78).

28 When Carter first introduces himself in A Princess of Ma_r§, he says “My name is John
Carter; I am better known as Captain Jack Carter of Virginia. At the close of the Civil
War [...]” (11).

29 Herzog is quoting flom Daniel G. Hoffman, 78.

30 See my discussion of Delany and F ishbum for more on western metaphysics, the
mind/body split, and race (283-4).

3‘ What is especially interesting to note here is the ease with which Nash himself

unselfconsciously utilizes the language and theory of western progress and the way in

84

 

which he too collapses white, western man with “universal man” (Haraway 186). In the
“Preface to the Revised Edition,” Nash reveals the influence of recent (19605) scientific
work in the natural sciences on the revised edition of his book, including the quoted
material. Ironically, in the remainder of his book (written earlier) in which he focuses on
later, more limited time periods, Nash much more consciously makes distinctions
between various cultural ideologies and these viewpoints and his own authorial
perspective.

32 Pearce quotes here from Haklums Posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgr_imes, first
published in 1625.

33 This bodily focus will be continued in the next paragraph on the communal nature of
the green Martians’ reproduction.

3'4 As Peckham asserts, “the grand thesis of metaphysical evolutionism—flom simple to
complex means flom good to better, infinitely or finitely, as your metaphysical taste
determines—not only received no support flom the Origin but, if the book were properly
understood and if the individual involved felt that a metaphysic should and could have
scientific support, was positively demolished” (29).

35 Peckham’s distinct separation between subjective “values” and objective description
will be questioned shortly in my discussion of Haraway. However, Peckham’s more
specific point about Darwin’s works is still useful. The greater scientific objectivity of
Darwin’s texts has been obscured and subverted towards direct and predominantly
subjective ends. I believe Delany’s discussion of the objective intent of scientific
discourse is useful for maintaining a necessary distinction between science and fiction,

while acknowledging the subjective aspects of scientific discourse and practice (see 234).

85

1'"

 

It is the strict and pure, either/or dichotomy which needs to be broken down, not the
larger categories themselves.

36 Haraway connects science and fiction in two ways. First, “the history of science
appears as a narrative about the history of technical and social means to produce the facts.
The facts themselves are types of stories, of testimony to experience” (4). Haraway’s
radical questioning of even the objectivity of “facts” reflects her more specific assertion
that “[s]cientific practice and scientific theories produce and are embedded in particular
kinds of stories. Any scientific statement about the world depends intimately upon
language, upon metaphor. The metaphors may be mathematical or they may be culinary;
in any case they structure scientific vision” (ibid).

37 See Torgovnick Chap. 1 and Street Chap. 2.

3" Burroughs’ choice to begin with the American West and the western genre and not to
utilize technological means for space travel illustrates his ambiguous attitude towards
science fiction and technological Western progress as well.

39 This positive portrayal of a quasi-military group and the beneficent effects of Anglo
leadership on natives mirrors that of American imperialism and British colonialism as
well. The imperial or colonial superstructure is rationalized to prevent conflict between
smaller, competing native groups (ethnic, racial, religious, etc.). Of course, there is also
the infamous “white man’s burden,” described by Rudyard Kipling (1899). Given their
superior cultural attributes (with an underlying foundation of essentialist racial
superiority), Europeans have a duty to share and/or institute these cultural (social,
political, and economic) norms. Of course, this is where Christianity and capitalism

comes in with Native Americans, as discussed earlier.

86

 

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40 In Starship Troopers, Robert Heinlein similarly portrays military institutions positively
despite the contradictory values they embody. On a related note, the movie version of
Heinlein’s text obscures the racial component of the text in the same way the racial
implications of ERB’s written texts have been generally overlooked due to subsequent
visual versions. see 197 for more on Heinlein and _S_t_arship Troopers.

4' The multiple, and often confusing, definitions of race are illustrated here. In referring
to multiple human races as well as the human race as a whole, ‘race’ is a good example
of the contradictory race-specific and uniVersal connotations of many scientific terms,
and the historical/scientific context which explains such contradictions (see Haraway).
4‘ This is on the level of rhetoric and discourse, similar to African-Americans and the
color line. Of course, in the reality of day-to-day living, these boundaries were crossed
(see Schuyler).

43 In this way, Herbert Spencer’s evolutionary theories are representative of Social
Darwinism, or the Darwinisticism described by Peckham.

4“ Torgovnick, for example, notes the “upbeat, heroic tone of Burroughs’ biographies

[published in the 603 and 708]: their brand of buoyant, macho optimism” (44-5).

87

Criticism and Context

Prior to the discovery and republication in 1991 of George S. Schuyler’s serials
“The Black Internationale” and “Black Empire,” his fiction was thought to be limited to
the 1931 satire Black No More.1 The linking of Schuyler to multiple pseudonyms
revealed a large new body of popular serial fiction he Wrote during the 19305.2 “The
Black Internationale: Story of Black Genius Against the World” and its sequel “Black
Empire: An Imaginative Story of a Great New Civilization in Modern Africa” are two
such serials Schuyler, using the pseudonym Samuel I. Brooks, contributed to the popular
black weekly the Pittsburgh Courier between 1936 and 1938.3 In “A Fragmented Man:
George S. Schuyler and the Claims of Race,” a 1992 New York Times Book Review,
Henry Louis Gates Jr. used these newly discovered texts as a vehicle to reexamine
Schuyler and his widely-fluctuating literary reputation. Gates begins his article by
quoting some of Schuyler’s most controversial statements critiquing Martin Luther King
Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement and Malcolm X (31). After a‘review of Schuyler’s
two science fiction serials, Gates returns to the controversy surrounding Schuyler within
the African-American community and asserts that “[i]f George Schuyler’s place as a
major figure in black letters has not been fully acknowledged, it is in part because his
conception of the intellectual’s role has never fully been appreciated” (43). For Schuyler,
“skepticism, independent critical thinking and iconoclasm were part and parcel of the
intellectual’s calling, and [. . .] ’race loyalty’ depended on just these qualities of mind”
(ibid). While Gates does not excuse or elide Schuyler’s extremely conservative
viewpoints, especially later in life, he does place Schuyler squarely in the context of “the

pressures of ideological conformity among blacks” (ibid). As the subtitle of Gates’

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article emphasizes, Schuyler has been and continues to be treated popularly and critically
largely in terms of “the claims of race,” judged according to his “race loyalty,” or lack
thereof (43). Furthermore, Gates claims that the evaluative criteria of “race loyalty”
“haunts the lives of African-American intellectuals and public figures” more broadly
(ibid). Gates seems to see hope in a “new generation of black intellectuals who are more
likely than their forebears to recognize in the productive clash and contest of perspectives
a source of strength” (ibid).

The most recent critical analysis of Schuyler, however, does not illustrate this
ideal black intellectual response envisioned by Gates. In a lengthy critical response to
Gates, aptly published in an anthology entitled MConsciousness: African-American
Studies fo_r the New Century. Jeffley A. Tucker asserts “the claims of race” and criticizes
Schuyler and his texts directly and solely within a political context (Gates 31). Tucker
focuses on both of Schuyler’s major fictional texts: the aforementioned Black No More
(1931) and the recently discovered serials, “The Black Internationale” and “Black
Empire,” which were collectively entitled Black Empire when republished in book form
in 1991. Tucker claims that, “[a]n analysis of Schuyler’s career reveals how Schuyler’s
racial theories anticipated those of the black neocons [of the 19705, 803, and 908] and
illustrate the logical limits and political inadequacies of such theories” ("Can" 137). In
fact, Tucker refutes Gates’ characterization of Schuyler as “a flagmented man” (Gates
32), who embodied W.E.B. Du Bois’ theory of a black double-consciousness, and
concludes that “by portraying Schuyler only as a victim of ‘race,’ Gates’s portrait
deactivates Schuyler’s agency. As ‘victirn,’ Schuyler seems less accountable for his

always provocative but flequently fallacious, insupportable, and ultimately dangerous

89

claims” (Tucker, "Can" 140). Gates’ contextual information and Tucker’s response to it
symbolize the larger ideological struggles played out in response to Schuyler and his
texts throughout his lengthy career.

Michael Peplow provides a useful overview of the critical reaction to Schuyler
and his texts prior to the rediscovery of the two Black Empire serials.4 In his 1976 article
“The Black ‘Picaro’ in Schuyler’s Black No More,” Peplow first notes the generally
favorable contemporary reactions to the original 1931 publication of Black No More.
Linked to the Harlem Renaissance, Black No More was praised by W.E.B. Du Bois,
Alain Locke, and Arthur Davis.5 Peplow doesn’t deny that “these men and others were
quick to note the satire’s literary flaws” but emphasizes that ”none of them challenged
Schuyler’s racial loyalties” ("Black" 7). According to Peplow, it was not until later in
Schuyler’s career that the so-called “’assimilationism’ theory” was developed (ibid).
Robert Bone fostered this view of Schuyler in his 1965 critical text The Negro Novel in
m, and Charles Larson reinforced the negative assimilationist label in his
introduction to the 1971 republication of Black No More. To gain an adequate
understanding of the great fluctuations in Schuyler’s critical valuation, a connection to
the historical context is essential. The critics of the 19608 and early 19708 faulted
Schuyler for not promoting a collective racial identity, specifically one grounded in the
Black Pride and/or Black Power movements of that time period. By the 19608, Schuyler
also had become notorious for his extreme political conservatism, in his personal and
professional life. His political and racial viewpoints were inoreasingly distanced from the
mainstream of the Aflican-American community. As a result of this historical context,

Peplow could accurately assess in 1976 that “the critics have ignored [Schuyler] entirely

90

or merely mentioned the historical significance of Black No More” ("Black" 7). Writing
in the 19908, J effley A. Tucker builds on this side of the Schuyler critical debate when he
bases his critical evaluation of Schuyler on the political implications of Schuyler’s racial
theories.

Schuyler’s death in 1977 coincided with a general swing of the political pendulum
. towards conservatism, and a more favorable critical evaluation ensued during the late
19708 and 19808. In 1978, for example, Ann Rayson argues on Bone’s own terms that
“Schuyler, certame not a black nationalist, is anything but an assimilationist” (102). In
the same issue of the B_lack American Literature Forum. John M. Reilly places Black No
M in the context of “the minor genre of the anti-utopia” (107). Taking issue with ‘
Larson’s specific definition of assimilation, Reilly qualifies the assimilationist message
of Black No More: “Assimilation, then, can only be anideal. This, one might say, is nit-
picking, and to a degree it is, but for the purpose of indicating that the logic of this anti-
utopia neither leads to specific denigration of Blacks nor advocates mediocrity and the
reduplication of white life-styles and culture” (108). Focusing on the same text, these
critics produce more negative or more positive critical interpretations, largely based on
the dominant political climate existing in the United States at the time of their writing.6
With his 1976 article, “The Black ‘Picaro’ in Schuyler’s Black No More,” Peplow set the
stage for Rayson and Reilly and their critique of the earlier assimilationism theory.
Peplow gives three reasons for his refutation: the political basis of the literary criticism,
the lack of historical contextualization, and the need to “examine the novel as satire” (7).
All three of these are vital tools for a critical re-evaluation of Schuyler’s texts, especially

one not based solely on politics. When Henry Louis Gates, Jr. calls for a more inclusive

91

critical environment in the field of African-American studies, he allies himself with this
side of the Schuyler critical debate.

From the predominance of the assimilationism theory to a refutation of this theory
based on its own theoretical terms to the less politically dogmatic and more literary-
oriented evaluation of Peplow, this gradual shift in Schuyler criticism during the last half
of the 20‘‘1 century logically leads to an expanded connection between Schuyler and the

field of science fiction in the 21" century. Schuyler’s 1931 text, Black No More always

 

could have been defined as science fiction. However, because of its racial topic and the
racial identification and professional affiliations of Schuyler, the text has been
consistently discussed solely in the context of Aflican-American literature. Even after
the rediscovery of his additional sf serials, Schuyler’s primary critical context remains
African-American literature. The centrality of the political debate in Schuyler criticism
continues to obscure both the radical nature of Schuyler’s racial vision and the
connection(s) of his major works to science fiction. The critical response to Schuyler’s
texts clearly reveals the distinct, mutual separation of the two literary fields of African-
American literature and sf. This separation has led several sf critics to ask, “How do you
account for the lack of involvement by blacks in science fiction and fantasy?” (Bell 91).
Even after the professional establishment of several other black authors in the sf genre in
the second half of the 20‘h century, and their reference to Schuyler as a predecessor, the
generic separation remains strong.7 A discussion of Schuyler’s texts and the critical
response to them within a sf context is essential for three reasons. First, the reasons

behind the artificial separation of the two genres, 8f and African-American literature,

must be addressed. Second, such a context will reveal new and fluitful areas of Schuyler

 

 

criticism. Finally, placing Schuyler’s texts firmly within the sf genre contributes to a
more accurate representation of the contributions of Aflican-American writers to the sf
genre.8

The ‘science’ half of the science fiction literary genre is the primary reason
Afiican-Americans, by-in-large, have avoided the genre. For example, the
aforementioned debate between Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Jeffley A. Tucker not only
reflects the basic conflict within Schuyler criticism, but also it represents in miniature the
larger debate currently taking place in the field of Aflican-American studies. Writers and
critics like Tucker and, more famously, Houston A. Baker promote the “claims of race”
in the face of increasing scientific and poststructuralist challenges to the more traditional,
essentialist concepts of race existing at the turn of the 19th century (Gates 31).9 For
instance, both Tucker and Baker address the writing of Kwame Anthony Appiah and'take
issue with his science-based critique of W. E. B. Du Bois and Du Bois' use of race.
Tucker writes that “both Appiah and Schuyler base their arguments on the emptiness of
‘race’ as a scientific signifier, flom which Appiah concludes that ‘race’ is an unnecessary
evil” ("Can" 147). Tucker disagrees with such a stance because “’Race’ is indeed a
mirage scientifically speaking, and a construct socially, culturally, politically, and
ideologically; but making this claim does not elide its power to shape human lives in very
real ways” (148). Tucker seeks to maintain race as a- viable concept despite its current
lack of scientific credibility and faults Schuyler for utilizing science in his texts to
deconstruct race.

In his essay, “Caliban’s Triple Play,” Houston A. Baker criticizes the scientific

community more directly, sharing his concerns about the ideological foundations of the

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I —

 

scientific discipline and its history of racial inequality. He summarizes the last
approximately 150 years of modern science as follows: “Biology, anthropology, and the
human sciences in general all believed, in former times, that there was such a
phenomenon as ‘race.’ Current genetic research demonstrates that there is no such thing”
(3 84). Similar to Tucker, Baker goes on to connect science and race with negative
conservative political movements. Placing the scientific, social, and political challenges
to the meaningfulness of race within the context of a threatened end to programs like
Affirmative Action, Baker asserts:

The scenario [Appiah and evolutionary biologists] seem to endorse reads as

follows: when science apologizes and says there is no such thing, all talk of

“race” must cease. Hence “race,” as a recentlyemergent, unifying, and forCeful

sign of difference in the service of the “Other,” is held up to scientific ridicule as,

ironically, “unscientific.” (385)
In other words, as science was used as a new method of supporting a hierarchy of races in
the 19‘” and first half of the 20th century, so science is now being used to undermine racial
solidarity on the part of oppressed groups. It is a scientific Catch-22, highly problematic
for not only racial groups, like Afiican-Americans, but gender/sexual groups like women

' and homosexuals. If critics reject an essential biological difference as scientifically

fallacious and historically oppressive, upon what do individuals base their membership
within a particular group?

It is Schuyler’s answer to this question in his fiction and non-fiction texts that
Tucker, and others, finds so disconcerting and objectionable. As Tucker accurately

summarizes, Black No More “is designed to emphasize the scientific meaninglessness of

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I —:.

 

‘race’ and the arbitrariness of color consciousness” ("Can" 143). The moral of the satire
is that individuals should not participate in groups based upon race, for the above
reasons. A key aspect of Schuyler’s scientific deconstructions of race is the extensive
racial intermingling taking place in the United States flom the beginning of its history.
Even before science came along to prove it, the so-called “races” had interbred to the
point of the color line being founded on absurd percentages like one/sixteenth of Aflican
blood. Schuyler’s dedication for Black No More highlights this cultural context:
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO ALL CAUCASIAN S IN THE GREAT
REPUBLIC WHO CAN TRACE THEIR ANCESTRY BACK TEN
GENERATIONS AND CONFIDENTLY ASSERT THAT THERE ARE NO
BLACK LEAVES, TWIGS, LIMBS OR BRANCHES ON THEIR FAMILY
TREES.
Within the text, Schuyler creates an Anglo-Saxon Association of America which
undertakes a genealogical study its members hope will authenticate their pure racial
origins. However, the head of the study, aptly named Dr. Buggerie, summarizes the
results of the study as follows:
“these statistics we’ve gathered prove that most of our social leaders, especially of
Anglo-Saxon lineage, are descendants of colonial stock that. came here in
bondage. They associated with slaves, in many cases worked and slept with them.
They intermixed with the blacks and the women were sexually exploited by their
masters. [. . .] There was so much of this mixing between whites and blacks of the
various classes that very early the colonies took steps to put a halt to it. They

managed to prevent intermarriage but they couldn’t stop intermixture.” (196-7)

95

Dr. Buggerie goes on to assert that this process has led to the intermixture of at least
“fifty million” ‘white’ Americans by the time of his report (197). Throughout Black No
Liege, Schuyler completely revises the essentialist, biological theories of race prevalent at
the time, in both scientific and popular circles, to more accurately reflect the literal
melting pot of American society. 110

Furthermore, Schuyler utilizes the 'what-if,’ or speculative technique of science
fiction to transform the cultural phenomenon of skin-whitening and hair-straightening
products, targeted at Aflican-Americans, into a biological medical procedure. The
superficial consumer goods are replaced by a biological process which lightens skin,
straightens hair, and reconfigures facial features to replicate Caucasians. While
permanent and impossible to discern, the process cannot be inherited biologically. In this
way, Schuyler highlights the phenomenon of 'passing'—-very light-skinned blacks living
socially as whites.11 More generally, Schuyler portrays a desire on the part of many
persons of color to become lighter skinned in order to reap the social and economic
benefits associated with being white in a racist society.

In contrast to personal identity based primarily on a stable, static concept of
race(s), with a foundation in a collective identity, Schuyler creates personal identity based
on individual choice. In Black No More, blacks can chose to become white. Conversely,
in a highly ironic cultural backlash, many whites begin tanning to prove their natural
whiteness. At the end of the text, one of the few remaining naturally black-women is
considered highly attractive precisely because of her rarity in the United States, and
foreign black women are 'imported' by businesses in order to attract customers. The

cultural basis of race becomes glaringly obvious in such a topsy-turvy environment.

96

Once fleed flom biology, race becomes unstable and open to both cultural and individual
variables. Racist whites would be threatened and angered by such an ambiguous and
fluid theory of race, based solely on cultural norms. Conversely, Schuyler’s emphasis on
'whitening the race' in the text and his portrayal of the vast majority of Aflican-
Americans actively choosing to become white threaten Aflo-centric theories and
activities. Schuyler vividly reveals his characteristic iconoclasm in the cultural concept
of race permeating Black No More.

Tucker’s objections to Schuyler exemplify this second, Aflo-centric reaction to
Schuyler’s racial iconoclasm. While often informative and insightful, Tucker’s
overwhelmingly political reading of Schuyler’s texts sometimes leads to key mis-
readings. Furthermore, Tucker oversimplifies complex phenomena and misuses
scientific terminology in his general discussion of Schuyler’s literary career and, more
specifically, his analysis of Black No More. Tucker argues that “Schuyler’s career in
total reveals certain patterns of his thought,” and the most important of these “is
Schuyler’s faulty theories about the way ‘race’ works in modern American society” .
("Can" 140). The exact nature of Schuyler’s “fault” is most clearly articulated at the
beginning of Tucker’s article:

This logic promotes the faulty notion that awareness of and attention paid to racial

difference cause racial strife and division; and it justifies itself by making claims

to a rational, scientific, and supposedly nonpartisan objectivity. (137)

In sum, then, Tucker objects to Schuyler’s rejection of race as a logical or beneficial

concept and his use of science to undermine race. Unfortunately, Tucker’s first objection

97

leads him to misconstrue the second—Schuyler’s reliance on and portrayal of science in
his texts.

Before turning specifically to Black No More, Tucker offers Schuyler’s 1944
essay, “The Caucasian Problem,” as the best example of these two objectionable
characteristics. Tucker briefly acknowledges Schuyler’s display of “wit” in the reversal
of a “Negro Problem” into a “Caucasian Problem” but asserts,

much of the essay dwells on a slightly different topic: the scientific bankruptcy of

‘race,’ its meaninglessness as a category in the context of the natural sciences.

The essay correctly states that ‘race’ “began as an anthropological fiction and has

become a sociological fact.” But it demonstrates no awareness of ‘race’ beyond

this scientific bankruptcy. ("Can" 141)

Tucker’s specific quotation flom “The Caucasian Problem” seems to support his larger
assertion about the scientific focus of the text. However, a closer reading of the essay
reveals a very limited reliance on science as a foundation for Schuyler’s argument. The
only time Schuyler mentions the “natural sciences” is in the one sentence quoted by
Tucker and in one earlier paragraph also mentioning anthropology (285).12 In a l7-page
essay, Schuyler utilizes the natural sciences and, more broadly, an argument specifically
based on science in approximately one half of a page. The actuality of the essay’s
scientific usage, then, varies greatly flom Tucker’s portrayal of “much of the essay.”
Similarly, Tucker quotes a lengthy excerpt flom the end of “The Caucasian Problem” as
evidence of Schuyler’s belief in “the power of scientific reason to combat racism” (141).
However, the quotation does not make reference to science or reason, nor logic, facts, or

the objectivity Tucker emphasizes elsewhere. In other words, Tucker locates a “scientific

98

reason” in the passage which does not exist. This localized misreading quickly leads
Tucker to erroneous assertions about Schuyler’s general connections to science.

Tucker utilizes the perceived scientific focus in “The Caucasian Problem” as a
bridge to make the larger ‘claim that ‘Schuyler’s overemphasis on a narrowly defined
scientific ideal stemmed flom his faith in scientific rationality’s ability to overcome racial
antagonisms” ("Can" 141). As we have seen, Tucker’s claim that Schuyler believed in a
“scientific ideal,” let alone that he overemphasized such an ideal, lacks sufficient textual
support flom Schuyler’s essay. However, Tucker does go on to offer one other example
flom Schuyler’s career as evidence of his scientific idealism: “his creation in the early
19408 of the Association for Tolerance In America, an organization whose mission was
‘to recondition the white masses by scientific propaganda’” (ibid). Tucker utilizes a
quote from Schuyler’s autobiography here, in which Schuyler actually uses the word
“scientific,” to further support his claims of scientific idealism. The actual activities
associated with the Association, however, similarly have nothing to do with science: the
use of new advertisement mediums like billboards and radio to emphasize the patriotic
contributions of Aflican—Americans during the war and to combat negative social
stereotypes of African-Americans. Schuyler himself apparently used “scientific” as a
synonym for rational or logical. However, the term “scientific propaganda,” in which
science is linked with propaganda, suggests Schuyler was well aware of the ideological
foundations of science even as he utilized the larger cultural connection made between
science and objectivity. When Tucker uses Words like “scientific rationality” and
“scientific reason,” perhaps he is mirroring Schuyler’s own linguistic usage then. If so,

he should pay closer attention to the specific linguistic connotations of Schuyler’s

99

sentence. First, as “scientific” is a synonym for “reason” and “rationality,” both of
Tucker’s phrases are redundant. Furthermore, Schuyler’s association of propaganda with
science undermines Tucker’s premise of scientific idealism.

The key to Tucker’s misreading and misrepresentation of Schuyler’s scientific
beliefs and textual usage lies in his political objections to Schuyler’s racial views. After a
summary of Schuyler’s racial views, and their scientific basis, Tucker voices his primary
concern—his belief that there are “serious problems with the uses to which Schuyler put
his racial theory. Schuyler used the claim that ‘race’ is. merely a socially constructed
illusion to critique black race leaders as flequently as white supremacists” ("Can" 141).
Tucker ends his discussion of Schuyler’s general racial viewpoint with examples of two
of Schuyler’s most famous early critiques, that of W.E.B. Du Bois and Langston Hughes.
It is symptomatic that Tucker’s straightforward political analysis is adequately supported
with several examples flom Schuyler’s texts, which correspond to Tucker’s assertion of
the critique of “black race leaders.” The first half of Tucker’s thesis, then, does not
involve any misrepresentation or elisions; he clearly and convincingly argues that
Schuyler wished to discard the concept of race altogether and, more importantly, that
Tucker believes such an attitude is “politically inadequate” (137). However, Tucker is so
focused on his political objections to Schuyler that he does not provide an adequate
discussion of the second half of his thesis—Schuyler’s justification of his racial views
through “claims to a rational, scientific, and supposedly nonpartisan objectivity” (ibid).

Tucker’s misreading of Schuyler’s essay and subsequent focus on Schuyler’s

representation of black leaders foreshadows his lengthier analysis of Black No More. Of

the three paragraphs deVoted specifically to the novel, the first‘two paragraphs largely

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summarize the text. In the third paragraph, however, Tucker discusses the satiric nature
of Black No More. He first refutes John M. Reilly’s assertion that Black No More is
anti-utopian, a “novel that features scientific deconstructions of ‘race’ but places little
faith in humanity’s ability to use that knowledge to create a better society” ("C an" 143).
A8 Tucker correctly notes, “satiric and utopian impulses are not mutually exclusive. A
satire is by definition a humorous critique intended to change behavior or thinking”
(ibid). That said, Tucker misses Reilly’s larger point behind emphasizing the anti-

‘ utopian nature of the novel—the all-encompassing satiric viewpoint of the text. Schuyler
critiques every aspect of society implicated in race—which is, in fact, every aspect. The
pervasive nature of the novel’s satire affects Tucker’s reading in two ways. First, Tucker
argues that science is the one element of the novel not satirized: “Schuyler’s satire is not
aimed at the transformative potential of science itself, but is instead tightly focused on
specific white supremacist and black ‘race’ organizations. The novel’s parodies of Du
Bois and Garvey are perfect examples” (143). Similar to his reading of Schuyler’s other
texts, Tucker’s reading of Black No More involves an erroneous claim about science, one
which, therefore, cannot be supported with evidence flom the text. For example, Tucker
does not discuss the characterization of Dr. Crookman—a major character and scientist.
Furthermore, Tucker specifically admits in his summary of the novel that Crookrnan’s
scientific procedure is not portrayed as an idealistic solution to the ‘race problem’:
“However, instead of solving the nation’s racial problems, Black No More, Inc., creates

chaos” (142). Where, then, does Tucker locate the “transformative potential of science”

he describes?

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Secondly, Tucker again focuses exclusively on Schuyler’s negative
characterization of black race leaders. Two thirds of the sole analytic paragraph on Bl_agk
No More deals with the characterizations of W.E.B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey. To
make his main point crystal clear, Tucker not only ends this paragraph but his entire
discussion of the novel with a restatement of his primary objection to the text:

The “racial chauvinism” that these figures represent to Schuyler, not science, is

his principal target. Perhaps science cannot “succeed where the Civil War had

failed,” but according to Schuyler, that is only because'of what he sees as the
reprehensible insistence on ‘race’ by the race leaders, such as Du Bois and

Garvey, that his novel sharply satiriZes. (144)

Tucker argues here that Schuyler targets “only” black leaders as obstacles to achieving
racial equality and harmony. Such an argument elides the “white supremacist”
organizations Tucker mentioned once earlier in the paragraph, and it misrepresents
Schuyler’s satiric treatment of science in the text. The importance of Reilly’s anti-
utopian, satiric emphasis resurfaces here. Reilly places his analysis directly in the
context of the assimilationist debate surrounding Schuyler, and he emphasizes that “the
logic of this anti-utopia neither leads to specific denigration of Blacks nor advocates
mediocrity and the reduplication of white life-styles and culture” (108). In this way,
Reilly specifically addresses Tucker’s accusations of partiality. For example, unlike most
Afro-centric readings of Schuyler, Reilly’s reading focuses primarily on the equally, if
not more, negative portrayal of white characters. According to Reilly, “every white
person in the book is an ass; every institution created by whites is debased” (ibid).

Furthermore, Reilly offers an explanation for the critics’ overemphasis of the negative

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portrayal of black characters: “Black characters are more easily identified with actual
persons than are white characters, so the Black satire hurts more. The novel, however, is
not anti-Black. It is simply anti-utopian, written, as befits a conservative author, in the
tradition of rationalist satire” (ibid). Reilly’s inclusive, literary approach to
characterization serves as a model for a more accurate and produCtive analysis of
Schuyler’s scientific usage in Black No More.

While Tucker accurately summarizes the thesis of Black No More. he
oversimplifies and misrepresents Schuyler’s scientific connections. Tucker glosses over
key aspects of scientific history, the complex portrayal of science in Schuyler’s texts, and
their connection to the sf genre. First, Tucker utilizes Donna Haraway’s theories of
scientific subjectivity to indict Schuyler. Tucker claims that “Schuyler overinvests in the
notion of scientific objectivity, that science is a transparent medium providing clear
access to truth” ("Can" 146). In contrast, Haraway argues for the subjective, the fictional
aspect of science. Scientific discomse tells stories, embodies particular points of view,
and supports particular belief systems.13 Unfortunately, Tucker’s use of Haraway has
several major flaws. As previously discussed, Schuyler’s association of science with
propaganda in his autobiography suggests he would fully agree with Haraway’s
ideological emphasis. In addition, as we will see in more detail shortly, Schuyler’s actual
use of science in Black No More supports such a subjective reading.

Furthermore, despite the fact that Tucker quotes Haraway to critique Schuyler, he
himself falls into the objectivity trap in his discussion of science. Tucker asserts that,
“’Race’ is indeed a mirage scientifically speaking, and a construct socially, culturally,

politically, and ideologically; but making this claim does not elide its power to shape

. 103

human lives in a very real way” ("Can" 148). When Tucker separates science flom the
other constructed concepts of race he lists here, he is accepting the better known, factual,
objective representation of science Haraway combats. According to Tucker’s statement,
within the context of science, race either exists or it does not. The complex and multiple
definitions and uses of race within the various scientific disciplines, and the conflict often
taking place between these concepts and groups, are elided here. “Scientifically
speaking,” race is a construct also and certamly has “power to shape human lives in very
real ways.” Tucker criticizes Schuyler for overemphasizing science, yet Tucker himself
dismisses it too quickly. In utilizing a monolithic definition of science, Tucker also
overlooks the historicizing of science Haraway’s scientific theories entail. For example,
in her 1989 text, Primate Visions: Gender. Racwd Nature in the World of Modern
891mg, Haraway chronicles the history of race in the American scientific community.”
Nancy Stepan similarly investigates the evolving scientific cOncept of race in Britain in
her book, The Idea of Race in Science: Great Britain 1800-1960. If Tucker’s assertion
that “’Race’ is indeed a mirage scientifically speaking” were placed in such a historical
context, the resulting translation would be: “The biological essentialism at the heart of
scientific racial theories emerging and deve10ping in the 19th century and first half of the
. 20th century has been gradually discredited as biologically inaccurate and culturally
biased.” Such a historicized statement, stressing the long process of change involved,
more accurately places Schuyler’s fictional works.

George H. Daniels’ Science in American Society: A Social Histopy provides a
useful, broad historical context for Schuyler’s use of science in BlaleIo More. In the

19208, 308, and 408, when Schuyler wrote much of his fiction, science was in the process

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of transforming American society—from national defense, to religious beliefs, to every
American’s day-to-day living. In fact, flom the mid-nineteenth century to the present, the
scientific discipline has grown exponentially in size, as well as cultural power and
influence. According to Daniels, “[s]cience and technology by the beginning of the
twentieth century had begun to permeate all of life” (290). More specifically,
In the nineteenth century, despite the flequent obeisance made to science and
technology, social forces in America tended to shape, or at least restrict, the
development of science. In the early years of the twentieth century, the
relationship became more reciprocal, and in important ways: science had a
substantial influence upon American social policy. (295)
This “influence” was largely possible “because the American public in the twentieth
century has been marked by a childlike faith in science” (293). At this point, the
connection between science and progress comes into focus. Because western ideology is
based in large part on the concept of progress—cultural, technological, and
political—science is generally viewed as part of a progressively better world as well.
This progressive, positive concept of science is called scientism, and it accurately reflects
the general view of science within the scientific community and of the larger American
public at the turn of the century.

A key element of scientism is the promotion of the scientific method and its
application to areas of life besides science and technology:

The belief that science contributed to the intellectual progress of mankind by

encouraging habits of thinking which tended to make men more rational, to make

them base their thinking on facts, observations, and experiments, was generally

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accompanied by the assumption that the scientific methOd could be applied to

mental and social areas of study. (Daniels 297)

Sociology, psychology, ethnology, education, and conservation were just some of the
fields impacted by scientism and the application of the scientific method. Furthermore,
“[b]y the beginning of the twentieth century, science was firmly entrenched in dozens of
government agencies and legislation based on science was becoming more common”
(291). Because science was synonymous with technology to the general public, it was
also “upheld as a wonder-worker that promised more of the startling innovations they had
experienced during their own time” (290-91)—“telephones, telegraphs, and electric
lights,” for example (290). Daniels acknowledges that this pervasive and
overwhelmingly positive “enthusiasm” for science was “naive,” but attests that the basic
premise of the Progressives was accurate—“American in the twentieth century has
become, as W J McGee observed two years before this century began, ‘a nation of
science’” (3 15).

Tucker portrays Schuyler as one such naive believer in scientism. Indeed,
Schuyler’s emphasis on science and use of the science fiction genre for BlackNo More
do illustrate an understanding of the twentieth century as a century of science.
Furthermore, Schuyler’s infamous promotion of logic and rationality parallels the
importance of the scientific method to scientism. Robert A. Hill and Kent Rasmussen,
for example, note Schuyler’s call for more scientists among black students, rather than
the prevalent teachers and preachers (Hill and Rasmussen 301-2). In his 1936 essay,
“New Job Frontiers for Negro Youth,” Schuyler states, “This is the age of technics and

the key man is the technical scientist” (qtd. in Hill and Rasmussen 301-302). Schuyler

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believes such a vocation shift is necessary “not only because we are living in an age
dominated by science but because the psychology of the engineer is more likely to incline
to Negro integration in American life and less toward tacitly accepting and promoting
segregation” (Hill and Rasmussen 302). Here Schuyler exhibits the belief, discussed
above, “that science cdntributed to the intellectual progress of mankind by encouraging
habits of thinking which tended to make men more rational” (Daniels 297). Certainly,
such a belief can be labeled naive, and the vocational shift Schuyler desired did not
occur. However, the context of scientism aids our understanding of Schuyler’s use of
science in several ways besides Tucker’s single proposition of naive idealism.

First, Schuyler’s main literary activity takes place as American society was
coming to terms with the scientific developments Daniels discusses. Given the
overwhelmingly positivistic climate of the United States, it is not surprising that Schuyler
utilized some of the same practical and ideological arguments as the Progressives. Nancy
Stepan and Sander Gilman emphasize the great difficulty of distancing one’s self flom
the dominant ideology during this time period:

What we are arguing is that in the era of the successful establishment of science

as an epistemologically neutral and instrumentally successful form of knowledge,

standing “outside of” or ignoring science was very difficult. With the triumph of

“positive” science and positivist ideology, even those with the'most radical

intellectual and political philosophies and programs—altemate world

views—tended to exempt science‘flom their criticisms and to posit science as the
one positive form of knowledge that escaped contamination flom political and

personal factors. A hard-hitting critique of science, as itself a political form of I

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knowledge reflective of power, was, relatively speaking, absent. (Stepan and

Gilman 101-2)

According to Daniels, even “the most respected thinkers of the day, and the most
important movements of the period, were wholly captured by the magic of ‘science’”
(295). In such a context, even Schuyler’s limited connection between science and
propaganda, 0r science and politics, is unusual. In addition, science was a relatively new
tool for anti-racist arguments. Given the excruciatingly slow progress of equality for
African-Americans in the United States, an untried technique might appear an attractive
option. The rational emphasis of science and scientism coincided with Schuyler’s
general emphasis on logic as a tool to undermine racism as well. All of these factors help
to more fully explain Schuyler’s use of science without simplistically labeling it
idealistic. Furthermore, even with Schuyler’s more balanced view of science and its
potential, he could tap the wide-spread scientism of the general American public to
combat racism. Schuyler could utilize the tremendous power and influence of the
scientific community as a tool to undermine race, racial essentialism, and racial
categorization. As Daniels attests, “[s]uch concrete evidences of the potency of science
increased the authority—both within the scientific community and without—6f anyone
who spoke in the name of science” (293).

A final reason for utilizing science in anti-racist arguments is precisely the
negative connection between science and racism. As the multiple histories of science and
race uniformly highlight, science has been used extensively to promote racist
viewpoints.15 Furthermore, as Houston Baker’s synopsis emphasized, the scientific

community was heatedly debating the earlier, essentialist concept of biologically distinct

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and hierarchical races at the time of Schuyler’s major literary activity. Racial typology
and the racial basis of a cultural hierarchy, flom primitive to civilized, were still accepted
scientific theories. The biological evolutionism of Darwin was mirrored in a theory of
cultural evolutionism, or Social Darwinism. Science historians Nancy Stepan and
Sander Gilman, for example, focus on the period between 1870 and 1920 not only
because it was “the period of transition to modern science,” but also because it was the
period when “the claims of scientifically established inferiority were pressed most
insistently by the mainstream scientific community” (Stepan and Gilman 72). Scientific
racism, as it was called, was the accepted norm for the turn of the‘century (73). In her
1982 book on the history of race in Great Britain, Stepan further argues that the scientific
concept of race developed hand-in-hand with the growth of western imperialism and the
subjugation and enslavement of darker-skinned people around the world (M). Writing
approximately forty years earlier, Schuyler noticed this same connection in “The
Caucasian Problem” (1944). Schuyler asserts that the general racial categories of
“’Negro’ and ‘Caucasian,’ ‘black’ and ‘white’ are convenient propaganda devices” which
“very conveniently follow the line of colonial subjugation and exploitation, with the
Asiatics and Afiicans lumped together smugly as ‘backward peoples,’ ‘savages,’
‘barbarians,’ or ‘primitives’: i.e., fair prey for fleecing and enslavement under the
camouflage of ‘civilization”’ (285.). Clearly, Schuyler had a critical and sophisticated
understanding of the ideological underpinnings of race and the political and material uses
to which race(s) could be applied. Science’s increasing power in western society
combined with its use as a justification for colonialism, imperialism, slavery, and racism

to form a formidable hurdle to racial equality. Consequently, when some scientists began

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to question the established essentialist theories of race, their controversial theories
became the best way to combat the scientific justification of racism, as well as racism
more generally. Given Americans’ positivistic belief in science in the early 20th century,
a recantation of its previous racial theories by the scientific community could have a
powerful impact on racial ideology in the United States.

A chronological pairing of Schuyler’s literary career with the scientific career of
early anthropologist Franz Boas will illustrate more specifically the newness and radical
nature of Schuyler’s racial theories, as well as their shared sense of the usefulness of
science for social reform. Born in Germany in 1858, Boas pioneered the field of modern
anthropology during the first half of the twentieth century. After moving to the United
States in 1887, Boas was appointed assistant chief of the department of anthropology at
the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1894). Edgar Rice Burroughs’
biographer John Taliaferro describes Boas’ activities in the Anthropological hall of the
exposition:

thousands of tourists, curious to see where they ranked on the scale of human

progress, lined up to have their heads measured—‘anthropometry,’ it was

called—by a team of anthropologists led by Franz Boas, who would soon thrust

himself into the middle of the debate over eugenics and racial determinism, a

topic that Burroughs himself would be drawn into. (35)

Boas and Burroughs’ common attendance at the World’s Columbian Exposition
accurately places Boas’ early career. He had already dedicated himself to the scientific
study of the connection between physical and cultural characteristics in humans, and this

study took place in the context of racial essentialism, racial hierarchies, and specifically

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the growth of eugenics as a scientific, political, and popular discourse. As his scientific
studies in physical anthropology continued over the next fifty years, Boas generated
scientific data challenging the prevailing theories of racial essentialism. Furthermore, he
was “at the foreflont of those who combatted the transfer of principles of biological
evolution to the manifestations of man’s learned behavior” (Herskovits, m 6). Boas,
then, had a crucial impact on both of thesefields—physical and cultural
anthropology—making up the larger discipline of anthropology.

During the heated debate over the ability of immigrants to assimilate successfully
to American society, Boas completed a study for the Dillingham Commission on
Immigration of the US. Congress (1907-1910). His findings, published in 1911,
emphasized the role of environmental factors in contrast to the established theory of
biological inheritance and distinct, static racial types (Herskovits, Foreword 9). As Boas’
biographer, Melville J. Herskovits, notes, Boas’ “analysis of changes in head-form of
immigrants [. . .] was the best-know, and the most controversial research he conducted”
because it revealed the dynamic nature of the human form (F;ar__nz 39).” Head-form was
the foundation of racial identification and classification, the primary objective of physical
anthropologists, as a whole, during this time period (ibid). Therefore, Boas’ research
challenged the prevailing theories of the physical anthropologists, as well as the
biologists’ “doctrine of the autonomy of genetic determinants of physical type” (ibid).
Not surprising, then, Boas faced a protracted and largely unsuccessful fight to gain
acceptance for his controversial findings. When no other scientist stepped forward to
repeat the massive project, Boas initiated several similar studies to support his findings

(Herskovits, Franz 42). Finally, in 1928 he published the “raw data” flom his study of

111

. the immigrants so that it would be available for other scientists to analyze (40). The
scientific community’s reaction to Boas’ Dillingham study illustrates the radical nature of
dynamic and fluid theories of race during this time period and, conversely, how
entrenched racial essentialism was even among professional scientists.

Working to change these essentialist racial beliefs within the scientific
community, as well as in the larger American public, Boas became a prolific writer and
lecturer. Boas’ 1911 book, The Mind of Primitive Map, embodies his critical racial
approach. Herskovits asserts that it wasn’t until this text’s publication that “antiracists
could refer to a single wor ”to support a position critical of essentialist theories of race
(Foreword 6). Boas summarized his findings in The Mind of Primitive Man as follows:
“[a] close connection between race and personality has never been established. The
concept of racial type as commonly used even in scientific literature is misleading and
requires a logical as well as biological definition” (9). Here Boas cautiously refutes
racial determinism due to a lack of reliable scientific evidence. This racial critique may
seem hesitant and partial flom a contemporary perspective, but Herskovits points out that
such “scientific realism and methodological caution” was characteristic ‘of Boas (Prapz
71). More importantly, Herskovits emphasizes the importance of Boas’ text by
contrasting it with the preceding scientific theories of race. Herskovits identifies two
major branches: one used in the United States to justify slavery and one used on the
Continent to promote the superiority of an Aryan race (Foreword 5). In this way,
Herskovits joins Stepan in connecting the science of race with “the era of European
expansion over the world” and emphasizes the political motivation behind the newly-

emerging scientific field (ibid).17

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F urthermore, The Mind of Primitive Ma_n was published contemporaneously with
the rise of the eugenics movement. Utilizing the fundamental western notion of progress,
eugenicists believed human biology and heredity should be systematically manipulated in
order to achieve specified social ideals. Biological evolutionism translated into social
evolutionism. Prominent American biologist Charles B. Davenport, for example,
believed “[s]ocial and physical evolution were one. Attempts to improve man by
changing his environment were [. . .] doomed to futility” (Rosenberg 94). This biological
and cultural immutability lay behind the concept of racial determinism. For instance, two
of Davenport’s “major research interests were the effects of race-crossing and the
comparative social traits of different races. Davenport never doubted that racial traits
were as immutable as the genes which produced them” (Rosenberg 95). Davenport
squared off against Boas in using “the prestige of his scientific position” to support the
immigration restriction movement (ibid). Science historian Charles E. Rosenberg does
not locate a general break between American scientists and the eugenics movement until
“the late twenties and early thirties” (96). Laura Doyle specifically names Boas and
W.E.B. Du Bois as two dissenting voices among the dominant current of “racialist and
deterministic science” (23 8).18 Within this context, Herskovits attests that Boas’ The
Mind of Primitive Man “foreshadowed a trend that was to change almost completely the
sub-science of physical anthropology flom one concerned primarily with the
classification of human types into a specialized science of human biology” (Foreword 9).
This broad view situates Boas on the cutting edge of the slow and contested evolution of

anthropology as a modern scientific discipline.

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At his death in 1942, Boas was working on a collection of his works,
posthumously published as Race and Democratic Society in 1945. “[D]irected at lay
audiences,” the collection embodies Boas’ primary goal of using scientific theories of
race and culture to undermine world-wide racism and prejudice, especially in the‘context
of the increasing influence of “Fascist and Nazi ideology” during the 19308 and 19408 (E.
Boas). Not only was the Nazi use of science to support an extreme eugenics program
increasingly criticized by the scientific community generally, but Boas, as a Jew, had a
personal connection to the issue(s).19 As Nancy Stepan and Sander Gilman note, “[a]fter
1850, critics of scientific racism and/or sexism from within science were often
themselves in one way or another members of marginal groups” (74). In Race and
Democratic Society; not only did Boas begin with the subcategory of “Race,” but also the
first article of this category is entitled “Prejudice” and the very first sentence refers to the
ghettoizing of American Negroes. Boas sought to promote the rights of individuals in
opposition to the collective, essentialist racial theories still playing a powerful role in the
world.

Boas’ critical revision of the field of anthropology coincided with Schuyler’s
major literary activity. For example, Black No More was published in 1931, the _B_l_a_c_k
Enapjga serials in 1937 and 1938, and “The Caucasian Problem” in 1944. This historical
scientific context illustrates the relative newness and controversial nature of Schuyler’s
racial theories, even within the scientific community. If someone in the field, like Boas,
thought public dissemination of scientific findings important up through 1942, surely
Schuyler’s emphasis on science for a lay audience was a logical and, perhaps, necessary

step as well. The gap between the scientific community and the Aflican-American

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community, even more pronounced during the era of Jim Crow segregation, further
increased the relevancy of such scientific information for Schuyler’s primary audience.
In “The Caucasian Problem,” Schuyler alludes to the relatively recent chronology of
racial interrogation: “[n]ot only is the superiority of one race being vigorously denied but
the whole concept of race is being effectively challenged. This phenomenon dates
chiefly flom the First World War” (294). When Schuyler concludes “The Caucasian
Problem” with the assertion that racism must be addressed or “[t]he alternative here and
abroad is conflict and chaos,” he places his arguments in a similar context as Boas’ Page
and Demogrtic Socigy—the highpoint of a global eugenics movement, with its
connections to fascism and genocide, and the ever-increasing spread of western
imperialism and the rise of the United States as a world power. Schuyler’s creation of
The Association for Tolerance in America and its use of popular advertisement mediums
corresponds to Boas’ lay outreach as well (Tucker, "Can" 141).

Finally, Black No More embodies an even more extreme viewpoint on race than
Boas’ scientific texts. In contrast to Boas’ cautious scientific skepticism, Schuyler
confidently asserts the complete biological intermingling of the so-called “Negro” and
“Caucasian” races in the United States and playfully theorizes about the ability to change
races through an exterior physical process ("Caucasian" 285). If anything, Schuyler’s
social-constructionist theory of race anticipated the direction eventually taken not only by
the scientific community as a whole but also the literary community as well. Swedish
sociologist Gunnar Myrdal supports this anticipatory view in his study of race in

America:

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[Myrdal] found that he was able to call upon a long tradition of scientific work
produced by Aflican-American physicians, educators, and social scientists about
their own identity, meaning, and status. Myrdal remarked upon the
environmentalist emphasis found in these black scientific studies of the Negro, in
contrast to the innatist tendencies of the white academy. That emphasis gave
black writing, he said, a much more modern tone than white writings of the same
period. (Stepan and Gilman 103)

Schuyler’s constructionist viewpoint, then, coincided with the larger Afiican-American
scientific community. More specifically, Myrdal highlighted the importance of black
Social scientists, like W. E. B. Du Bois, to this scientific counter discourse. Myrdal
“noted that flom the beginning black social scientists took the stand that the American
dogma of race inequality was a scientific falsehood” (Stepan and Gilman 98). Schuyler
and Du Bois, in fact, shared a common interest in science and rationalism as an anti-racist
tool.

Du Bois, Schuyler, and Boas all utilized scientific theories to interrogate race
during this time period. As a social scientist, Du Bois subscribed'to the same basic
scientific tenets as Boas—the importance of rationality, objectivity, and the scientific
method to modern science.20 Furthermore, Du Bois and Boas are often cited as leaders of
the resistance against scientific racism because their work as scientists predominantly
promoted a constructionist theory of race.21 Anthony Appiah’s controversial article,
criticized by Tucker, chronicles Du Bois’ evolution flom an essentialist to a
constructionist perspective. Similarly, Nancy Stepan and Sander Gilman chart Du Bois’

multiple, evolving strategies of resistance to scientific racism. These critical readings are

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supported by Du Bois’ 1940 autobiography, flask of Dawn: an Essay Towargdap
Autobiography of a Race Concept. in which Du Bois pairs his evolving personal views
on the definition of race to those of the scientific community and American society more
generally.

In Dusk of Dawn. Du Bois gives an overview of the racial changes flom the 19‘”
to the 20‘” century. According to Du Bois, race was not a self-conscious term in the 19‘”
century; it was used “as a matter of course without explanation or definition” (100).22
Furthermore, race referred to both “physical traits and cultural affinity” (ibid). Du Bois’
early paper, “The Conservation of Races” (1897), contains elements of the l9‘”-century
concept of race. It was Du Bois’ “first extended discussion of the concept of race,” and
he utilizes biological elements in his larger “sociohistorical” argument (Appiah 23). As
Appiah notes, “what Du Bois attempts [. . .] is not the transcendence of the nineteenth-
century scientific conception of race—as we shall see, he relies on it—but rather as the
dialectic requires, a revaluation of the Negro race in the face of the sciences of racial
inferiority” (25). According to Du Bois, the “psychic-biological” difference(s) of the
Negro race simply meant it had a unique and positive contribution to make to American
society (Stepan and Gihnan 93). Stepan and Gilman identity this technique of resistance
a “transvaluation of the terms of the dominant discourse”: [t]he significance of biological
race differences was accepted, but the ‘inferior’ element in the hierarchy revalued and
renamed” (92). Stepan and Gilman’s scientific context provides an explanation for Du
Bois’ use of the “norms and standards of science” in a period when this meant the
oxymoronic combination of objectivity and racialism found in scientific racism (84-5).23

First, scientists had to utilize ostensibly objective language and the scientific method to

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be taken seriously by other scientists. In addition, “to admit that race, especially one’s
own, was an issue in science was to make the writer immediately less than fully
‘objective’ and therefore less than fully ‘scientific’” (86). Finally, most scientists shared
a common view of “science as a progressive, instrumental, and objective form of
knowledge” (ibid). Therefore, minority scientists “were tempted simultaneously to
embrace and reject the field: to embrace science’s methods, concepts, and the promise it
held out for discovering knowledge, and to reject, in a variety of ways, the conclusions of
science as they appeared to apply negatively to themselves” (87)?“ The two prominent
scientists who strenuously resisted scientific racism, Du Bois and Boas, fit this
template—Du Bois as an Afiican-American sociologist and Boas as a Jewish
anthropologist.25
By the turn-of-the-century, race had become a self-consciously studied term.
First, a biological basis was emphasized, due to Darwinist evolutionary theory (Du Bois,
Elik 98). Eventually, race became a “question of comparative culture” (99), and Du
Bois “began to emphasize the cultural aspects of race” (Du Bois, Qu_slg 102). For
example, in the same year as Boas’ 1911 publications, Du Bois wrote an editorial in The
@818 addressing the scientific community’s increasing critique of racial essentialism:
The leading scientists of the world have come forward [with . .] a series of
propositions which may be summarized as follows: 1. (a) It is not legitimate to
argue from differences in physical characteristics to differences in mental
characteristics. (b) The mental characteristics differentiating a particular people

or race are not (1) unchangeable [. . .]. (157)

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Moreover, Du Bois joins Schuyler and Boas in connecting the cultural, and therefore
“changeable” basis of race, to a larger educational program. Since “ 5. (a) The deepest
cause of misunderstanding between peoples is perhaps the tacit assumption that the
present characteristics of a people are the expression of permanent qualities,”
[1). . .] anthropologists, sociologists and scientific thinkers as a class could
powerfully assist the movement for a juster appreciation of peoples by
persistently pointing out in their lectures and in their works the fundamental
fallacy involved in taking a static instead of a dynamic, a momentary instead of a
historic, a fixed instead of a comparative, point of view of peoples; (c) and such
dynamic teaching could be conveniently introduced into schools [. ..and] also into
colleges [...] (157)
Finally, most damning, Du Bois’ 7‘” summary point states that, “[s]o far at least as
intellectual and ”moral aptitudes are concerned, we ought to speak of civilizations where
i we now speak of races” (158). As we shall see shortly, Du Bois was not willing to apply
fully this last scientific assertion. However, he believed that the discrepancies between
these scientific claims, as a whole, and the reality of “racial philosophy” in the United
States revealed a “fifty year” gap (157). In this introduction to the summary, Du Bois
utilizes the progressive ideology of science and implicitly connects positive progress and
a cultural concept of race.
According to Appiah, Du Bois’ editorial was prompted by the work of G. Spiller,

1.26

presented at the First Universal Races Congress in London in July, 191 However,

Boas also presented a paper at the Congress, attended by Du Bois.27 Therefore, Boas is

one of the “leading scientists” to which Du Bois refers as a basis for his entire summary

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and one of the “anthropologists” to which Du Bois appeals in his fifth point on lay
outreach (157). Du Bois had several other connections to Boas during this time period as-
well. For example, Boas came to Atlanta University in 1906, at Du Bois’ invitation, to
“deliver the university’s commencement address and take part in its annual Negro
conference” (Beardsley 261). Du Bois quoted extensively flom this address in T_ha
High; and Physique of the Negro American: Rgport of fiocial Study Made Under the

Direction of Atlanta University; Together with the Proceedings of the Eleventh

Conference for the Study of the Negro Problema, held LAtlanta University, on May the

 

29‘” 1906.28 Furthermore, Boas delivered a paper on “The Anthropological Position of

 

the Negro” at the 1910 conference of the National Negro committee; this paper was
reprinted as “The Real Race Problem” in The Crisis the same year (Beardsley 262).
While in this paper Boas presented “a veiled endorsement of racial intermarriage as the
best long-run solution to problems of race” (262), he also tried to establish an African
museum (Beardsley 259-261). These tensions in Boas’ work—between biology and
culture, between a negative and positive view of race, between an American and an
African identity for American Negroes—mirror those found in Du Bois’ work.

By 1940, in Dusk of Dawn; an Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race
Map; Du Bois explicitly rejects a biological basis for race: “[i]t is easy to see that
scientific definition of race is impossible; it is easy to prove that physical characteristics
are not so inherited as to make it possible to divide the world into races” (137). Yet, Du
Bois continues to emphasize the importance of race and of a collective racial identity
through the substitution of a socio-historical theory of race. Trying to formulate a

historical and political connection to Afiica, Du Bois writes, “the real essence of this

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kinship is its social heritage of slavery; the discrimination and insult; and this heritage
binds together not simply the children of Aflica, but extends through yellow Asia and
into the South Seas. It is this unity that draws me to Aflica” (117). However, as Appiah
notes, Du Bois’ cultural definition of race continues to rely on biology, for “[h]ow can
something he shares with the whole nonwhite world bind him to only a part of it?”
(Appiah 34-5). Therefore, Appiah concludes that Du Bois “never quite managed to
complete” his racial argument, the “logic” of which “leads naturally to the final
repudiation of race as a term of difference and to speaking instead ‘of civilizations where
we now speak of races’” (Appiah 35). Appiah’s analysis of Du Bois highlights the key
difference between Schuyler and Du Bois. It is not their general use of science or belief
in rationalism or objectivity, but the degree to which they applied the scientific
information and to which they emphasized culture as a substitute for biology.

Schuyler “complete[s]” the argument Du Bois does not—he “repudiat[es] race as
a term of difference” and “speak[s] instead ‘of civilizations’” (Appiah 35). Schuyler’s
“repudiation” of race is well-traversed area. However, his use of “civilizations” and
racial oppression as unifying techniques in “The Caucasian Problem” (1944) is often
overlooked because of the focus on his conservative political agenda as a whole. Tucker,
for example, highlighted the (supposed) scientific foundations of the article and
Schuyler’s use of science to “throw out the concept of ‘race’ altogether” ("Can" 140-1).
Yet, Schuyler connects, in detail, the oppression of Negroes (whether in the United States
or in Aflica) to that of “Asiatic colored folk, “ the “Indo-African masses” of Latin

America (287), and people-of-color in the Caribbean (“Caucasian” 288-9). Although his

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emphasis is slightly different than that of Du Bois, Schuyler’s common tie of oppression
mirrors that of Du Bois’ “social heritage of slavery, the discrimination and insult”:
the so-called Negro race is a melange representing every known variety of human
being with nothing whatever in common except a common bondage and a
common resentment against enforced poverty and pariahdom, and an increasing
determination to rid the world of the Caucasian problem which hampers its
progress and development. (“Caucasian” 286)
Therefore, collective racial resistance and reform is necessary. Unlike Du Bois, Schuyler
does not undermine the connection between Negroes and Asians, or any other group
oppressed due to its color. He emphasizes the importance of “civilizations,” rather than
race, to a greater degree than Du Bois. To Schuyler, the differences—geographic,
historic, linguistic, etc—between the many groups composing the so-called Negro race
are equally as important as their common oppression. Schuyler objects to the general
racial category “Negro” because “it facilitates acceptance of the fiction of similarity and
identity which is easily translated into a policy of treating all colored people everywhere
the same way” (“Caucasian” 284). If white racism and oppression was ended, for
example, nothing would connect American Negroes to Africa. American Negroes would
be a part of American civilization alone. Likewise, “[p]rior to the rise of present
imperialist Powers on the wings of piracy and conquest” and “[b]efore the inauguration
of the slave trade,” blacks were perceived by Europeans as members of more specific
nationalist groups (like Moors, Ethiopians, or Yorubas) and as representing particular,
varied vocations like “warriors, merchants, physicians, sailors and artists” (286). The key

to Schuyler’s racial collectivism here seems to be Diana Fuss’ assertion that “we can still

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work with ‘race’ as a political category knowing it is a biological fiction” (91). At this
point in his career, Schuyler advocates collective social reform to correct a problem of
international proportions. Yet, he simultaneously emphasizes the false basis of the
common oppression of people of color—race.

While different in degree of application, Schuyler and Du Bois’ use of science
was substantially the same. Both before and, more significantly, after Schuyler published
his full-length fictional works, Black No More (1931) and the Black Empire serials
(1937-38), Du Bois presents similar scientific issues as if they are on the cutting edge of
American intellectual thought. Furthermore, Du Bois places these scientific
deconstructions of race in a positive light—as a useful tool to counteract racism. Du
Bois’ usage here is the same as Schuyler’s, as Tucker and Appiah describe it: “Du Bois
was attempting ‘a revaluation of the Negro race in the face of the sciences of racial
inferiority’” (Tucker, "Can" .147). Unfommately, Tucker does not place Schuyler into the
same historically-specific scientific context as Du Bois. Tucker takes issue with
Appiah’s discussion of Du Bois’ racial views and their connection to science, while
simultaneously criticizing Schuyler for his similar use of science. The key to Tucker’s
criticism, then, seems to lie in the first half of his overall argument—the “faulty logic” of
a negative approach to race consciousness—rather than the second half: the use of
“rational, scientific, and supposedly nonparitisan objectivity” to support such an
argument ("Can" 137). Once again, Tucker’s emphasis on Schuyler’s political views
leads him to misrepresent scientific issues and connections.

Schuyler, Du Bois, and Boas all shared the sense of a “mission” to end racism and

the important role science could play in such an endeavor. Tucker admits that Schuyler’s

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conclusion to “The Caucasian Problem” is “genuinely moving,” but does not give an
adequate historical and scientific context to more fully explain, and perhaps justify,
Schuyler’s usage of science ("Can" 141). Because Tucker places Schuyler in the

6‘,

political context of the 19808 and 19903, as a predecessor to the new black
conservatism’” of figures like Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, and Shelby Steele,
Tucker misses the genuine newness of the scientific questioning of race in the first half of
the 20‘” century (136). Utilizing hindsight, Tucker judges Schuyler for a lack of race
consciousness and belief in scientific rationalism in the 19308 and 1940s. It may seem
naive flom a Contemporary perspective, but at the time, science seemed a promising new
tool in the fight to end racism. Furthermore, given the intense modernization of the first
half of the 20‘” century, many saw science as the most appropriate reform technique for
an increasingly modernized and scientifically-oriented society.

Furthermore, Schuyler clearly did have a sense of race consciousness, just not the
same type in which Tucker and Baker believe. For Schuyler, race consciousness had
primarily negative connotations. He was ‘conscious’ of racism and the necessity of
working to end racial prejudice and violence, for example. Tucker acknowledges that
Schuyler did not lack “an awareness of white racial hatred toward black America” (140),
and the lynching scene Tucker discusses flom Black No More emphasizes this awareness
("Can"). However, Tucker believes Schuyler’s arguments “ignore the role ‘race’ plays
as a building block around which political and cultural identities are created” (147).
Tucker does not directly use the words positive or beneficial in conjunction with race

consciousness, but his argument relies on such an implied meaning. Post-19608, Tucker

takes such a positive interpretation largely for granted: the concept of race consciousness

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offers the possibility of political and personal empowerment for oppressed groups. Yet,
the critical controversy over Schuyler’s texts reveals the evolving and contested history
of the term during the twentieth century. The Harlem Renaissance, for example, was a
period of intense, generally positive race consciousness for the black artistic community.
Schuyler’s infamous debate with Langston Hughes, in which he questions the autonomy
of black American art, symbolizes Schuyler’s negative response to such a project.29
However, this does not mean Schuyler “ignore[d] the role ‘race’ plays as a building black
around which political and cultural identities are created,” as Tucker argues ("Can" 147).
In fact, Schuyler had a very sophisticated understanding of how race operates in the
formation of identity. Unlike Tucker, however, he thought its influence was negative.30
Schuyler does address race’s “power to shape human lives in very real ways,” as Tucker
desires (Tucker, "Can" 148). In the highly caustic Black No More, Schuyler illustrates
how a comprehensive understanding of the way race operates scientifically and socially,
politically, and romantically/sexually is essential to ‘success’ in the United States.
Black No More

Tucker focuses on the negative portrayal of “specific white supremacist and black
‘race’ organizations” in BlackfiNo More and asserts that “Schuyler’s satire is not aimed at
the transformative potential of science itself”("Can" 143). Yet, every character in the
novel has an invested interest in race, manipulates race, and tries to utilize race for his/her
own gain, including those characters associated with science. Schuyler’s highly caustic
wit and satiric gaze are all-encompassing in Black No More. Not only does this seem to
stem flom his individual personality and beliefs, his chosen role as “debunker,” but from

the nature of satire itself (Gates 31). Satire complements Schuyler’s perspective

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perfectly. The complete absurdity of American race relations affects every American,
coloring almost every situation with both ironic humor and tragedy. Contemporary
science fiction writer Samuel R. Delany accurately observes this oxymoronic aspect of
American culture in his discussion of the same lynching scene mentioned by Tucker:
“[t]hough the term did not then exist, here the ‘humor’ becomes so ‘black’ as to take on
elements of inchoate American horror” (“Racism” 384).

The protagonist of Blaglt No More. Max Disher, serves as an excellent example of
Schuyler’s definition of race consciousness. Disher manipulates race in romantic/sexual,
economic, and political contexts and lives ‘happily ever after.’ Whether this makes him
a subversive hero, a “black Picaro” or trickster figure, or an assimilationist opportunist
depends largely on the critic, as well as the time period (Peplow, "Black"). First,
Schuyler places Disher’s decision to become white through Dr. Crookrnan’s scientific
treatment in the context of his desire for a racist white woman. The novel begins with
Disher's failed advances towards Helen Givens, a Southern belle who comes North for
‘polishing.’ Disher’s immediate decision to undergo the racial process includes a desire
to meet her again under more favorable circumstances, and once white, his first action is
to go South in order to find her. Disher is similar in this respect to Sam, the (formerly)
white female character of Samuel Delany’s Trouble on Triton. During the course of the
novel, Sam reveals the physical reconstruction s/he underwent to‘become a black man in
order to attract blond, white women (126).3 ‘ The two characters of these texts manipulate
race based on an understanding of culturally-influenced sexual desires. In Disher’s case,
he understands that the racism of his Southern belle has made him romantically taboo and

that he must show a white exterior in order to become a potential mate.

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Whether Disher is as conscious of the cultural basis of his own sexual desires
remains ambiguous. Neither he, nor the narrator, ever directly addresses the reason(s)
that Disher “swore there were three things essential to the happiness of a colored
gentleman: yellow money, yellow women and yellow taxis” and had never been seen
with a girlfliend who didn’t look white (Schuyler, Black No More 3). However, a scene
from Schuyler’s Black Empire serials reveals some possible reasons behind this
culturally-motivated desire. In a description of a sumptuous bedroom belonging to the
notorious Aflican-American Dr. Belsidus, Schuyler highlights the cultural connections
between sexuality and race: ‘

Between the rear windows in a concave, softly lighted recess stood an amazingly

life-like male phallic symbol made of translucent porcelain and fully six feet in

height. In a similar recess between the two flont windows stood a statue of three
nude young women in the full bloom and vigor of life with their arms on each

other’s shoulders. They were obviously made of the same porcelain. One was a

Caucasian, one an Aflican and the other a Mongolian. (23)

Belsidus’ artistic decorations reflect his sexual activities and preferences. He explicitly
seduces his wealthy, white patients in order to support his black nationalist activities.
However, the obviousness and extremity of Belsidus’ sexual decoration, and activities,
suggest other implicit motivation as well. For example, Dr. Belsidus’ relationship with
Martha Gaskin, a white woman, “symbolize[s] his subjugation of the white race” (240).32
Gaskin, and the other white women, are not only wealthy, but racially forbidden or taboo.
They symbolize all that is denied African-American men on account of their race.

Within a specifically sexual context, Belsidus and Gaskin’s relationship highlights the

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stereotype of the extraordinary sexual appetites and virility of black men also.33 The
single,‘six-foot penis’ as a counterpart to three nude women, of various ‘races,’ obviously
refers to this racial stereotype. Schuyler simultaneously parodies and exploits the white,
particularly male, fears of miscegenation. As an ‘evil genius,’ Belsidus is more self-
conscious and manipulative of these sexual/racial/cultural intersections than Disher. Yet,
Gaskin remains by Belsidus’ side at the end of the text, similar to the ‘happy ending’ of
Disher and Helen Givens in Black No More. As Hill and Rasmussen suggest, Schuyler’s
own inter-racial marriage might have motivated this persistent inter-racial theme (282).
As his ovVn white alter-ego, then, Disher courts and marries the white woman who
had spurned him. The fact that Helen Givens’ father is the Imperial Grand Wizard of The
Knights of Nordica, a modern reincarnation of the Ku Klux Klan, does not deter Disher,
and the only racial problem he encounters is the threat of their child emerging too dark-
skinned. Disher avoids this potential problem as well, however, as his wife reveals the
recently discovered, remote black ancestry of her family. Helen, in fact, begs Disher not
to leave her on account of this racial intermixing. The text ends with a happy snapshot of
Disher, Helen, the Imperial Wizard, and his wife on the beach in France—all “as dusky
as little Matthew Crookman Fisher who played in the sandpile at their feet” (Schuyler,
Black No More 250). Black has become the culturally preferred color and racial
prejudice has transformed into anti-white ideology. It is interesting to note here that
despite the general racial inversion, Schuyler still places the openly interracial couple
outside of the United States. This coincides with his interracial couple in Black Empire,
Martha Gaskin and Dr. Belsidus, who finally reside together in Africa. Likewise, Edgar

Rice Burroughs’ earlier interracial couple, John Carter and Princess Dejah Thoris, live

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‘happily ever after’ on Mars. These examples reveal the potential, as well as the limits,
of the speculative element of sf. Most importantly, the speculative element of sf allows
writers (and readers) to imagine how racial relations could become more fluid and
inclusive. The geographic displacement of the interracial couples, however, highlights
the strength and tenacity of racial prejudice. Schuyler’s racial egalitarianism, even
within an imaginative construct, was constrained by divisive racial ideologies.

Disher also reveals a sophisticated knowledge of the complex economic, social,
and political mechanics of race in the United States, and he uses this knowledge to his
personal benefit. Running out of money and finding “[b]eing white [. . .] was no Open
Sesame of employment,” Disher discems the economic potential in the threat to Southern
business of the whitening treatment (Schuyler, Black No More 58). He passes himself
off as a Northern anthropologist, an expert on race, and quickly rises to prominence
, within The Knights of Nordica. As the Grand Exalted Giraw of the racist organization,
Disher benefits financially both flom the dues of the white laborers and from the
contributions of the white businessmen. Playing both sides of the economic fence,
Disher distracts the laborers with the racial threat and simultaneously assures the
businessmen that his organization is firmly against organized labor. To keep the money
flowing in, he actively antagonizes the economic and racial situation in the South,
planting “Communistic tracts” to fiighten the business owners and sabotaging strikes
(111).

In addition to the economic field, Disher manipulates the socio-political elements
of American society. He allies himself overtly with the organizations of the racist

whites, while covertly working to keep the whitening treatment organization, Black-No-

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More, in operation. As he explains the complex strategy to his fliend Bunny, a “status
quo” must be maintained in order to ensure their continual financial gain (Schuyler,

Black No More 120). Disher’s complex schemes culminate in politics. Asked to help the

 

Southern Democrats win the upcoming presidential elections, Disher tells Bunny, “We’ll
try the old sure fire Negro problem stuff” (147). Although his party does not ultimately
win the election, Disher, his family, and his fiiend Bunny escape to Mexico unscathed
and with a large monetary cache. In marked contrast, the Democratic vice-presidential
candidate is lynched by a white mob because of the revelation of his remote black
ancestry. In all of these situations, Disher achieves his goals because, [t]he most
successful propagandist is one who thoroughly understands the ideology of those to be
propagandized” (Fields 1 1 1).

Disher’s racial maneuverings finally come to an end as he flees the country and
reveals his former black identity to his family. Yet, as Disher reminisces, he “had had
such a good time since being white: plenty of money, almost unlimited power, a beautiful
wife, good liquor and the pick of damsels within reach” (Schuyler, Blacg No More 205-
6). Furthermore, his wife stays with him despite his revelation, undergoing a type of
racial transformation herself: “Helen felt a wave of relief go over her. There was no
feeling of revulsion at the thought that her husband was a Negro. [. . .] To hell with the
world! To hell with society! Compared to what she possessed, [. . .] all talk of race and
color was damned foolishness” (214). Disher, in other words, is never 'punished' for his
racial manipulations—the exploitation of racism, promotion of racial divisions, and
antagonism of racial conflict. As the protagonist of the story, Disher and his generally

unrepentant and unpenalized color change have inspired the “assimilationism” theory of

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critics like Bone and Larson (Peplow, "Black" 7). Because readers are accustomed to the
valorization of the perspective of a text’s protagonist, Disher has often been falsely
placed in the context of traditional heroism and his viewpoint has been collapsed with
that of the author. The logic of such a reading goes something like this: because Disher is
the protagonist, he must be the hero of the text; since the hero, Disher, seems to adopt an
assimilationist attitude, racial assimilation must be valorized by the text; and finally,
because the text promotes racial assimilation, so too must its author. In fact, popular
and/or pulp fiction often embodies such a traditional heroic approach. For example, in
Edgar Rice Burroughs’ straightforward melodrama, John Carter is simultaneously the

protagonist, the narrator, and a hero, and his viewpoints correspond with those of the

author.

In contrast to the assimilationism theorists, Michael Peplow and John M. Reilly
offer a more complex and, therefore, more accurate representation of Black No More and

its author. First and foremost, Both Peplow and Reilly correctly place Blagt No More in

 

the context of satire. Peplow discusses the protagonist as a black Picaro or trickster
figure and argues, “we must examine the novel as satire, as a piece representative of a
genre in which the foibles and vices of man are attacked, often harshly” ("Black" 7).
Likewise, Reilly asserts, “since a character such as Max Disher is given the most
effective dialogue in the novel and is shown as roguishly clever, Blacks come off
Somewhat better than whites in Schuyler’s narrative. But perhaps that is less significant
than the fact that Schuyler, for the most part, deals out his scorn evenhandedly” (108).
Both critics, then, note a somewhat more favorable portrayal, overall, of the protagonist

but emphasize the generally biting nature of satire in assessing both Disher and Schuyler.

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The literary technique of satire opens up a critical gap between the author and the
protagonist, the text as a whole, and the audience. Therefore, the relationships between
each must be more carefully scrutinized for the greatest possible critical accuracy.

In contrast to a more straightforward and traditionally heroic reading of the
protagonist, Peplow’s reading of Disher as a black Picaro or trickster figure emphasizes
his subversive nature. In contrast to the overt, absolute honesty and virtue of a traditional
hero, Disher “is a rogue, a ‘rascal of lowdegree’ [. . .]. He is wily, cunning, a confidence
artist” (Peplow, "Black" 8). As a trickster figure, Disher “uses ‘wit, guile and

6‘,

cunning. . .to turn a situation to his own advantage’” and outwits by any means
necessary him who is stronger and more powerful.‘ It is[ ...] a ‘recognized survival
technique in the black community’” (ibid).” The traditional hero is strong and powerful,
righting wrongs and always triumphing over evil in the end. John Carter, for example,
single-handedly conquers an entire planet, killing lecherous bad guys and rescuing
virtuous princesses with nothing more than a sword. On the other hand, the black Picaro
or trickster figure uses his wit for his own gain and with the ultimate goal of survival
against a stronger opponent. In an imperfect world, then, Disher is one of the most
sympathetically portrayed characters, and a reader might share his grim humor as he
“laugh[s] at the white folks up his sleeve” and reveals the ignorance and absurdity at the
heart of America’s ‘race problem’ (Schuyler, Black No More 38).

Yet,.Disher works by indirection and covert manipulation, he actively aggravates
social ills, and he primarily cares for himself. Not only is Disher a representative of a

black Picaro figure, then, but also he illustrates qualities of the anti-hero of modern

western literature.3S Robert Hill and Kent Rasmussen similarly note the importance of

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the trickster figure and the anti-hero to an accurate understanding of Schuyler’s other
main character, Dr. Belsidus, of the Black Empire series: “[v]iewed through the prism of
black folklore and mythology, therefore, Schuyler’s Belsidus is not a deranged
personality. He is, rather, simultaneously a hero and an authentic anti-hero who, like the
Aflican trickster, turns weakness into strength, upsets the machinery of domination, [and]
deals out retribution” (Hill and Rasmussen 288). In this context, Belsidus is a darker and
more powerful version of Disher as trickster or anti-hero. In both texts, the alternative
point of view offered by the trickster or anti-hero challenges the monolithic, ‘universal’
point of view of the traditional hero protagonist.

However, the melodramatic context of Belsidus’ characterization does not open
up the same critical gap between the protagonist and the author as the satiric context of
Black No More. Satire is the perfect medium for the imperfect world, or “black anti-
utopia,” Schuyler portrays in Blach No More (Reilly). In such a context, traditional
heroes are impossible because racism, and even race consciousness, negatively effects
every person in the United States. Disher might be the closest thing to a hero in a race
conscious society, but that does not mean Schuyler holds him up as an ideal model of
human behavior or as representative of a solution to racism. The more Disher reveals his
knowledge and mastery of all the ways race operates in American society, the more he
reveals how he has been negatively changed by just such a race consciousness. As a
trickster figure, Disher is the ideal vehicle to illuminate the intricate and illogical
mechanics of race in Ammcan society, while at the same time entertaining the reader

with his wit and antics.

133

A central problem for every Schuyler critic is reconciling the Aflo-centric
Belsidus and the assimilationist Disher. Tucker, for example, chooses a straightforward
interpretation of Disher and a satiric interpretation of Belsidus. He believes Schuyler
reveals his true assimilationist views through Disher and intended Black Empire as a
closet joke on his audience: “what Hill and Rasmussen suggest tentatively deserves
confident assertion, that "the Black Empire may have been a cynical joke that Schuyler
played on his readers” ("Can" 146). Tucker’s disassociation between Schuyler and the
Afro-centric perspective of Belsidus, and the Black Empire serials more generally, has
merit. As Tucker notes, Schuyler’s “favorite rhetorical mode” was satire (145).
However, several critical disclaimers must be attached to a satiric reading of B_lacg
Empig. First, even if Schuyler personally did not believe in the Aflo-centric perspective
embodied in Blacgt Empire. the text itself is melodramatic. Therefore, outside of the
critical debates surrounding Schuyler as an author and person, the point is moot.
Secondly, if the overtly melodramatic Black Empire is read as a satire, the overtly satiric
Black No More must logically be read as a satire as well. Tucker, for example, qualifies
his satiric reading of Black No More, explicitly omitting science and implicitly omitting
‘ the protagonist Why would the protagonist of the melodrama be read as satiric while the
protagonist of thesatire is read as a traditional hero?

Finally, if the Black Empire serials are read satirically, Tucker’s thesis of
Schuyler’s scientific idealism and objectivity is undermined further. If Belsidus’ black
nationalism is a joke, so too is his status as a scientist and doctor. Furthermore, how
could Belsidus be a black nationalist when as a rational scientist he shouldhot logically

believe in race at all? Of course Belsidus, like Disher and Crookman, could be

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knowingly and falsely manipulating the ‘black masses’ for his own financial and political
gain. This scenario would help explain the troubling relationship between Belsidus and
Martha Gaskin, a white woman. Despite Dr. Belsidus’ professions of contempt for and
ill-usage of many white women”, Martha Gaskin proves herself loyal and valuable to the
black cause throughout the course of the text and is actually the last image of the entire
serial, “looking odd among those Negroes” but apparently finally aCcepted despite her
‘race’ (Schuyler, Black Empire 258). In addition, a satiric or critical reading of Belsidus
has the advantage of qualifying the violence and possible moral offense of some of his
actions: his policy of killing off white women after they have served their purpose to the
organization, for example, and his authorization of bio-chemical warfare for a mass
killing of whites. Finally, a negative reading of Belsidus corresponds with Schuyler’s
satiric portrayal of scientists in Black No More.

In marked contrast to Tucker’s assertion of idealism, scientists and science are
overtly linked with capitalism, consumerism, and the hypocrisy of Aflo-American race
consciousness in Black No More. Schuyler continues his typical role as debunker in the
scientific field, as well as in African-American literature. Dr. Cornelius Crookman, for
instance, espouses scientific theories underminingbiological essentialism, so he should
be the hero of this drama according to Tucker’s formula. Yet, Crookman’s name
signifies that he, like Disher, is selling something, is swindling someone for his own
profit. Dr. Crookman’s cronies, a “’Numbers’ banker” and a realtor, symbolize the close
ties between science and capitalism (12). The Numbers banker actually refers to their
new business, “Black-No-More, Incorporated” (49) as “the best and safest graft I’ve ever

been in” (39). In addition, the elaborate advertisement outside of the very first “Black-

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No-More” sanitarium embodies the commercialism and consumerism of America’s
capitalist society and the ties between economics, science, and race. Schuyler goes to
great lengths to vividly describe “the large, electric sign hung flom the roof to the second
floor”: “It represented a huge arrow outlined in green with the words BLACK-NO-
MORE running its full length vertically. A black face was depicted at the lower end of
the arrow while at the top shone a white face to which the arrow was pointed” (32).
Schuyler even describes the elaborate system of delayed lighting portraying the actual
scientific process of “black face” to “white face.” At this point, it becomes glaringly
obvious that not only Dr. Crookman, but also science more broadly is not portrayed as
the objective ideal Tucker imagines. If science is a solution to the ‘Negro problem,’ it is
only through selling Aflican-Americans a physical exterior which will be culturally
undesirable soon after.

Schuyler’s emphasis on the connection(s) between science and capitalism
highlights the hypocrisy of Aflo—American race consciousness as well. In the preface to
Black No More. Schuyler refers to the invention, marketing, and distribution of Kink-No-
More37 around the turn-of-the-century. He emphasizes the increasing success of such
endeavors due to “the avid search on the part of the black masses for some key to
chromatic perfection,” and then goes on to assert that “science is on the verge of
satisfying. them” (vii). “science” then takes the form of excerpts flom an interview with
a Japanese doctor and an Italian engineer’s letter to the NAACP in which both men claim
to be able to physically change darker-skinned ‘races’ into lighter-skinned ones.” Why
does Schuyler place his science fiction text within the context of these real-world

elements? The Kink-No-More synopsis illustrates the desire on the part of African-

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Americans to physically look more like whites and links it to capitalism, profit, and
technology. Schuyler is emphasizing the hypocrisy of any Negro-centered activity here.
Schuyler‘believes not only Disher, but also ahnost every Negro in the United States
desires to be white; they have been indoctrinated by the repeated assertions of white
superiority and have internalized the cultural racial hierarchy.

Crookman is a good example of this type of racial internalization. The doctor is
known as a “Race Man” (47), and he “prided himself above all on being a great lover of
his race” (Schuyler, Black No More 46). Yet, he attempts to solve the problem of racism
by eradicating the very race he supposedly values. Furthermore, Crookman “was wedded
to everything black except the black woman” (47). Crookman marries a woman “able to
pass for white” and has “liaisons with comely and available flaus and flauliens” while
abroad, researching Black history of all things (ibid). Schuyler’s sarcasm is heavy in his
description of Dr. Crookman and the discrepancy between his 'race consciousness' on
various issues. Schuyler reinforces his irony and satire with a similar description of Dr.
Shakespeare Agamemnon Beard, a caricature of W.E.B. Du Bois: “the learned doctor
wrote scholarly and biting editorials in The Dilemma denouncing the Caucasians whom
he secretly admired and lauding the greatness of the Negroes whom he alternately pitied
and despised” (89). Beard mirrors the gender relationships of Crookman and Disher as
well: a“[l]ike most Negro leaders, he deified the black woman but abstained flom
employing aught save octoroons” (ibid). All of these examples reinforce Schuyler’s
scientific critique of race consciousness. Not only is there no such thing as race flom a
scientific standpoint, but also even the most race conscious Afro-Americans covertly or

subconsciously subscribe to the existing racial hierarchy privileging white physical

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features. The scientists’ lack of scientific objectivity is the basis of Schuyler’s satire
here. Clearly, this negative portrayal of the doctor/scientists does not support Tucker’s
reading of scientific idealism.

Finally, science as a discipline is portrayed as equally variable and biased as the
specific concept of race itself. Schuyler not only highlights the close connection between
science and capitalism, but also science and social norms. Tucker asserts that
“Schuyler’s satire is not aimed at the transformative potential of science itself” ("Can"
143). However, as discussed earlier, Crookman’s belief that science alone will provide
an answer to racism is satirized. Tucker himself admits that the text as a whole
illustrates that Crookman’s process is not a total or ideal solution, as the color line simply
reverses at the end. In addition, it is no coincidence that Disher chooses anthropology as
his new occupation after becoming white. This scientific field allows Disher to ‘sell’
highly biased and erroneous racial ideas to his racist white audience. Through his
protagonist, Schuyler satirizes the emerging scientific field of anthropology,- highlighting
its common use as a political and ideological tool. Disher’s impersonation of an
anthropologist also highlights Schuyler’s decision to divide his protagonist and his
scientist into two separate characters. Disher’s outsider perspective—as a lay person and
as an African-American—allows him to challenge the false objectivity and positivism of
the scientific discipline. In contrast, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ protagonist, John Carter,
embodies an ethnographic perspective; Burroughs collapses the protagonist and the
scientist into a single character. A traditional hero as scientist does not allow for the

same scientific critique as Disher as a trickster figure.

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Furthermore, Schuyler uses the general cultural color reversal at the end to
emphasize the subjective and culturally variable basis ”of anthropology:
‘ Prof. Handen Moutthe, the eminent anthropologist (who was well known for his
popular work on The Sex Life of Left-Handed Morons among the Ainus)
announced that as a result of his long research among the palest citizens, he was.
convinced they were mentally inferior and that their children should be segregated
flom the others in school. Professor Moutthe’s findings were considered
authoritative because he had spent three entire weeks of hard work assembling his
data. Four state legislatures immediately began to consider bills calling for
separate schools for pale children. (Black No More 247-8)
This brief passage contains biting satire of the research techniques and popular outreach
”of the scientific community, as well as the political and social influence of scientific
findings (scientism). In his reversal, Schuyler draws attention to the historic use of
science to justify racism and oppression. There is nothing objective or idealistic in this
representation of science. In fact, Schuyler’s satire here resembles an early strategy of
resistance to scientific racism identified by Stepan and Gilman—“the employment of wit,
irony, or parody” (82-3).

Dr. Crookman and Disher, the two most sympathetically portrayed characters in

Black No More, manipulate scientific, social, cultural, and political concepts of race; they

 

are, in fact, highly ‘race conscious.’ For Schuyler, however, clearly race consciousness
does not have the positive connotations Tucker ascribes to it. Because‘of the biological
falsehood of race, its legacy for Aflican-Americans of oppression, and the melting pot

ideal of American society in which Schuyler obviously believed, race can only have

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negative implications—biologically, politically, socially, and culturally. Any act based '
upon a consciousness of race is only perpetuating a falsehood and, therefore, must
involve manipulation of some sort—you can either be the manipulator, like Crookman
and Disher, or be the manipulated, like the Afiican-American and white ‘masses.’

Even Schuyler, in his understanding of racial operations, becomes a manipulator.
Tucker quotes Schuyler’s private opinion of his second fictional text:

I have been greatly amused by the public enthusiasm for ‘The Black

Internationale’ [the first half of the Black Empire] which is hokum and hack work

of the purest vein. I deliberately set out to crowd as much race chauvinism and

sheer improbability into it as my fertile imagination could conjure. The result

vindicates my low opinion of the human race. ("Can" 146)
Like the inventor of Kink-No-More, Schuyler is selling a racially-implicated product to
the African-American ‘masses.’ If they are gullible enough to buy it, if they put stock in
race, than he, like Disher, is doing no more than teaching them a lesson and'no less than
personally profiting flom their erroneous thinking. The common focus of Schuyler’s
satire seems to be the racial fantasies or desires of his black audience—in the first text, a
desire to be white and in the secOnd text, a desire to be black.39 In Schuyler’s ideal of a
raceless world, both of these extremes of the racial spectrum are false and obstructive.
He utilizes science fiction and dystopic fiction as a means of wish fulfillment, illustrating
the folly of these race-based desires. When Tucker criticizes Schuyler for assuming “that
‘race’ just does not matter anymore,” he misses the forward focus of Schuyler’s beliefs,
symbolized by his interest in speculative fiction ("Can" 148). Schuyler’s detailed and

continuous focus on race in his fiction and non-fiction alike illustrates a ‘race

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consciOusness,’ even as it takes the form of an attempt to rid the world of notions of race.
Schuyler does chronicle race’s “power to shape human lives in very real ways” in his
fictional texts, but in satirizing the effects of this power, he shows the error of acting this
way (Tucker, "Can" 148).

Pairing Schuyler’s works with that of a second influential author and scientist,
Frantz Fanon, highlights additional aspects of Schuyler’s scientific connections, as well
as his “poststructuralist sensibility” (Joyce, “Black” 342).“0 Writing largely within the
fields of psychiatry and cultural studies, Fanon examines the complex process of colonial
identity formation in his 1952 text Black Skin. White Maska. While significant generic
and geographic differences exist between Black No More and Black Skin. White Masks,
both texts share a radical deconstruction of racial identity and a promotion of
individualism. The striking similarities between Tucker’s critical analysis of Schuyler’s
BlackNo More and Diana Fuss’ critical analysis of Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks
highlight the common threads existing between the two primary texts. First, both Tucker
and Fuss focus on a summary statement near the end of the two primary texts. Where
Schuyler writes, “At best, ‘race’ is a superstition” Wand Conservative 352), Fanon

concludes, “The Negro is not. Any more than the white man” in his text Black Skin

 

White Masks (231). Therefore, when Tucker quotes the conclusion of Schuyler’s
autobiography as the epitome of his “faulty theories about the way ‘race’ wOrks,” he
could be describing Frantz F anon and his text as well (Tucker, "Can" 140). Likewise,
Diana Fuss begins her chapter on poststructuralist Afro-American literary theory by
articulating the broad questions which underlie Tucker’s analysis of Schuyler: “18 race a

matter of birth? of culture? both? neither? What, exactly, are the criteria for racial

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identity? Are there criteria for racial identity? What, we might finally ask, is ‘race’?”
(73-4). More importantly for our discussion of Schuyler and his critical reputation, Fuss
places these questions at the heart of current Afiican-American literary criticism.
Asserting that “the deconstruction of ‘race’ and its implications for reading literature by
or about Aflo-Merican subjects has emerged as one the most controversial questions in
the field of Aflo-American Studies today,” Fuss focuses on the “three scholars at the
center of the current debates on ‘race”’—Anthony Appiah, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and
Houston Baker (74). It is not surprising, then, that these three names continually arise in
both Tucker’s work on Schuyler and my own. '

Furthermore, before Fuss turns to her primary argument, she utilizes Fanon’s
Black Skin, White Maska as an introduction to “the many arbitrary significations of
‘race”’ (ibid). As Tucker’s earlier critical assessment of Schuyler applies to Fanon, so
Fuss’ assessment of Fanon here applies to Schuyler. Fuss goes on to note the
“enigmatic” nature of Fanon’s conclusion, wondering if he is “suggesting, perhaps, that
there is no such thing as race?” (76). Fuss seems confused because the title of Fanon’s
text “allows simultaneously for an essentialist and a constructionist reading; it unhinges
‘race’ flom skin color at the same time it reinscribes the problematic association of race
with biology” (75). As we will see, Schuyler too promotes a constructionist reading of
race while maintaining a connection between race and the physical body or biology.
Fuss’ discussion as a whole, however, promotes a constructionist reading of Fanon’s text.
Her assertion that Black Skin, White Masks “provides us with something of a running
commentary on the arbitrariness of the racial signifier in Western culture” (74) is

strikingly similar to Tucker’s summary of Schuyler’s Blaclgo More: “The novel is

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designed to emphasize the scientific meaningless of ‘race’ and the arbitrariness of color
consciousness” "Can" 143). In this way, Schuyler and Fanon both reflect “the
poststructuralist sensibility” of much contemporary sf dealing with race and racial
identity (Joyce, "Black" 342). Fuss clearly articulates the threat some readers find in
such a poststructuralist stance: “The charge, then, is clear: to deconstruct ‘race’ is to
abdicate, negate, or destroy black identity” (77). Tucker’s criticism of Schuyler is a
manifestation of this critical stance.

In essence, Schuyler’s Black No More is an exploration of F anon’s theme within
a science/fictional format. Whereas F anon explores the non-fiction psychological and
cultural process of racial construction, Schuyler utilizes the fictional aspect of sf to create
an actual scientific process physically embodying Fanon’s abstract phenomenon. F anon
describes the process and implications involved in the metaphoric “white masks”
developed by colonized blacks. With Max Disher, Schuyler takes Fanon’s black man, his
body and his psyche, and actualizes the psychological process which Fanon analyzes.
Disher’s physical transformation into his white alter-ego of Matthew Fisher mirrors the
process by which the “black skin” of an Antillean gradually develops a “white mask.”
Fanon opens Black Skin. White Masg with an explanation of the divided nature of black
subjectivity very similar to that denoted by W. E .B. Du Bois’ term “double-
consciousness.” In The Souls of Black Folks, Du Bois writes:

It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking

at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a

world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-

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ness,——an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled

strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body [. . .]. (8-9)“1
Similarly, F anon writes, “[t]he black man has two dimensions. One with his fellows, the
other with the white man. A Negro behaves differently with a white man and with
another Negro. That this self-division is a direct result of colonialist subjugation is
beyond question” (17). Within this context, Disher’s white skin represents the
consciousness of white society acquired by people-of-color in order to survive in a
hierarchical and oppressive society. Disher’s white skin/white consciousness, then,
allows him to effectively blend into the white social nexus.

Schuyler’s use of sf literary techniques in Black No More allows him to
paradoxically make the construction of racial identity simultaneously more distanced
flom the reader and more vivid. KnoWn as “estrangement,” this concept is allied in sf
with “cognition” to form the basis of all sf. In Metamopphoses of Science Fiction. Darko
Suvin utilizes Bertolt Brecht’s definition of estrangement as the foundation for his
expanded theory of cognitive estrangement: “A representation which estranges is one
which allows us to recognize its subject, but at the same time makes it seem unfamiliar”
(qtd. Suvin 6). The primary advantage to cognitive estrangement is that a phenomenon
so familiar that it is usually taken for granted becomes more distinct and discemable in an
unfamiliar setting. Thus, the complex, yet subtle interaction between racial construction
and identity formation can become more obvious and immediate in a sf context.
Schuyler utilizes the “novum,” or speculative element of a scientific procedure for racial

transformation to estrange the reader flom the ubiquitous yet rarely directly-confronted

machinations of race in American society (Suvin 4). The readers of Schuyler’s text are

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practically slapped in the face with the cultural basis of race and its implications. Even
for those readers familiar with the concept of double-consciousness, for example, the
literal chromatic transformation of the Aflican-American charaCters is jarring, if not
outright shocking. Not only the biting nature of Schuyler’s satire and the highly volatile
issue of racial identity make BlaclLNo More controversial, but also the extreme vividness
and forcefulness of Schuyler’s ideas as viewed through the cognitive estrangement of sf.
Schuyler’s deconstruction of race is so effective that the reader might overlook
the specter of essentialism raised by Schuyler’s choice of novum. In the transformation
of F anon’s psychological process into a physical or biological process, Schuyler runs the
risk of undermining his larger cultural argument, for he maintains the traditional
connection between biology and race. Schuyler counteracts this biological connection to
race in several ways. First, the biological aspects of race manipulated in the scientific
process are all external features. Dr. Crookman does not reveal his scientific procedure
in full detail, but he does outline the features effected—facial features, skin color, and
hair color and texture. ‘2 Schuyler logically utilizes the physical features commonly used
to categorize race. Within traditional racial essentialism, these exterior physical features
reflect the interior, static racial identity of a person which corresponds to a racial
collective. However, the paradox at the heart of Schuyler’s racial deconstruction is that
these physical characteristics are only exterior and do not correspond to any essential
racial difference. For example, the racial transformation does not effect the genetic
structure of the patients, as evidenced by the failure of the process to be passed on to
offspring. This means that even the physical characteristics associated with a particular

race are exterior signifiers only. There can be no 'essence' involved when a process of

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bleaching and what now would be called plastic surgery effect racial categorization.
Crookman’s procedure literalizes Fanon’s “white mask,” then, one which conceals a
genetic code for facial features signifying a second race. The essentialist racial
connection between exterior and interior, as well as biology and psychology, explodes
under the pressure of such diverse plurality. Distinct, static racial types are the
foundation of racial essentialism and, therefore, the concept of essentialism cannot
withstand Schuyler’s extreme fluidity, plurality, and ambiguity of racial construction.
Continuing in this vein, Schuyler utilizes Dr. Crookman as a vehicle for espousing
racial theories which both explain why his procedure is effective and why it is largely
unnecessary flom a scientific standpoint. For example, Dr. Crookman asserts that even if
his process didn’t effect facial characteristics, like nose and lip width, the racial
transformation would still be effective because “the wide difference in Caucasian and
Aflo-American facial characteristics that most pe0ple imagine” do not actually exist
(Schuyler, Black No More 19). This would leave color as the sole remaining physical
characteristic upon which to distinguish race. The superficial nature of traditional,
physical racial signifiers means they can be manipulated and are also unreliable .
indicators of racial categorization. Samuel Delany writes of his family’s experience with
lynching, uncomfortably like the lynching scene near the end of Black No More, when a
pregnant cousin, “[a] woman who looked white,” was traveling with her much darker-
skinned husband (“Racism” 385). The group of white men who lynched them obviously
believed the couple’s relationship to be miscegenous. Similarly, Schuyler creates a
character in Black No More, Mr. Walter Williams, who “was known to be a Negro

among his fliends and acquaintances, but no one else would have suspected it” (94) due

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to his “pale blue eyes, wavy auburn hair,” and light skin (93).43 Schuyler goes on to
connect such ambiguity of racial features to the extensive interbreeding of the so-called
races in the United States: Williams’ “great-grandfather, it seemed, had been a mulatto”
(94). With his typical satiric wit, Schuyler describes Williams as a member of the
National Social Equality League, a “militant Negro organization” (86). Yet, Schuyler
calls Williams, and another member of the N.S.E.L., a “white man” based on the same
physical features used by racial essentialists to categorize race. In this way, Schuyler
emphasizes his belief in both the logical failings of a racial essentialism founded on
exterior physical features and the absurdity of basing racial identity on such a tiny portion
of an individual’s ancestry. The satire of the segment rests on the discrepancy between
the chimeric nature of race as traditionally defined in the U. S. and the undue significance
placed upon it in this country and elsewhere.

Finally, Dr. Crookman completes his deconstruction of race by addressing the
issue of language. After his thorough defense of the efficacy of the procedure,
Crookman’s business associate asks him, “How about that darky dialect? You can’t
change that” (Schuyler, Bla_ckf No More 17). Crookman replies, “There is no such thing
as Negro dialect [. . .]. There are no racial or color dialects; only sectional dialects” (17-
18). As support, Crookman cites the “purest French” of the “educated Haitian” and
English accent of the “Jamaican Negro” (18). These examples parallel Frantz F anon’s
more complicated analysis of “The Negro and Language” in Black Skin. White Masks, in
which he discusses the'connection between language acquisition and racial
categorization. Fanon notes, “In any group of young men in the Antilles, the one who

expresses himself well, who has mastered the language, is inordinately feared; keep an

. 147

eye on that one, he is almost white. In France one says, ‘He talks like a book.’ In
Martinique, ‘He talks like a white man’” (20-1). Elevated and sophisticated language
skills, especially those reflecting the linguistic norms of the colonizer and/or academic
discourse, are racial signifiers linked to the white colonizers. At this point, we have
come full circle, back to the issue of black subjectivity and double-consciousness
discussed earlier. The black man who masters the French language/academic discourse
of the colonizer in F anon’s example reflects the larger concept of a double-consciousness
Fanon describes in the text as a whole. Part of the “white masks” acquired by blacks are
these linguistic characteristics.

Like the young black Antilleans, Max Disher conveys a particular racial identity
clue to his linguistic double-consciousness. First, utilizing his understanding of the
linguistic expectations of his largely uneducated, southern white audiences, Disher/Fisher
tells them exactly what they want to hear in a manner designed to impress them. Disher
was born in the South, and “[h]e knew what would fetch their applause and bring in their
memberships and he intended to repeat itover and over” (Schuyler, Black No More 74).
In fact, Disher’s ability to imitate the racist viewpoints of his poor white audience and the
discourse associated with scientists enables him to be the trickster figure Peplow
discusses. Again, “[t]he most successful propagandist is one who thoroughly understands
the ideology of those to be pr0pagandized” (Fields 111). The Imperial Grand Wizard’s
response to Disher’s anthropological ‘pitch’ most clearly illustrates. the efficacy of his
racial presentation: “He nodded his head as Matthew [Disher], now glorying in his

newly-discovered eloquence made point after point, and concluded that this pale, dapper

young fellow, with his ready tongue, his sincerity, his scientific training and knowledge

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of the situation ought to prove a valuable asset to the Knights of Nordica” (65). Disher’s
imitation of a racist, white scientist wins him the hand of Given’s daughter Helen as well:
“She had always longed for the companionship of an educated man, a scientist, a man of
literary ability. Matthew to her mind embodied all of these” (109). In all of these
situations, Disher utilizes his “white mask,” or understanding of the norms of the white
society he infiltrates, to deceive and manipulate white characters who do not have a
reciprocal understanding of black society and black identity construction. The monolithic,
integrated nature of white identity, as portrayed here, facilitates their deception.

Schuyler largely reveals Disher’s other “consciousness” through covert
conversations with his fliend Bunny, who has also undergone Crookman’s racial
procedure. Reunited post-operation in the South, Bunny immediately becomes Disher’s
confidant and right-hand man. Disher reveals his racial manipulationsto Bunny as he
does to no one else. Similarly, he confides his sticky romantic problems to Bunny;
Disher worries about his wife becoming pregnant and bearing a dark-skinned child. This
overtly white/covertly black set-up reflects F anon’s initial observation that a “Negro
behaves differently with a white man and with another Negro” (17). Like the
essentialism threatened by Schuyler’s concretion of the psychological phenomenon of
double-consciousness, the portrayal of a covert black consciousness raises the issue of
‘authentic’ racial identity. For example, during their conversation about Disher’s
paternal fears, Bunny says, “You know, sometimes I forget who we are” (Schuyler, Bljgk
No More 147). Disher responds, “Well, I don’t. 1 know I’m a darky and I’m always on
the alert” (ibid). Does this statement mean that, despite the emphasis on racial

construction provided by Crookman’s procedure, there exists an essential racial identity

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after all? That despite the flux and fluidity of racial identity described elsewhere in the
teXt, racial identity is ultimately distinct and static?

A closer examination of the context of Disher’s statement mitigates such an
essentialist reading. First, Disher’s statement stems flom his fears that his former identity
as an Afiican-American will be discovered if his wife gives birth to a child significantly
darker-skinned than both of its parents. Such a revelation would haVe dire consequences
for Disher, as he has intimate connections with ultra racist persons and organizations.
Like the presidential and vice-presidential candidates who (unconsciously) ‘pass’
themselves off as white, Disher runs the risk of a loss of his career and reputation at
minimum and a horrible death via lynching at the maximum. In this context of always-
threatening discovery and reprisals, Disher’s statement could mean nothing more than an
acknowledgement of how he would be racially categorized if his full history was known
and, more importantly, the terrible consequences of such a discovery. As his
immediately following statement emphasizes, his black racial identity (whether essential,
authentic, or socially-imposed) means he must always be “on the alert.” Along a similar
line, Disher could be referring to his genetic make-up and the physical characteristics
which he knows will be passed on to his offspring. No matter how he constructs his own
identity, psychologically and physically, his offspring will initially reflect his past
physical identity as a “darky.”

Both of these interpretations of Disher’s statement reflect the psychological
theory of double-consciousness Schuyler sets up. Disher must maintain a specifically
black consciousness in conjunction with a white consciousness because race still operates

powerfully in American society, despite the ambiguity, fluidity, and inversions

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heightened by Crookman’s procedure. As long as racism exists, Disher must maintain
this divi8ion of his psyche in order to survive in a segregated and Oppressive society.
After his physical transformation, for example, Disher’s double-consciousness enables
him to manipulate the racial situation in the Unites States to his economic advantage. As
discussed earlier, however, this ‘success’ does not make Disher an ideal hero. Rather, it
illustrates how he has been negatively influenced by the racial environment of the United
States. Disher maintains his physical and psychological racial dichotomies until. he
leaves the United States at the end of the story. The first breakdown of the dichotomies ‘
doesn’t occur until Disher’s ‘white familly’——his wife and her parents—are exposed as
multi-racial and the entire family is preparing to flee the county. At that point, he feels
he can reveal his own racial background. Finally, the ‘happy’ snapshot of Disher and his
family, equally tanned at the beach, takes place in Europe and after the general cultural
inversion of racial preference in the United States.

Similarly, the point of Disher’s statement about being a “darky” is not that he
possesses a single, authentic black identity despite his endeavors to the contrary, but that
a race-conscious society can lead to an involuntary and possibly damaging psychological
division within African-Americans. Neither racial consciousness is more authentic than
the other; they both exist simultaneously and make an individual who he/she is. As
dichotomies, they form in relationship to each other and cannot exist without the opposite
(either in the same individual or in someone else). As Chris Weedon explains in the
context of feminist poststructuralism, “the individual is always the site of conflicting
forms of subjectivity” (32). The African-American concept of double-consciousness,

then, prefigures the contemporary, Postrnodemist concept of a flagmented, multiple

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identity. Not only race, but also gender, sexuality, religion, and nationality are possible
forms or flagments of a person’s identity. For example, in the contemporary age of
identity politics, a gay black woman could potentially identify with at least three different
groups: women, people-of-color, and/or lesbians. This example illustrates the potential
difficulty of reconciling multiple forms of subjectivity, especially as the number of
possible forms seems to be ever increasing in society as a whole. Is there a point past
which this trend towards ever-smaller flagmentation, in an individual or in society more
generally, should be resisted? In addition, all “forms" or parts of a person’s
consciousness are not equally beneficial, and all individuals’ multiple forms do not
conflict equally. A multiple or flagmented subjectivity may be a reality, but that does not
mean it is an ideal state for all individuals. For example, flom the very beginning of his
analysis of the formation of a double-consciousness in black Antilleans, Fanon
emphasizes its foundation in colonial oppression and racism. Fanon briefly introduces
the concept of a “self-division” in black individuals and then immediately asserts, “[t]hat
this self-division is a direct result of colonialist subjugation is beyond question” (17).
Schuyler and Du Bois similarly place the African-American formation of a double-
consciousness in the context of the racially segregated and oppressive society of the
United States.

Fuss’ more recent discussion of “the Aflo-American subject” in the context of
poststructuralism sheds additional light on the possible complications of a multiple
consciousness for people-of-color (95). Fuss theorizes that the same condition of

flagmentation affecting women could apply to Aflican-Americans:

152

It does seem plausible that, like the female subject, the Afro-American subject
(who may also be female) begins flagmented and dispersed, begins with a
“double-consciousness,” as Du Bois would say (1903, 215). If so, then for both
the female subject and the Afro-American subject, “the condition of dispersal and
flagmentation that Barthes valorizes (and fetishezes) is not to be achieved but to
be overcome” (Miller 1986a, 109). (95)
Fuss’ questioning here of a more traditional poststructuralist theory of identity formation
. raises two important issues. First, in suggesting that an alternate theoretical framework
might be necessary for black subjectivity, Fuss joins other critics in highlighting the false
universalism of current poststructuralist theories of subjectivity. Fuss ends her chapter
on “Poststructuralist Aflo-American Literary Theory” with a quote flom cultural critic
Andreas Huyssen in which he reveals the ideological underpinnings of poststructuralist
theories of 'subj ectivity in the same way Donna Haraway seeks to historicize the false
universalism of the scientific community: “doesn’t poststructuralism, where it simply
denies the subject altogether, jettison the chance of challenging the ideology of the
subject (as male, white, and middle-class) by developing alternative and different notions
of subjectivity?” (Huyssen 44). Both Huyssen and Fuss join Fanon and Schuyler, then,
in seeking alternatives to the normative subjectivity for their time period due to its racial
bias. Fuss’ analysis suggests that a more integrated consciousness might be beneficial for
women and people-of-color due to the extremity of the flagmentation and conflict in their
multiple forms of subjectivity.

Schuyler and Fanon utilize a similar technique to pave the way for an alternative

subjectivity. In her book, Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theogl, Chris Weedon

153

explains the concept of “consciousness-raising” by which a woman learns the social
foundations of her contradictory forms of subjectivity and more advantageous

alternatives to the destructive forms resulting flom patriarchy (33). Fanon’s Black Skin

 

White Masks embodies a similar form of consciousness—raising, except in the field of
race rather than gender. Similar to the Women’s Liberation Movement, Fanon
emphasizes the social foundations of psychological phenomena, like the development of
“white masks.” F anon’s critique of Alfred Adler’s “psychology of the individual” is
symptomatic of this social focus:
Here the difficulties begin. In effect, Adler has created a psychology of the
individual. We have just seen that the feeling of inferiority is an Antillean
characteristic. It is not just this or that Antillean who embodies the neurotic
formation, but all Antilleans. Antillean society is a neurotic society, a society of
“comparison.” Hence we are driven flom the individual back to the social
structure. If there is a taint, it lies not in the “soul” of the individual but rather in
that of the environment. (213)
This last sentence reveals the motivation behind Fanon’s emphasis on the social—the
removal of the 'problem' or neurosis flom the individual. Like Schuyler, even as Fanon
describes the negative aspects of a black double-consciousness, he wishes to remove the
label of pathological sometimes assigned to blacks as a racial group. More importantly,
Fanon places the 'problem' in the individual’s social environment. This not only removes
any blame or guilt from an individual, but also it opens up the potential for change. As

Weedon explains,

154

. The collective discussion of personal problems and conflicts, often previously
understood as a result of personal inadequacies and neuroses, leads to a
recognition that what-have been experienced as personal failings are socially
produced conflicts and contradictions shared by many women in similar social
positions. This process of discovery can lead to a rewriting of personal
experience in terms which give it social, changeable causes. (33)

Especially in the context of race, essentialism is always an issue. With an individual
comes a body and the potential for essentialist theories of psychology which foreclose the
possibility of change. Fanon’s social emphasis, on the other hand, not only locates the
cause of a racial double-consciousness in colonial oppression but 'also offers the
possibility of social reform as a vehicle to bring about alternate theories of subjectivity.
Schuyler too practices a form of consciousness-raising. In his exploration of the
cultural construction of race, he unhinges race from the biological and the individual.
This performs the same function as in Fanon—it places the blame for any neuroses on the
social environment rather than individual blacks, and it opens the door for change. In
fact, Schuyler specifically refutes the association of pathology with African-Americans,
despite his detailed description of a double—consciousness in Black No More: “I strongly
question the view of many psychologists and sociologists that most colored people regard
themselves as inferior. They simply are aware that their socio-economic position is
inferior” (Blaglg and Conservative 18). While the social emphasis is obvious here, this
statement does not necessarily negate the psychological emphasis in Black No More.
Schuyler is not denying double-consciousness is negative; he is emphasizing the negative

aspects of all racial identity. From this perspective, whites would be ‘pathological’ also.

155

Where Fanon claims “Antillean society is a neurotic society,” Schuyler would claim
American society is a neurotic society (213).

Furthermore, in revealing the cultural basis of an individual’s formation of racial
identity, Schuyler emphasizes the necessity for large-scale social reform. In his role as a
satiric debunker, Schuyler refuses to create a raceless utopia. However, his use of satire
and consequent creation of a racially-dystopic America illustrate the danger of racially
fragmented and conflicting subjectivity.44 Like other modern sf, Schuyler’s Black No
More is “a diagnosis, a warning, a call to understanding and action, and—most
important—a mapping of possible alternatives” (Suvin 12). Schuyler’s portrayal of the
negative extremes involved in a race-conscious society points the way to the more
integrated perspective promoted by Fuss. Ironically, Schuyler’s refusal to actually create
such an integrated consciousness, or more broadly a raceless utopia, in Black No More
allows him to highlight the variability of race to an even greater degree. The racial
inversion which takes place at the end of the text emphasizes the historical context of all
racial theories and, therefore, the potential for change.45 In historicizing race and racial
identity, Schuyler makes variable what once was considered static.46 In this, he employs
the second major characteristic of sf—cognition. Darko Suvin distinguishes sf from
myth in that, “SF sees the norms of any age, including emphatically its own, as unique,
changeable, and therefore subject to a cognitive view” (7). More specifically, sf “sees the
mythical static identity as an illusion, usually a fraud, at best only a temporary realization
of potentially limitless contingencies”(ibid). Sf, then, is a perfect medium to question
essentialist theories of race and racial identity, as well as offer alternative subj ectivities.

Suvin’s “potentially limitless contingencies” correspond with the “alternative and

156

different notions of subjectivity” recommended by Huyssen and Fuss (Huyssen 44). Sf
becomes a form of consciousness-raising in this context.

While Schuyler doesn’t actually propose an alternative subjectivity in Black No
_l\io_r§, it is clear from his negative argument that he would not endorse either aspect of
the racial double-consciousness on its own. Schuyler’s denial of an authentic black
identity has already been addressed, and his explicit rejection of an alternate black
subjectivity is what Tucker objects to so strenuously. What some critics elide, however,
is that in rejecting a specifically black identity, Schuyler also rejects the corresponding
white identity. Disher, for example, maintains his white identity only so long as he
profits by it. Once the cultural norms invert, Disher tans along with the rest of his family.
Schuyler wishes to throw out the dichotomous racial system in its entirety.47 F anon too
attempts to create a middle ground for himself rather than valorize either a black or white
consciousness. After his lengthy exploration of the “white masks” put on by black
Antilleans and the foundation of this phenomenon in colonial oppression and racism,
Fanon briefly addresses the emerging Negritude movement. He asks, “What is all this
talk of a black people, of a Negro nationality? I am a Frenchman. I am interested in
French culture, French civilization, the French people. [. . .] What have I to do with a
black empire?” (203). Fanon’s words here echo Schuyler’s scathing private evaluation of
his sf series, the second part of which was actually titled “Black Empire.” Fanon and
Schuyler refuse to accept an “either-or” proposition and, unlike Tucker and Baker, reject
both aspects of a racial double-consciousness—a white consciousness and a black

. . . 43 ‘
conscrousness (lbld).

157

The remarkable similarities between the arguments and racial perspectives in
Black No More and Black Skin. White Masks combine with Schuyler’s comments
elsewhere to suggest Fanon and Schuyler held a common subjective ideal. At the very
end of his text, Fanon reveals the alternative subjectivity he supports: “At the conclusion
of this study, I want the world to recognize, with me, the open door of every
consciousness” (232). Therefore, while Fanon recognizes the need for collective social
reform in order to “create the ideal conditions of existence for a human world,” he
valorizes a subjectivity based largely on individualism rather than a racial collective
(231). Black Skin. White Mask; ends like a personal manifesto of liberation: “In the
world through which I travel, I am endlessly creating myself” (229). Such a position
mirrors Schuyler’s individualism, also in opposition to a collective racial identity. When
Tucker quotes Schuyler’s infamous ending to this autobiography, he notes the scientific
basis of this rejection of race (Tucker "Can" 140-41). However, the context surrounding
the quote reveals the individualism upon which it rests. The sentence preceding Tucker’s
quote reads, “Relegating spurious racism to limbo, in our future American we need to
stress the importance of the individual of whatever color” (Schuyler, Black and

Conservative 352). For Schuyler, individualism lies at the heart of freedom, intellectual

 

and political, as well as other positive American values. To him, racial solidarity is based
on a scientific falsehood, and so intolerable to act upon as a truth. Furthermore, in “The
Caucasian Problem,” Schuyler emphasizes the negative legacy of race and collective
racial identities—global prejudice and oppression, including slavery, segregation,
colonialism, and imperialism. In addition, however, Schuyler believes racial solidarity

conflicts with individualism and other positive values he holds up as national ideals.

158

Schuyler’s relationship with his wife, Josephine, illustrates these values and
provides further reinforcement of his rejection of race and racial solidarity. In a lengthy
autobiography, Schuyler does not devote much space to his wife. However, it is
symptomatic of his values that of the two sentences in which he addressed the cross-
racial nature of their relationship, the second full sentence reads, “She saw Negroes as I
saw whites, as individuals” (Mk and Conservartive 163). Furthermore, Schuyler spends
the remainder of the segment on his wife describing other specific attributes. While race
is directly addressed throughout the majority of the autobiography, Schuyler consciously
chooses to place the relationship with his wife largely outside of a racial context. They
are explicitly not race conscious, but rather relate to one other as individuals. Similarly,
Schuyler does not place his daughter in a racial context. Given Schuyler’s outspoken and
prolific non-fiction addressing interracial relationships, his surprising silence in his
autobiography seems to signal a desire to promote an individualism which transcends a
collective racial identity.

Schuyler and F anon both acknowledge a problem with black subjectivity brought
about by oppression and racism and, by exploring the way race is constructed, they hope
to bring about a world in which the concept of race becomes obsolete. In other words,
Schuyler and F anon are both race conscious, but not in the same way as Tucker. Schuyler
and Fanon see race consciousness as negative, something to be overcome, something
standing in the way of attaining individual freedom. Both authors do display a
sophisticated knowledge of the power of race “to shape human lives in very real ways” in
their texts (Tucker, "Can“ 148). Furthermore, that is Schuyler's and Fanon’s primary

theme in the texts discussed above. What nettles Tucker and confuses Fuss is the desire

159

of both men to be free of race completely, in all its manifestations, and the authors’,
perhaps idealistic, belief that the best, and only, way to bring this about is to act as if it
has already occurred. Barbara Jeanne Fields’ emphasis on the ideological basis of race
supports this racial rejection. Making a clear distinction between race and biology,
doctrine and ideology, Fields asserts:
race is neither biology nor an idea absorbed into biology by Lamarckian
inheritance. It is ideology, and ideologies. do not have lives of their own. Nor can
they be handed down or inherited: a doctrine can be [. . .] but not an ideology. If
race lives on today, it does not live on because we have inherited it from our
forebears of the seventeenth century or the eighteenth or nineteenth, but because
we continue to create it today. (117)
If humans did not continually “reinvent and re-ritualize” race in their daily lives, then, it
would cease to be a meaningful, powerful concept (Fields 118).49
There is no middle position on race for Schuyler and Fanon. The concept of race
was initially founded on biology so a cultural definition of race innately reveals the
falseness, the fiction of race. From a strictly rational or scientific vieWpoint, then, to
perpetuate race as a cultural concept is illogical and misleading.50 walter Benn Michaels
explains the ramifications of a middle position, one which acknowledges the cultural
basis of race but does not then reject race: “What it means, then, to accept the idea of
racial identity as a function of ‘purely social and cultural perceptions’ instead of as
biology is to accept the idea of racial identity as the codification of people’s mistake
about biology” (132). A scientist or person with a strictly logical, rational mind tends to

see race from this viewpoint and, therefore, would be hesitant to endorse it. Fanon, for

160

example, was a psychiatrist. Not coincidentally, Fanon joins Schuyler in mentioning
scientific experiments associated with skin pigmentationand modifications of biological
‘race’ in Black Skin, White Mm, and also dismisses them as false solutions (111).
While not a scientist by vocation, Schuyler was deeply interested in science and places
science/scientists at the heart of his fiction. It is not that Fanon and Schuyler necessarily
believed in some ideal of scientific rationalism, as Tucker suggests, but that there is a
connection between their idealistic and matter-of-fact response to race and their interest
in science. Believing in the fictiveness, the falseness of race, the same analytic and
factual turn of mind which attracted them to science prevents them from acting upon race
as if it were not constructed—perpetuating a (negative) fiction, to their minds. If race is a
fiction than it can have no positive manifestations.

In addition, Schuyler’s use of the science fiction genre would accentuate such a
scientific viewpoint, as well as a forward focus. As Darko Suvin notes, science fiction is
particularly interested in the “future-bearing elements from the empirical environment”
(7). Robert Scholes and Eric S. Rabkin assert that “because of their orientation toward
the future science fiction writers frequently assumed that America’s major problem in
[the racial] .area—black/white relations—would improve or even wither away” (188).
Within this context, “the matter of race [becomes] comparatively unimportant” (189).
While Schuyler continues to address race directly in his texts, the “what if” or speculative
element of science fiction allows Schuyler to imagine a contemporaneous world in which
. a scientific development radically undermines the meaningfulness of race—in theory and
in practice. Schuyler, then, more accurately portrays race in his fiction than it exists in

reality—the complete lack of (biological) anchoring and, therefore, the tremendous racial

161

variability. In concretizing the cultural basis of race, he highlights the illogical workings
of race in American society, as well as the extreme importance placed on race both then
and now.

This contradiction between factuality and importance explains the paradox at the
heart of much science fiction dealing with race. Like other contemporary sf writers who
utilize race as a literary theme, Schuyler radically undermines race from a scientific and
cultural standpoint. The paradox lies in Schuyler’s continued focus on race as his
primary literary topic even as he explicitly rejects it. The rational or scientific mindset
rejects the biological, or biological and cultural concepts of race. Furthermore, it exhibits
a forward-looking tendency which sees a future idealistically without race or one in

5 ' Disher’s decision to become

which race is a vehicle for individual expression alone.
white and then later to tan reflects such an individualistic interpretation of a culturally-
based concept of race. In such a context, race becomes like hairstyle or clothing
fashions; although grounded in collective social norms, it is used as an expression of a
person’s individual personality or subjectivity. In the next section, we will see a similar
utilization of race in Samuel R. Delany’s fiction. Schuyler, however, doesn’t use
science—in terms of scientific rationalism and/or the futuristic focus of the scientific and
sf communities—to optimistically eradicate racism or race. The contemporary reality of
race, in fact, counteracts this futuristic tendency of the scientific and sf communities, and
Schuyler and others are forced to continually address race. Therefore, in his writing,
Schuyler embodies this complex process of give-and-take whereby a scientific viewpoint

embodies both sides of racial rationalism—the factuality which rejects race and the

practicality which cannot deny its continued importance within a larger society. In

162

addition, these two sides of racial rationalism interact with the forward focus of a
scientific viewpoint and the overt or latent idealism usually embodied in such a focus. In
his oversimplification of Schuyler’s scientific beliefs, Tucker elides these complex and
contradictory impulses.

Schuyler’s combination of scientific interest, individualism, and racial
deconstruction suit the science fiction medium. Furthermore, Black No More actually '
embodies the two characteristics essential to the sf literary genre—cognition and
estrangement. However, Schuyler’s single categorization in the Afro-American literary
genre remains solid to this day. For example, the 1999 Modern Library Edition of 13ml;
No More lists “Afro-Americans—Fiction” and “Human skin color—Fiction” as the only
Library of Congress subject headings for the text. The literary history of Schuyler’s
texts, then, illustrates the very problem of racial identity and racial solidarity against
which he worked so tirelessly. Schuyler’s texts are categorized solely on the basis of
their racial theme and Schuyler’s own racial background. Similarly, the assimilationist
debates over Schuyler in African-American literary circles reveal not only the political
foundation of Schuyler criticism, but also its racial basis.

Conversely, a discussion of race has been, and in some cases continues to be,
viewed as antithetical to the sf genre. A glaring indication of this distinct separation is ‘
found in the lack of an entry for “Race” in the contemporary Encyclopedia of Science
Mon. Even the most current edition, published in 1995, subsumes race under the entry
on “Politics.” In the Introduction to Into Darkness Peering: Race and Color in the
Fantastic (1997), Elisabeth (Anne Leonard reveals that her motivation behind the

anthology was the lack of critical attention paid to race in the genres of “fantasy, science

163

fiction, and horror literature” (2). The collection of critical essays “is an attempt to break
that silence” (ibid). The sub-title of Philip E. Baruth’s article, included in the anthology,
directly addresses the elision of race in primary sf texts: “Why No One Mentions Race in
Cyberspace.” While Into Daerness Peering does not include an essay on Schuyler,
several contemporary sf and fantasy authors have attempted to give credit to Schuyler’s
early writings in the field. Samuel R Delany, for example, highlights Schuyler’s 131%
No More and recently discovered Black Empire serials in his brief review of his
predecessors in the field. Delany’s article, “Racism and Science Fiction,” appears
alongside several other critical articles on race in Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative
Fiction from the African Diaspora. Published in 2000, Dark Matter also includes the first
piece of Schuyler’s fiction to be published specifically in a sf (or speculative) context.
An excerpt from Black No More and a piece of short fiction by W.E.B. Du Bois, titled
“The Comet” (1920), appear with fictional works by contemporary authors such as
Delany, Octavia Butler, Charles R. Saunders, and Nalo Hopkinson. The editor of Dark
W, Sheree R. Thomas asserts that “[l]ike dark matter, the contributions of black.
writers to the sf genre have not been directly observed or fully explored” (xi). Therefore,
“[b]y uniting the works of the early pioneers in the field with that of established and
emerging new writers, [. . .Thomas hopes] the necessary groundwork for the discussion
. and examination of the ‘unobserved’ literary tradition has been laid” (xii). These two
recently published anthologies reveal the trend in science fiction towards a more open,
accurate, and critical representation of race.

Much work remains to be done, however. In Schuyler’s case, the criticism of I_nt_o

Da_r_kness Peering needs to be combined with the fiction of DarLMatter. Discussing

 

164

Schuyler’s sf connections results in both a more accurate portrayal of the sf field and a

more positive critical perspective on Schuyler. First, Schuyler’s novel, Black No More,

 

and serials, Blacfik Empire. together represent a substantial contribution to the sf field.
When Delany qualifies his title as “the first African-American science-fiction writer,” he
acknowledges Schuyler’s earlier work and the importance of its inclusion in larger sf
histories for an accurate understanding of the field (“Racism” 383). Similarly, Schuyler’s
works represents an early example of the overt ties between science fiction and race.
Schuyler begins to break down the traditional white triangle of author, protagonist, and
audience, as symbolized by Edgar Rice Burroughs. In this way, Schuyler highlights the
false universalism and racelessness of both the literary genre and the scientific discourse
(and community) with which it is connected.

Finally, a science fiction context affords a more accurate and positive reading of
Schuyler and his texts; rather than a political outcast, Schuyler becomes a generic and
theoretical pioneer. From a contemporary perspective, we can see how later writers, in
the sf field and beyond, have revised and expanded upon key elements of Schuyler’s
texts. In addition to the inversion of the racial triangle mentioned above, Schuyler’s texts
are early examples of a fragmentation of identity and a cultural construction of race.
Subsequent authors have taken Du Bois’ theory of double-consciousness for African-
Americans and expanded it dramatically through poststructuralist and postmodern
theories of subjectivity. Similarly, the contemporary critical debate over Schuyler’s
works reveals the controversy surrounding theories of racial construction. In his early

embrace of the science fiction genre and his exploration of complex, controversial, and

165

cutting-edge subjective theories, Schuyler serves as an intermediary stage for later racial

developments within the science fiction community.

166

 

I See the appendix for a chronological listing of Schuyler’s works and relevant criticism.

2 The 1991 republication of the two serials, BlacLErapire, contains a select annotated

bibliography of the stories Schuyler is known to have written, under his own name and

under pseudonyms, for the Pittsburgh Courier between 1933 and 1939. In total,

Schuyler wrote over “four hundred pieces of fiction “ for the 90111131 during the 19305

(Hill and Rasmussen 260).

3 “The Black Internationale” was published between November 21, 1936 and July 3,

1937. “The Black Empire” was published between October 2, 1937 and April ‘16, 1938

{B} lack Empire xvii).

4 Again, see the appendix for a chronological listing of Schuyler’s texts and the critical

responses to them.

5 In his article "Racism and Science Fiction," Samuel R. Delany expands on Du Bois’

positive review of Black No More (Delany, "Racism" 384). Du Bois’ assertion that the

text was “bound to be ‘abundantly misunderstood’” because it was a satire coincides with

Peplow’s discussion of the satiric nature of the text (qtd. in Delany, "Racism" 384)).

6 Of course, their personal viewpoints and political perspective are another large

component. My point is the strong tendenCy to write and publish criticism which

coincides with the larger political climate.

7 First publishing in the 1960s, Samuel Delaney is still the best known of these authors.
Octavia Butler joined him in the 19703.

8 That is not to say that Schuyler and his texts should not remain situated in the African-

American literary context as well. Ideally, his works will be discussed within multiple

167

 

contexts. Certainly his continued focus on race in the sf genre invites such multiple
readings.

9 The critical debate between Langston Hughes and Schuyler in the 19205 mirror this
latter debate. See note 29 below.

10A more thorough discussion of Schuyler’s racial revision in Black No More commences
on 125.

H Schuyler uses the new lens of science to discuss a concept utilized by other African-
American writers in works of fiction. For example, Nella Larsen’s Mg was
published just two years earlier, in 1929, at the tail—end of the Harlem Renaissance.
James Weldon Johnson’s influential fictional text, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored
Man, was published in 1912.

12 In this one paragraph, Schuyler quotes anthropologist Ruth Benedict.

’3 See Haraway’s 1989 text Primate Visions; Gender. Race. and Nature in the World of
Modern Science.

M See my discussion of Burroughs for a more detailed discussion of Haraway’s text and
its ties to adventure fiction and science fiction.

15 These include Donna Haraway’s Primate Visions and Nancy Stepan’s The Idea of
Race in Science: Graat Britain. 1800-1960. Also, T.F. Gossett’s Race: The History of an
Idea in America and George Stocking’s Rage. Culture. and Evolution.

’6 Herskovits was also a student of Boas’, along with Ruth Benedict and Zora Neale

Hurston (Hyatt xii).

168

 

‘7 See the “Heritage” chapter in Walter Benn Michaels’ Our AmericaL Nativismt
Modernism. and Pluralism for a discussion of Herskovits’ scholarly connection to
African-American studies in the first half of the twentieth century (123—35).

18 Nancy Stepan and Sander Gilman discuss the “rejection of scientific racism” by
African-Americans and Jews in “Appropriating the Idioms of Science: The Rejection of
Scientific Racism.” Acknowledging that this criticism took place largely outside the
scientific community and did not have a significant impact on scientific racism within the
field up to the 19305, the authors still emphasize that the work of dissenting African-

. Americans and Jews “created modes of representation and knowledge essential for the
stereotyped themselves” (103). Stepan and Gilman highlight W. E. B. Du Bois as one
such prominent dissenting voice.

19 Unfortunately, Gilman and Sander only address Boas and his resistance to scientific
racism in a footnote in their article, “Appropriating the Idioms of Science: The Rejection
of Scientific Racism” (74).

20 For example, in Duleof Dawn Du Bois writes, “[t]he main result of my schooling had
been to emphasize science and the scientific attitude” (50).

2’ See Doyle, Stepan and Gilman, and Beardsley, for example.

22 Thomas F. Gossett gives a more detailed examination of race, as a self-consciously
studied term, in the 18th and 19th centuries in Race: The History of an Idea in America.

23 See Gould.

24 According to. Tucker, the black conservatives, like Schuyler, are “attracted to claims of

objectivity and 'truth' because they lack a real constituency—among either blacks or

169 .

 

whites—and need some sort of tool to help them gain credibility” ("Can" 137). Such an
assessment elides the context of science and the norm of objectivity in the field.

‘5 Stepan and Gilman only mention Boas in a footnote, but his methods, viewpoints, and
works fit their criteria for resistance to scientific racism. Given Boas’ prominence and
influence, to which their footnote alludes, it is surprising they do not address his work
and its impact on the scientific community.

26 Subsequently published in Papers in Inter-Racial Problems Communicated to the First
Universal Races Congress Held at the University Iof London. July26-29.1911. Ginn and
Company, Boston, 191 1.

27 Boas presented his paper, “Instability of Human Types,” in the Second Session,
entitled “Conditions of Progress (General Problems)” (Spiller). Du Bois presented “The
Negro Race in the United States of America” in the Sixth Session, “The Modern
Conscience in Relation to Racial Questions (the Negro and the American Indian)”
(Spiller).

28 See pages 18-21.

29 See Langston Hughes’ “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” and Schuyler’s
“The Negro-Art Hokum.” Tucker also gives a summary of their arguments in his article
on Schuyler ("Can" 142).

3° Tucker concludes his essay on Schuyler with the assertion that, “[t]he recognition of
constitutive differences, not their denial, serves as a tool for black empowerment, and is
in turn a key Step toWard America’s realization of what Du Bois called the ‘ideal of
human brotherhood’” ("Can" 148). However, Rusty L. Monhollon’s discussion of race

relations in Lawrence, Kansas between 1969-1970 (also in Race Consciousness)

170

 

emphasizes the potentially divisive effects of ‘race consciousness.’ As African-
Americans “embraced Black Power,” "[t]he results, like American race relations in
general, were paradoxical. While it was empowering for blacks, it also contributed to a
polarization of the entire community along racial lines” (Monhollon 25 8). Monhollon’s
position is more closely aligned with that of Schuyler; both indict white racism but, at the
same time, do not see black race consciousness as a solution to American’s ‘race
problem.’ As Monhollon notes, “blacks and whites in America confront each other in a
society they have constructed together and in which they share a common history, as well
as similar religions, values, ideals, and cultures” (259). Monhollon and Schuyler stress
these political, social, and cultural similarities and see them as the key to an egalitarian
society. Schuyler’s additional focus on the physical, biological and genealogical,
commonality of blacks and whites only serves to further emphasize an artificial and false
nature for any racial concept and the error of race consciousness for blacks as well as
whites.

3’ See my discussion of Delany's Trouble on Triton (266-77) for a more thorough
discussion of Sam.

32 Hill and Rasmussen provide a brief discussion of Dr. Belsidus’ relationship with
Gaskin (282-3). I am indebted to them forhighlighting this particular quote.

33 See Hill and Rasmussen for Schuyler’s apparent endorsement of this stereotype (282).
34 In the second half of this quotation, Peplow quotes from Joyce Nower. However, he
does not document this source further, either in an in-text citation or in a bibliography.

35 As we shall see, Samuel Delany’s protagonist in Trouble on Triton, Bron Helrnstrom,

is also an anti-hero. However, his anti-hero characteristics are, overall, more negative.

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Bron is not only selfish, but also relatively cowardly and powerless. In contrast to Disher
and Belsidus, Bron does not know how race operates in his society, nor does he
understand how to manipulate the social norms of his culture to his advantage. A5 a
white male, Bron does not‘feel a compulsion or see the necessity of learning more about

99 6‘

these norms. Robert Elliot F ox, for example, labels Bron an “antihero, given the extent
to which he is (unwittingly) a self-antagonist” (“Politics” 49). Bron does not overcome
racial oppression, by any means necessary, but succumbs to neurosis despite his
egalitarian position in Triton society. See 255-63 for more on Bron and 269-71 for a
specific comparison and contrast of Bron and Disher.

36 Belsidus seems to manipulate the sexual aspects of a cultural concept of race; like
Ralph Ellison’s invisible man, white women seem to be continually attracted to him and
he, in turn, never expresses an interest in women-of-color.

37 Kink-No-More is a historically real product.

38 The ethnicity of the doctor and engineer highlights the connections between African-
Americans and other groups oppressed due to ‘race.’ In practice, the Japanese were often
associated with the Chinese, the first group to be legally excluded from the United States
on the basis of race (1882). The Chinese and Japanese joined Jews, Italians, and Eastern
European immigrants more generally to make up the so-called New Immigration (1880-
1920). The New Immigrants were categorized as racially different and inferior from
earlier groups of immigrants to the New World—English, French, Dutch, and even the
Irish, for example. Of course, a common denominator between the new immigrant

groups, besides time period, was darker skin and hair color. The anti-immigration

movement culminated in the Immigration Act of 1924, which effectively cut off

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immigration from these new areas, while allowing large quotas for the countries of origin
for the older immigrant groups. See my discussion of Burroughs for more on the New
Immigration and the Immigration Restriction Movement.

39 Hill and Rasmussen make a similar point in the context of the BlackLEmpire serials
(267).

4° Fuss gives a usefirl summary of Joyce A. Joyce’s critique of what Joyce calls “the
poststructuralist sensibility” and its application to the field of African-American literature
(Fuss 77). Joyce’s Afro-centric critical position was expressed in two articles in flaw

9

Literary History: “The Black Canon: Reconstructing Black American Literary Criticism’

 

And “’Who the Cap Fit’: Unconsciousness and Unconscionableness in the Criticism of
Houston A. Baker, Jr. and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.”

4’ While Du Bois’ language here does not explicitly define “American” as ‘white,’ the
following passage clarifies his racial intention: the “American Negro [. . .] would not
Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would
not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro
blood has a message for the world” (S_or$ 9).

’2 Crookman summarizes the process as follows: "it is accomplished by electrical
nutrition and glandular control. Certain gland secretions are greatly stimulated while
others are considerably diminished" (Black No More 13).

43 John M. Reilly identifies Walter Williams as Walter White (107).

4" Reilly more generally discusses Black No More as a dystopia, or “anti-utopia” (107)
He does not specifically address multiple subjectivity as one aspect of Schuyler’s

negative perspective.

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45 As Tucker accurately notes, “[a]] satire is by definition a humorous critique intended to
behavior or thinking” ("Can" 143).
46 In his introduction to the 1990, Library of America edition of The Souls of Black Folk,
John Edgar Wideman identifies this potential for change as a primary element of Du
Bois’ text as well:
The color line raises the issue of identity. Theirs. Yours. Mine. Will we blend,
change, survive, or is the color line one more measure of the limits of our
collective imagination, our cultural graveyard of either/or terminal distinctions:

. black/white, male/female, young/old, good/bad, rich/poor, sprit/flesh? It is
possible to imagine ourselves other than we are, better? These are the
monumental questions reverberating in The Souls of Black Folk, matters
unresolved by the last one hundred years, which have tumbled us, bloody and
confused, onto the threshold of the twenty-first century. (xiii) I

Wideman’s “imagination” corresponds with the speculative element of sf also.

47 Hill and Rasmussen assert, "Intellectually, Schuyler held out for a distinctly non-
racialist view of t he world" (297). They quote fiom his 1937 Views & Reviews editorial
column in the Pittsburgh Courier to support this assessment: "'Personally, I am opposed
to Worship of things Nordic as I am of things Negroid'" (ibid).

48 Du Bois too rejects an "either-or" proposition (F anon 203). However, his alternative
differs from that of Schuyler in that he seeks to simultaneously maintain both a black and
a white consciousness: "[t]he history of the American Negro is the history of this
strife,——this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a

better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost [. . .].

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He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American"
(5.031; 9)-

49 Like Schuyler, Fanon, and Appiah, Fields highlights the negative power of race.

50 This is, of course, where Appiah’s critique of Du Bois comes into play. In Qrfilggf
Dawn, Du Bois attempts to rationally and logically substitute a strictly cultural definition
of race for the original biological foundation. As Appiah reveals, an illogical argument
results. i

5’ See my discussion of Delany for more on the idealistic elision of race in science fiction

and Delany’s individualist use of race.

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THE SUBJECT OF RACE IN AMERICAN SCIENCE FICTION
VOLUME II
By

Sharon DeGraw

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of English

2004

D_el_any’s DifferenceQ

In his 1999 essay “Racism and Science Fiction,” Samuel R. Delany writes of his
discomfiture with the oft-given title of “the first African-American science-fiction writer”
(3 83). In order to give a mOre accurate portrayal of the early contributions of Afiican-
Americans to 5f, Delany briefly highlights the “proto-science fiction” writers M.P. Shiel
and Martin Delany and the early alternate histories of Sutton E. Griggs and Edward
Johnson (3 83-4). Delany also includes a lengthier review of George S. Schuyler’s
twentieth-century texts (3 84—6). This brief literary history reveals Delany’s desire to
reform the sf community and its relationship to race; it is a first, small step towards
opening up the field of sf to be more inclusive. While Delany acknowledges the
generally liberal atmosphere of the sf community, he speaks of his experiences during his
40 year career in order to highlight how race and racism operate even within this liberal
environment (3 86). He ends with specific suggestions to “combat racism in science
fiction” (396):

That means actively encouraging the attendance of nonwhite readers and writers

at conventions [. . .,] actively presenting nonwhite writers with a forum to discuss

precisely these problems [. . ., and] encouraging dialogue among, and encouraging

intermixing with, the many sorts of writers who make up the sf community. It

means supporting those traditions. (397)
Delany’s racial history, narratives, and call for action intermingle in his article, published
in a 20001anthology, DarkMatter: a Centurv of Speculative Fiction from the African

Diaspora. Here Delany’s fiction joins that of Schuyler and W. E. B. Du Bois,

complementing the historical revision Delany sketches in his essay. Likewise, the non-

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fiction section of Dark Matter is a written “forum” for non-white writers to discuss the
“problems” associated with race in the science fiction community. More broadly, one
goal of such an anthology must be to expand the “non-white readers” of sf and, of course,
publishing these texts encourages non-white writers of sf as well, especially the younger
and/or relatively unknown authors. In the introduction, editor Sherre R. Thomas writes,
“It is my sincere hope that Dark Matter will help shed light on the sf genre, that it will
correct the misperception that black writers are recent to the field, and that it will
encourage more talented writers to enter the genre” (xi). Dark Matter, then, in many
ways embodies the corrective spirit DelanyI discusses in “Racism and Science Fiction.”
The 2000 publication date is an auspicious sign of a more inclusive century of science
fiction to come. Yet, Delany baldly titles his essay “Racism and Science Fiction” with
good reason. Whether past, present, or future, the “racism” of science fiction must be
addressed in order for the science fiction community to truly come-of-age and realize its
full potential.

Delany’s fictional and non-fictional inclusion in Dark Matter illustrates his
foundational, pivotal, and still central role in the sf community, particularly in its
relationship to race. First, Delany entered the sf field and worked for 9 years as the sole
publishing Afiic'an-American writer of sf (“Racism” 386). From 1962 to 1971, he
published nine full-length fictional texts, Several of which won Nebula Awards.l During
the1970’s, Delany expanded the field of his writing to include criticism and fantasy.2 To
date he has published seven volumes of criticism and two autobiographical texts.3 In
addition, no less than four full-length critical texts have been written about Delany and

I ' his oeuvre.4 In Samuel R. Dela_ny (1984), Seth McEvoy summarizes Delany’s career as

177

follows: “Delany went from being a middle-class black youth in Harlem to become one
of the top ten best selling science fiction writers by the age of 40” (11). Finally, Delany
has been a teacher, writer-in-residence, speaker, and guest-of-honor, etc. at too many
campuses, conferences, and conventions to name.5 Yet, even as Delany is a prominent
member of the sf community, the steady divide between the African-American literary
genre and the sf field has prevented his reciprocal acknowledgement in “the mainstream
forums of Black Studies” (Freedman 160).6 In other words, his popular and critical
position is Schuyler’s inverse. Therefore, Delany’s literary career provides an excellent
heuristic tool for investigating the relationship‘between 5f and race after Schuyler’s
career.

Like Schuyler, Delany promotes a form of individuality. However, rather than
rejecting race altogether as a meaningful term, Delany uses the freedom of individuality
to work in a genre which was not only not associated with African-Americans, but also is
still marginalized from mainstream fiction. In “Meet Samuel R. Delany, Black Science
Fiction Writer” (1979), for example, Michael W. Peplow explains the impetus behind his
article: “Just over six months ago, a student in my black literature seminar asked me if
there were any Afro-Americans who write SF (science fiction).‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘but
I’ll find out’” (115). Similarly, Jeffrey A. Tucker shares a contemporary experience
which illuStrates the continued division of sf and African-American literature. After
being questioned by an uncle on the subject of his graduate work, Tucker writes, “his
words indicated that for many people—black as well as white—science fiction and
Afiican-American culture are mutually exclusive” (“Racial”). Delany’s career must be

placed with this divisive context, with its racial expectations, in order to understand how

178

unusual was his initial entrance and lengthy participation in the sf genre. In his
discussion of Delany’s first sf novel, McEvoy chronicles Delany’s earlier, non-sf writing
and his participation in a Breadloaf Writers Conference. 7. McEvoy concludes,”[o]ne
would have expected such a ‘young, gifted, and black’ writer to go on to become a
member of the ‘literary’ establishment” (19). During this time period, Delany would
have been expected to “become a member” of a particular segment of this literary
establishment as well—the African-American literary community. Once race is added to
the mixture, a ‘pull’ towards the realism and race consciousness of African-American
literature makes Delany’s choice of genre even more unusual. Likewise, the
simultaneous Anglo-centrism and racial elision of science fiction could ‘push’ away
people-of-color. Within this racial context, Delany’s prominent career in the sf genre
resonates with additional meaning. First, his entrance into the sf community in the
1960’s highlights the long-time stability of the (white)racial triangle of
author/protagonist/audience in the sf genre. Conversely, Delany’s use of science, science
fictional forms and conventions, and poststructuralist theories offers a challenge to more
traditional theories of African-American literature and culture. Over time, Delany’s
groundbreaking and influential work in the sf genre has opened up the field, allowing for
more diverse writers and texts. He has brought sf several steps closer to realizing its full
potential as the literature of possibility.
With his first published text, The Jewels of Aptor (1962), Delany continued the

breakdown of the racial triangle began by Schuyler and the other writers he listed in
“Racism and Science Fiction.” While Schuyler introduced a black protagonist to the sf

genre in the 19305, his audience was primarily African-American. A racial triangle was

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maintained, simply changing racial affiliation. After Schuyler, the trio of Edgar Rice
Burroughs, John Carter, and Anglo male teenagers remained the overwhelming norm in
the sf genre. It was not until Delany’s emergence in the early 19605 that the authorial
element of the racial triangle changed significantly within the sf literary community and
more diverse protagonists, and other characters, became increasingly commonplace. In
“Racism and Science Fiction,” for example, Delany writes of his experience at the 1968
Nebula Awards Banquet. While Delany won two Nebula Awards that evening, he (along
with other ‘new’ writers like Roger Zelazny) faced opposition to his ‘experimental’ or
more complex writing style. Within this tense environment, Isaac Asimov told Delany in
an aside, “You know, Chip, we only voted you those awards because you’re Negro. ..1”
(390). Delany first acknowledges the good intentions underlying Asimov’s comment,
but then goes on to verbalize the other meaning inherent in such a statement:
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. Don’t you ever
forget it. . .! And I never have. (390-1)
Delany’s take on race consciousness is negative here. Rather than a voluntary or
personal identification and a source of pride and enrichment, race consciousness is
portrayed as an involuntary, pervasive, and external evaluative tool. It is used by others

to judge Delany, regardless of the contextual warrant. Not surprisingly, then, Delany’s

praise for the generally liberal and “permeable” environment of the sf community (in

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comparison to the mainstream literary community) emphasizes its sensitivity to overt
racial labeling.8 In his 1979 article, Michael W. Peplow wrote, “[a]fter finding so few
references to color in the anthologies of science fiction, I had assumed that [Delany’s]
color must be a closely guarded secret” (119). Delany denied Peplow’s assumption and
explained instead, “The SF publishing industry ‘is largely Jewish, liberal, and rooted in
the tradition sometimes referred to as “30’s left.”’ The editors have ‘known their share of
prejudice [. . .] and they’re not anxious to be caught perpetuating it’” (Peplow 119).9

. Delany’s comments here underscore his desire to be viewed as a science fiction writer
first and foremost, rather than a black writer. Such an attitude highlights his published
(public) texts and not his (personal) racial status.

I Delany’s inclusive racial attitude was essential to the success of his early career in
the sf field. Not only did Delany face discrimination as a black writer, but also he had to
struggle against the racist norms of the generic conventions. Had he challenged these >
norms too directly or revised them radically, at this early stage, his texts would not have
'been published in the sf genre. Robert Elliot Fox’s comparison between Delany and
LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka and Ishmael Reed is instructive here. Fox contra5ts Delany
with the other two writers within the African-American literary tradition because “while
race is a factor in the worlds of Delany’s fiction, it is not a foregrounded concern”
(Conscientious X). Likewise, Emerson Littlefield asserts that “Delany is assuredly not a
one-dimensional ‘black writer,’ that is to say, a writer concerned only with racial identity,
revenge motives, and expressing the frustrations of the oppressed. His fiction is too

humane and too rich for so simpleminded an interpretation” (238). In a complex process

181

of give-and-take, then, Delany subtly and slowly revised elements of the traditional
white, male, heroic protagonist of sf.

Delany utilized several strategies to walk this racial tightrope. In his first
published novel, The Jewels of Aptor (1962), Delany begins with the traditional quest
convention and a seemingly traditional hero, Geo. Yet, as Seth McEvoy notes, the
reader’s expectations are quickly baffled: "[t]he dramatic tension in The Jewels of Aptor
does not follow the traditional quest form. The tension (involving the quest for the
jewels) rises at first, but begins to fall at the mid-point. Geo does not really achieve the
goal of getting the jewels by himself. [. . .] Nearly everything in the second half of the
book is done for Geo; he does nothing” (15). Therefore, Geo does not embody the
independence and agency or the active nature of a traditional sf hero. Delany also
includes a diverse cast of characters in his text+male and female, multi-racial, and alien.
In The Fall of the Towers trilogy (1963-65), for example, Delany’s nominal protagonist,
Jon Koshar, is an Anglo male who undergoes a fairly traditional quest though the course
'of the texts.10 However, he is joined in his journey by two other characters, equally
important to success: a white duchess named Petra and a dark-skinned giant named
Arkor. The traditional male protagonist’s monolithic heroism, then, becomes a
Collective, cooperative endeavor. Furthermore, in their fight against an alien villain
called the Lord of the Flames, the three characters continually change worlds and asSume
the identities of alien life forms. In his critical study of The Fall of the Towers, George
Edgar Slusser rightly asks, “is this a tale of one hero, two adversaries, or three races?”
(18). Delany replaces the traditional white male hero altogether in Babel-17 (1966),

introducing a heroic female protagonist named Rydra Wong. In fact, when discussing his

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early works, Delany emphasizes more his conscious attempt to revise sexist roles and
characterization for women than racial stereotypes.ll

- With his seventh and eighth novels, The Einstein Intersection (1967) and Nga
(1968), however, Delany directly tackles the racial norms for sf protagonists. In one of
the few critical texts to deal specifically with race in Delany’s fiction, “The Mythologies
of Race and Science in Samuel Delany’s the Einstein Intersection and Nova, ” Emerson
Littlefield argues that Delany’s characterization embodies a new “Afio-American
mythology which began to emerge in the literature of the twentieth century” (235).
Basically, the new mythology reverses the white represents good/black represents evil
dichotomy of Western culture (235-6).12 Littlefield finds such a reversal. in the darker-
skinned protagonist of The Einstein Intersection, Lobey, and Lorq von Ray, the mulatto '
protagonist of Ma. “Further, and more importantly, each of these characters is
engaged in mortal combat with an oppressor who is not only inhumanly vicious but
almost inhumanly white”—Kid Death and Prince Red (Littlefield 236). At this point,
Delany’s racial revisions stretched the protagonist past the breaking point for the “famous
sf editor of Analog magazine, John W. Campbell, Jr. Campbell rejected it, [. . .]
explaining that while he liked pretty much everything else about it, he didn’t feel his
readership would be able to relate to a black main character” (“Racism” 387).. In this
Way, editorsand publishers could use the largely young, white male readership of sf to
justify the focus on Anglo-European characters, particularly the centrality of the Anglo
male hero to 5f texts. However, Littlefield qualifies his racial analysis of Delany’s texts
by claiming that “his heroes tend to represent a careful blending of racial strains: Lobey

is brown-skinned and red-haired[. . .] ; Lorq von Ray is a red-haired mulatto; and Rydra

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Wong of Babel-1 7 is racially mixed” (238). Furthermore, "[i]n the plot structures of the
novels themselves, [. . .] the characters seem completely unaware of any racial tension and
hardly aware of any racial differences” (ibid). With these qualifications, Littlefield
highlights the racially (and gender) inclusive nature of Delany’s fiction and the strictness
of the racial norms in the genre, since even Delany’s modest revisions were rejected.
When he creates race-specific characters without a race-driven plot, Delany
employs a relatively common strategy in sf that deal with race. Robert Scholes and Eric
S. Rabkin offer Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers (1959) and Ursula Le Guin’s lh_e
Left Hand of Darkness (1969) as other prominent examples (188-9). In both these cases,
the male protagonists have dark skin, but no reference is made to their race and it plays
no overt role in the story. Scholes and Rabkin describe this strategy as a “tacit attack on
racial stereotyping [. . .which] has allowed science fiction to get beyond even ‘liberal’
attitudes, to make stereotyping itself an obsolete device and the matter of race
comparatively unimportant” (189). Several factors make the sf authors’ subtle and
dismissive racial attitude possible. First, as previously mentioned, “because of their
orientation toward the future science fiction writers frequently assumed that America’s
major problem in this area—black/white relations—would improve or even wither away”
(Scholes and Rabkin 188). Also, “[t]he presence of unhuman races, aliens, and robots,
certainly makes the differences between human races seem appropriately trivial” (ibid).
The speculative element of sf, then, tends to highlight the collective human race rather
than a multitude of human races, human commonality rather than difference. Campbell’s

rejection of Nova clearly illustrates the necessity of such inclusive strategies in the sf .

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community. Campbell’s position is clarified by an exchange between Octavia Butler and
an unnamed editor at a convention. In a Black Scholar interview, Butler relates that
[she] was sitting next to the editor of a magazine that no longer exists and he was
also doing some science fiction stories. He said that he didn’t think that blacks
should be included in science fiCtion stories because they changed the character of
the stories; that if you put in a black, all of a sudden the focus is on this person.
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.
(“B1ack”1 8)
Similar to Delany’s experience at the Nebula Awards ceremony, the editor perceives a
black character as representative of a racial group first and foremost, and as an artist,
space adventurer, or politician second. The pervasiveness of such ideological stances
underlay Schuyler’s desire to be seen as an individual, rather than as a member of a racial
group, as well as his denial of any pathology related to race. In suppressing this type of
collective racial identification, Heinlein, Le Guin, and Delany can place a member of a
historically (and generically) marginal racial group in the normative position. In other
words, the authors give the black character the privileged position, which includes the
ability to elide race because no negative connotations or oppression are involved.
Potential drawbacks surface with such racial subtlety, however. First, readers
might miss small racial clues in the description of a character, especially if it is not part of
the larger plot. The largely white audience of sf, combined with the generic convention
of an Anglo male hero, only increases the possibility of such a misreading. Even when

authors directly address a character’s race within a text, an illustration on the cover can

185

mislead readers. For example, Octavia Butler discusses the African-American ancestry
of her heroine, Lilith Iyapo, on numerous occasions in the Xenogenesis trilogy.l3 Yet,
the infamous illustration on the cover of 2mg (the first novel in the trilogy) shows an
Anglo woman performing the exact action of the heroine within the text.14 Furthermore,
the scene chosen for the illustration has this Anglo Lilith standing, looking down (with
her jumper unzipped revealingly), and peeling back a cover from the naked body of a
reclining Anglo woman. This sexually-charged image was clearly chosen to appeal to the
stereotypically young, white male audience of 5f.l5 Without a careful reading of the text,
however, any reader could be easily thrown off by this first impression of the book.16
More importantly, if race is “relatively unimportant,” some members of the sf community
feel it need not be addressed at all (Scholes and Rabkin 189). Butler’s editor from the
convention, for example, went on to suggest that black characters could be transformed
into aliens as a means of avoiding the whole “racial problem” (“Black” 18). For this
reason, Edward James questions Scholes and Rabkins’ overall positive interpretation of
the manifestation of race in sf: “[a] cynic might wonder [. . .] [whether the latent
xenophobia of so many members of the human race—including .SF writers—has not been
transferred from the human to the alien” (“Y ellow” 28). James joins Gary K. Wolfe in
pinpointing robots and monsters as potential dnguises for the Otherness of race (James,
“Yellow” 28).17 Within this context,“deciding whether the Other—an alien, a robot, an
android—is actually intended as a metaphor is a crucial problem” (James, “Yellow” 39).
At this point, the ‘problem” is of a different nature for a race conscious reader.
When racial discourse is so disguised that it is a matter of conjecture whether race is the

intended topic, the question becomes moot for readers who value collective racial

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identity. The general elision of a black perspective and the normative white perspective
of most sf, both embodied in the traditional Anglo male hero, would repel race conscious
blacks, for example. As fantasy writer Charles R. Saunders noted in a 1984 interview,
“until recently there wasn’t much in science fiction and fantasy for black readers to
identity with” (Bell 91). More specifically, Saunders explains that up to the late 19705
“science fiction was still in. the process of fieeing itself from the grasp of its so—called
Golden Age in the 19305 —19505, when hard science was a king whose court was closed
to blacks. And fantasy was still fiozen in an amber of Celtic and Arthurian themes”
(“Why” 399). Similarly, when asked “[w]hy is science fiction a literary form that black
and female writers have not sufficiently explored?”, Octavia Butler responded that “part
of the reason [. . .] is that science fiction began as a boy’s genre. So it was white, it was
adolescent and it involved a particular kind of adolescent best described as a nerd. So this
did not make it popular with blacks or adults or women for quite a long time” (“Black”
16). Furthermore, since most sf authors spring from sf readers, a vicious cycle is
perpetuated.18 In addition to the racial characterization in and racist image of sf, several
other factors combined to repel many black readers from the genre.

The common interplanetary setting of sf extends or severs the connection to Earth
and, therefore, race as it has historically functioned. The alternate history sub-genre of sf
sometimes breaks the connection to terrestrial concepts of race as well. Basically the
function of sf as a ‘literature of possibility,’ whether through space or time ruptures, can
result in a complete disavowal of race and usually necessitates a modification of race at
minimum. In Delany’s The Ballad of Beta-2 (1965), for example, a multi-racial and

ethnic group of humans evolves, over centuries spent in outer space, into a culturally and

187

physically regressive ‘race’—the Star Folk. In contrast, Delany’s Dhalgren (1975) takes
place in an alternate present, in an American city and maintains linguistic and cultural
connections to historical human races.19 For some Anglo writers, like Edgar Rice
Burroughs, only in breaking the connection to Earth and terrestrial history can more
egalitarian relationships be envisioned. However, for many people-of-color this
disassociation denies a basic element of their subjectivity and elides the lived reality of
their day-to-day life. In addition, a (racial) history of collective oppression, survival, and
victories disappears entirely or is submerged within a larger terrestrial history.20 While
the privilege of Anglo (especially male) writers allows them to ignore race, members of
oppressed groups usually feel they cannot Or should not attempt to deny the importance
of race as a vital factor, as the virulent criticism of Schuyler reveals. Furthermore,
within the (common and false) universalism of the Anglo male perspective in sf, the
cultural specificity of particular racial groups would not be recognized. This general
elision and/or modification of race in sf combines to create a radical deconstruction of
race. For writers interested in a collective racial identity, these generic deconstructions
are only compounded by the scientific, poststructuralist, and postmodern theories gaining
precedence in the second half of the twentieth century.
' The field of African-American studies offers an excellent site to explore these
racial tensions and ideological conflicts. In a synopsis of the poststructuralist debate
within Afiican-American Studies during the 19805, Diana Fuss describes a “mainstream
of contemporary Afro-American criticism” (85), “concerned with preserving the
‘authentic’ nature of the Afro-American text. All are wary that a preoccupation with

language will de-nature black literature and culture, detach the text from its cultural roots.

188

All attempt, in other words, to hold fast to the bedrock of essentialism” (86). 2’ Fuss
highlights the particularly strong resistance of female black critics to “renounc[ing]
essentialist critical positions and humanist literary practices” (94-5). Within this context,
Fuss discusses the controversy surrounding three contemporary male critics who utilize
poststructuralist theory in the field of African-American studies: Anthony Appiah, Henry
Louis Gates, Jr., and Houston A. Baker, Jr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., in particular, has
born the brunt of the critical heat due to his “interest in the sign ‘black’ and its discursive
production in literary texts” (85). Even Baker has attacked Gates for his editorial
acceptance of “subtle and searching modes of ‘reading”’ in the anthology “Rag:
Writing,_and Difference (Baker 383). According to Baker,
what Gates intends by “reading” is a transcendent academic (rationalist?)
discourse which escapes pitfalls of error and anachronism not through its devotion
to the ‘Wemacular” but rather through its allegiance to putatively achievable and
supposedly empirical “scientific” models. In a sense (but not a cruel one), I am
suggesting that Gates remains a prisoner to the Enlightenment dualism that he
debunks at the outset of his introduction. (ibid)
Fuss, hoWever, corrects Baker’s oversimplification of Gates’ linguistic position here,
reasserting Gates’ promotion of both the vernacular and theoretical/academic discourse
(89). Further, Fuss notes the similar auditory essentialism of Baker and Gates in their
emphasis on the black vernacular, as well as the scanty use of the vernacular in their own
writings:
What we see in the work of both Gates and Baker is a romanticization of the

vernacular. As their detractors are quick to point out, each of these critics speaks

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about the black vernacular but rarely can they be said to speak in it[. . .]. A
powerful dream of the vernacular motivates the work of these two Afro-
Americanists, perhaps because, for the professionalized literary critic, the
vernacular has already become irrevocably lost. What makes the vernacular (the
language of “the folk”) so powerful a theme in the work of both Gates and Baker
is precisely the fact that it operates as a phantasm, a hallucination of lost origins.

It is in the quest to recover, reinscribe, and revalorize the black vernacular that

essentialism inheres in the work of two otherwise anti-essentialist theorists. The

key to blackness is not visual but auditory [. . .]. (90)

In a field founded on a collective racial identity, then, even the most extremely ‘liberal’
critics promote a form of racial essentialism. The need to justify racial identity is so
strong that these critics “hallucinate” an authentic racial past that can be recovered.

In a footnote within his chapter on Delany, Carl Freedman briefly acknowledges
Delany’s neglect by the African-American literary community and attributes it to the
pervasive marginalization of the sf genre (160). However, within the critical context
sketched above, a multitude of other factors surface. In addition to the generic
conventions already mentioned, Delany’s generaluse of language does not meet the
prescribed requirements for African-American literature or criticism. Furthermore,
Delany’s reliance on scientific, poststructuralist, and pOstmodem theories conflicts with
the general promotion in the African-American literary community of a collective racial
ideal. The heated level of the debate within the community highlights the extent to which
such theories threaten a genre or field founded on a collective racial identity, like

African-American literature or Black Studies. This racial repulsion is only strengthened

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by Delany’s own individualism and his desire to be seen as a writer of science fiction first
and foremost and a black writer secondarily.
The Alternatives

Delany’s autobiography, The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction
Writingin the East VillageJS7-l965. chronicles his early life and’his entrance into the
science fiction community. The years covered follow Delany from approximately the
age of 15 to 23. During this relatively short time period, Delany wrote and published a
substantial portion of his oeuvre, including The Jewels of Aptor (1962), The Fall of the
lam trilogy (1963-65), The Ballad of Beta-2 (1965), Babel-l7 (1966), and Ih_e
Einstein Intersection (1967). The Motion of Light in Water gives us a historical, social,
and personal context for these texts. For example, Delany explains the connection
between The Fall of the Towers trilogy and the Vietnam conflict and the emerging
Women’s Movement. This historical background is necessary because of the “cognitive
estrangement” of Delany’s science fiction. Although Delany later examines the turbulent
period of the 19605 in great detail and with little speculative distance in Dhalgr_en (1975),
his early works utilize the estrangement techniques of time and space to discuss
contemporary issues. For example, The Ballad of Beta-2 addresses both science and race
through the novum of galactic anthropology. However, its chronological and spacial
distance obscures its connection to the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements of the
19505 and 605. As a result, The Ballad of BLta-g garners little attention within the sf
community. Slusser, for. example, ignores the text completely in his critical evaluation of
Delany’s early career. McEvoy very briefly discusses the text, but asserts that “The

Ballad of Beta-2 must count among Delany’s minor work,” and that “[i]ts significance

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here is chiefly as a good example of how important texts are to Delany’s entire output”
(46). However, in addition to this linguistic focus, The Ballad of Beta-2 illustrates
Delany’s melding of the racial analysis of African-American literature and the cognitive
estrangement of science fiction. As a result, his texts must be placed within the literary
contexts of both fields to reveal the texts’ revisionist nature and Delany’s underlying
individuality. Specifically comparing The Ballad of Betfl with representative texts
from science fiction and African-American literature will illustrate Delany’s difference(s)
more concretely.

Robert A. Heinlein’s oeuvre offers a fruitful Site of comparison for Delany’s early
works. First, Heinlein is a productive, critically-acclaimed, and popular sf author. He
also represents the older, more traditional generation of science fiction writers, whose
works Delany, Zelazny, and others were trying to revise during the 19605. In this
context, Heinlein provides a specific example of Delany’s revisionist attitude. Delany
frequently uses Heinlein’s works as representative examples for his science fiction theory
and criticism, and he validates Heinlein’s use of race in Starship Troopers (1959).
However, Delany also revises Heinlein’s protagonists and engages in an ideological
dialogue with his texts. 22 In his introduction to Heinlein’s Glog Road (1963), Delany
summarizes his paradoxical and influential relationship with Heinlein through a
comparison: “Marx’s favorite novelist was Balzac—who was an avowed Royalist. And
Heinlein is one of mine” (xii). Heinlein, “as much as any writer while [Delany] was
growing up, taught [him] to argue with the accepted version” (ibid). In a 1990 Causing
interview, Delany explains his revisionist, but not “revolutionary,” attitude towards

science fiction: “What I am doing in almost all my books is the genre equivalent of

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‘gender bending.’ That’s how all genres expand, progress, survive. It’s a paradox that
when the results look most revolutionary, that’s'when the writer is most attending to the
tradition” (Sign; 226). Furthermore, Delany claims that any attempt to portray him as
somehow fighting against the genre from which [he] draw[s] all [his] sustenance,
inspiration, and strength is doomed to the same sorts of mystification that we are
all too familiar with: the argument that sees every successful black as one who has
successfully fought—or fought down—the socially detrimental factors that make
all blacks into muggers, thieves, drug addicts, prostitutes, and sociopaths. (226-
27)
This specific racial context or comparison, unusual in Delany’s criticism as a whole,
paradoxically emphasizes Delany’s individuality. Critics who emphasize an adversarial
or “revolutionary” position within the genre imply an exceptional or ‘abnormal’ position
as well. Therefore, Delany’s strenuous resistance to such a reading reveals a desire to be
taken on the merits of his thematically conservative or traditional science fiction and not
his ‘exceptional’ or marginal race within the sf community (_S_il_er_11 225).23 He places
himself squarely and fixedly within the traditions of the science fiction genre and in
specific contrast to more “radical writers in SF terms” (227). Likewise, Delany stresses
thematic and/or linguistic connections between his works and that of other sf writers over
(authorial) racial similarities.
Comparing Delany’s 1965 text, The Ballad of Betatg, with Heinlein’s 1964 text, 1
F amham’s Freehold. overtly supports Delany’s claims of generic conventionality.
Although Heinlein utilizes a time discontinuum in Famham’s Freehold, he openly

focuses on white/black race relations. As we shall see, such a topic is closer to African-

193

American literary texts during this time period than {other science fiction texts.24
However, Eamham's Freehold also highlights the racial stereotyping Delany helped to
revise within the science fiction genre. The positive white isolationism depicted in
Mam’s Freehold contrasts with the racial hybridity promoted by Delany in The Ballad
of Beta-2. According to the dust jacket, Famham’s Freehold is “Science F iction’s Most
Controversial Novel.” Writing in 1979, Delany asserts that “Famham ’s Freehold has
sustained an almost constant attack” since its publication in 1964 (Introduction xi). The
controversy around the novel springs from both its unusually direct and detailed focus on
race and Heinlein’s conservative politics. As Delany notes, “[o]ur argument is never
with the truth value of Heinlein’s syllogism[but] with the premises: Since P, Q, R are not
the situation of the present world, why constantly pick fictional situations, bolstered by
science fictional distortions, to justify behavior that is patently inappropriate for the real
world?” (Introduction xii). In his discussion of race, Heinlein overtly reveals the Anglo-
centrism underlying the genre. Delany writes that “Heinlein’s novels have inspired a
small'b’ibliography of novel-length responses” and that these texts “give some indication
of how relevant Heinlein’s arguments continue to appear, even to those who diSagree-
with them” (Introduction vii). While Delany does not specifically list his own “novel-
length responses” to Heinlein’s texts, The Ballad of Beta-2 can be placed within this
context, as well as Delany’s later novel Trouble on Triton (1976).25 The BaLlakl of Betty;
may be thematically more traditional than Famham’s Freehold. then, but it also embodies
an ideological revision of Heinlein’s text.

Similar to its neglected position with sf, The Ballad of Beta-2 is ‘unknown’ within

the African-American literary community. However, it stands in marked contrast with

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other speculative fiction by African-Americans writers during the time period as well.
Sam Greenlee, Warren Miller, and William Melvin Kelley, for example, all wrote
alternate history texts highlighting the collective racial ideology of the Civil Rights
Movement and the Black Power Movement. Like Schuyler’s texts, these novels from the
19505 and 19605 remain solidly in the field of Afiican-American literature. Specifically
comparing Delany’s The Ba1_lad of Betai (1965) with William Melvin Kelley’s A
Different Drummer (1959) helps to answer why two texts of speculative fiction dealing
with racial issues, and written by African-Americans during roughly the same time
period, have had such different generic and critical histories. While Delany is rarely
mentioned within the African-American literary community, Kelly’s text surfaces again
and again in critical texts valorizing a collective racial identity. The racial hybridity of
The Ballad of Beta-2. then, simultaneously revises the Anglo-centrism of the science
fiction genre and challenges the collective racial ideal underlying Afiican—American
literature. In this way, Delany builds on the racial and literary convictions of George S.
Schuyler. Delany also shares Schuyler’s scientific emphases. Delany’s more positive
portrayal of anthropology, in his fiction and criticism, and his linguistic theory of science
fiction, founded on “technological discourse,” would make his texts even more
controversial than Schuyler’s within the Afiican-American literary community. Finally,
Delany’s extensive utilization of poststructural and postrrrodem theories simultaneously
challenges the essentialist bias of Afiican-American literary critics and the narrative,
‘pulp’ tradition of the science fiction genre. His explorations of the fragmented and
unstable nature of postmodern subjectivity, in particular, revise key character conventions

in both genres.

195

In “Appendix A: From the Triton Journal: Work Notes and Omitted Pages,”
Delany tells the now well-known story of the powerful, positive effect Robert Heinlein’s
earlier text, Starship TrOOpers (1959), had on him as a young readerz“[w]hat remains with
me, nearly ten years after my first reading of the book, is the knowledge that I have
experienced a world in which the placement of the information about the narrator’s face
is proof that in such a world the ‘race problem,’ at least, has dissolved” (M 287).
Delany discusses whip Troopers as an example of the unique possibilities of the sf
genre. According to Delany,

[t]he hugely increased repertoire of sentences science fiction has to draw on

(thanks to this relation’between the “science” and the “fiction”) leaves the

structure of the fictional field of s-f notably different from the fictional field of

those texts which, by eschewing technological discourse in general, sacrifice this

increased range of nontechnological sentences. (286)

Therefore, Heinlein’s gloss on race resonates with new meaning because of the sf
context. Within this sf “textus,” as Delany calls it, Heinlein Can position race in an
imaginative social environment impossible within the generic parameters of realistic
fiction. In Scholes and Rabkin’s chapter on race in Science Fiction: History. Scienca.
y_i_s_io_n, “Sex and Race in Science Fiction,” they retell Delany’s story about flagllip
Troopers as an example of the generally progressive racial attitude of the sf community
(188). Scholes and Rabkin acknowledge, however, that the transfer of “xenophobia” to
an alien race of “Bugs” makes this general elision of human races possible (ibid).

There has been some critical controversy about the reliability of Delany’s

assertion that the protagonist of Sparship Troopers is “black” (Trouble 287). Edward

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James, for example, notes that he has “been unable to find this passage in my copy [. . . ;]
the hero is Johnny Rico, apparently Puerto Rican in origin but clearly from a rich and
privileged family” (“Yellow” 47). As I mentioned earlier, this type of racial elision,
while intended to show racial ‘prOgress’, can backfire in its very subtlety.26 The textual
signs point to aperson-of-color: a protagonist from Buenos Aires named Juan (his mother
calls him the diminutive form of Juan—Juanito), whose father’s name is Emilio Rico,
and whose female interest is named Carrnencita Ibanez (with thick black hair) (88,175).
The issue, I believe, is how much color, not is there any color? In labeling Juan “black,”
Delany follows the ‘one-drop’irule of American racial ideology, the collective racial
ideology promoted during the 19605, and his personal racial background as a reader of
the text. Certainly there is textual support for Delany’s racial interpretation. The 1997
movie adaptation of Heinlein’s book, on the other hand, is sirrrilar to the cover of Butler’s
Dawn, as it highlights the ideological pressure and racial norms which quickly and easily
subvert the (subtle) racial specificity of the original text. Juan “Johnnie” Rico becomes a
blue-eyed, blond-haired actor named none other than Casper Van Dien.” Immediately
following the movie’s release, this racial inversiOn was a hot topic on sf
listservs—apparently many other readers picked up on the textual clues and identified
Rico as a person of color as well. Yet, Paul Verhoeven, the director of the film, could
easily justify his casting because race is not a significant factor in this futuristic terrestrial
society. Therefore, reverting back to the traditional white male hero follows the letter, if
not the spirit, of such racial elisions.

In Lam_h_am’s Freehold (1964), Heinlein utilizes a more direct strategy to discuss

race. Not only does the text include a major African-American character, Joseph, but

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also his race and that of the protagonist Hugh Farnham are key elements of the plot.
Edward James sees Fa_m_ham’s Freehold as offering a “more complex” message than
Heinlein’s earlier text Double Star (1956) because “it depicts a future (into which Hugh
Farnham and his household have been involuntarily thrown) ruled by vicious slave-
owning African blacks. But Heinlein’s point is that an evil system is not the result of
race, but of circumstance” (“Yellow” 36). Presumably, then, Heinlein’s underlying
theme remains constant—that race should not be important. These related points can be
discerned in the character of Joe or Joseph, an African-American student who also works
as a servant in the Farnham household. Mistreated by Famham’s racist son Duke before
the atomic war which transports them to the future, Joseph proves himself a worthier man
than Duke and eventually becomes romantically attached to Farnham’s daughter in the
future. Within the racial reversal of the futuristic society, however, Joseph becomes one
of the Chosen (the colored elite), and Duke, Hugh, and the rest of the Anglo Farnham
family become slaves. This racial reversal of historical American slavery makes variable
what once was considered static. Slavery is not dependent on racial essentialism within
this context; any person or group potentially could be enslaved or be an oppressor. When
Farnham questions the morality of Joseph’s decision to accept the futuristic slavery,
Joseph responds, “Have you ever made a bus trip through Alabama. As a ‘nigger’?”
(Eamham’s 269). Joseph sees that “[t]he shoe is on the other foot, that’s all—and high
time" (267). In this way, Heinlein effectively illustrates the immorality of racist ideology
and social structures for a white audience. Indeed, when the shoe is on the other foot, the
repercussions of racism become much clearer, sharper, and personal. Gary Westfahl

notes that Farnham’s Freehold would be offensive to a black reader due to its use of racist

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stereotypes (83-4).28 However, a racist white reader would be incensed as well—by the
extremity and vividness of Heinlein’s reversal. Duke’s highly racist reactions to the
slavery, before his “temper[ing],” model such a response (Famham's 269). Likewise, the
racial inversion reveals the power, privilege, and normative position of whiteness in
western society, attributes normally hidden for white readers by the very privilege
attached to their racial classification.

The racial inversion also highlights the illogical, extreme, and (therefore) absurd
nature of racist ideology. For example, Farnham’s ‘owner,’ Ponse, utilizes an inverted
form of the white ethnographic gaze described by Haraway and Pratt and embodied in
Burroughs’ John Carter. Ponse describes the free whites who hide in the wilderness as
“[s]avages. Poor creatures who have never been rescued by civilization. It’s hard to save
them, Hugh. [. . .] They’re crafty as wolves [. . .] and they are very destructive of game.
Of course we could smoke them out any number of ways. But that would kill the game,
can’t have that" (228). The intended paternalism of Ponse’s discourse quickly
deteriorates under the valuation of animals over humans. In this way, Farnham’s owner
exhibits'the hunting interests of white males in colonial India and Africa. Heinlein links
such racial paternalism to the antebellum South as well. Famham’s owner tries to justify
his slavery because Farnham is physically better off than when he was in the wilderness:

“Then you know how much your condition has improved. Don’t you sleep in a

better bed now? Aren’t you eating better? [. . .] When we picked you up, you

were half starved and infested with vermin. You were barely staying alive with

the hardest sort of work, I could see! I’m not blind, I’m not stupid; there isn’t a

member of my Family down to the lowest cleaner that works half as hard as you

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had to, or sleeps in as poor a bed—and in a stinking little sty; I could hardly bear

the stench before we fumigated it—and as for the food, if that is the word, any

servant in this house would turn up his nose at what you ate. Isn’t all that true?”

(229)
F amham does agree, but he continues to insist, “I prefer freedom” (ibid). It is here that a
more pessimistic reading of the text can begin. When Heinlein inverts the racial
hierarchy, the white protagonist becomes the sympathetic hero and the historically
oppressed groups—the Hindus, Africans, and African-Americans—become the collective
villains.

In Famham’s Freehold. Heinlein continues the earlier sf (and his own) tradition of
a single, white, highly-individualistic male protagonist. While critics agree that Heinlein
places F amham within this normative heroic context, they disagree whether Farnham is a
success or a failure and whether Heinlein intentionally created him as such. Philip E.
Smith 11, for example, sees a “happy ending” which validates F amham and the values he
represents (164).29 Alexei Panshin, on the other hand, argues that Farnham reveals no
agency and that that text is “almost a study in the varieties of impotence” (109). In “The
Racism of American Science Fiction,” Gary Westfahl summarizes these two critical
positions in orderto counter with a more critical authorial model. Westfahl believes the
text has been traditionally mis-read because critics have too easily and quickly’collapsed
the author with the protagonist, similar to Schuyler’s critical evaluations within the
African-American community. Without Schuyler’s satiric signposts, Westfahl argues,
critics have missed Heinlein’s indictment of his own racism, through the more extreme

racism embodied in his protagonist: “I believe that Heinlein was aware of the racism he

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was projecting; that F arnham ’s Freehold in particular was Crafted as a scathing self-
criticism of the racism in Heinlein and people like him; and that, after achieving this
. insight, Heinlein still found it impossible to change himself, and hence impossible to
change Farnham” (Westfahl 72). According the Westfahl, Heinlein accomplishes this
“self-criticism” by undermining the heroic status of the protagonist. Westfahl argues that
“F amham fails at everything he attempts to do until the end, when he achieves only the
smallest victory. Surely, if Heinlein had wished to make Farnham an heroic figure, he
would have provided him with a genuine achievement or two” (73). Westfahl surveys
the “major events” of the text in order to prove this inadequacy (ibid).

However, several ‘failures’ Westfahl lists have alternate functions in the plot.
First, the ‘faulty’ fall-out shelter Farnham builds is a vehicle for the time travel Westfahl
subsequently mentions (7 3). Likewise, the rising radiation within the shelter heightens
the tensions and suspense of the plot and gives F arnham and Barbara Wells an excuse
(we’re going to die anyway) to reveal their attraction to one another. Westfahl also
mentions the death of Famham’s daughter Karen: in the future, “Farnham set out to build
his own little society; but the illusion of his competence is shattered when Karen dies in
childbirth under his supervision” (ibid). Here Westfahl overlooks at least two additional
reasons Karen must die. First, she is pregnant out of wedlock (conception occurred
before the war), and second, she has an interracial relationship when she becomes
romantically attached to Joseph after the war. In breaking these sexual and romantic
taboos, Karen incurs the extreme societal punishment of death. Heinlein does not overtly
judge Karen within the text, however. Having Farnham condone Karen’s pregnancy and

her relationship with Joseph, in direct contrast to the disapproval of her mother, allows

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30 Yet, having Karen already

Heinlein to overtly preach liberalism and racial tolerance.
impregnated and then die in childbirth prevents the consummation of her relationship
with Joseph. In Other words, Karen serves as a romantic interest for the interracial
relationship Heinlein sets up, but a specific description of that relationship and/or a
sexual component would be too controversial—for Heinlein, the sf community, and/or
society as a whole. Westfahl notes Joseph’s excessive modesty, to the point of appearing
“asexual,” and attributes it to Heinlein’s desire to “counter the stereotype of the male
African as sexual predator” (82). Other comments made by Farnham throughout the text
confirm such an interpretation. However, Joseph’s overt celibacy also suppresses the
issue of sexuality.

Contrasting Karen and J oesph’s relationship with that of Farnham and Barbara
illustrates more fully the impact of race on Heinlein’s portrayal Of sexuality in the text.
Barbara and Farnham have an overt sexual encounter while F amham’s wife slumbers
nearby, complete with "'Barbara, Barbara!'/'Hugh darling! I love you. Oh!'/'I love you,
'Barbara.'/'Yes. Yes! Oh, please! Now!‘/'Right nowl'" (Farnham’s 38). Barbara becomes
pregnant from this encounter, and the couple later have healthy twins. While enslaved
' for a period of time, as Westfahl notes, eventually the couple and their children do, in
fact, escape and the text ends with the family happily ensconced in their post-holocaust
Freehold (taking place in a future free from the Chosen). Conversely, Karen only speaks
to Barbara and Farnham about Joseph’s possibilities as a suitor, and she denies any
sexual attraction between them (she even claims to prefer her father as a sexual partner)

(117-18). We finally hear of their relationship only as Karen goes into labor (and then

dies); she tells her father, “Something to tell you. I asked Joe to marry me. Last week.

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And he accepted” (136). In the text, there is no direct dialogue between Karen and
Joseph about their relationship or physical contact described. Through these multiple
elements of plot, characterization, and indirect dialogue, Heinlein creates a chaste,
suppressed interracial romance. In this, he follows the old example of Burroughs’ John
Carter and Dejah Thoris. Even the conservative Burroughs envisioned offspring for his
couple, however.31 When Karen and her baby die, the possibility of a familial and/or
biological interracialism is effectively foreStalled in Heinlein’s text. On the other hand,
the sexualized, fertile, and healthy Hugh and Barbara have already begun their roles as a
new Anglo Adam and Eve, destined to repopulate the New World. As Westfahl admits,
Farnham purposely isolates himself and his family from African-Americans and other
races in their Freehold: “[fJar from taking any steps to overcome racial'divisions,

F amham seems intent on maintaining them” (80).32 Finally, many parallels exist between
Barbara and Karen. They are young, Anglo, female students who become pregnant Out
of wedlock and who are transported into the future with the same group of people. The
fact that Barbara prospers in this situation and Karen dies reinforces the importance of
race to the equation. The key difference between the two women is their ‘destined’ male
partner, and the key difference Heinlein portrays between the two men is their race.

If Heinlein’s intention was to undermine the position of the protagonist, to make
Farnham appear foolish, inadequate, and unacceptably racist, then the critique is too
subtle and the ending too ambiguous. For example, in contrast to the “mythic”
individualism of the new F amham family, Delany ends Trouble on Triton with the
original white male protagonist completely alone, psychotic, and transformed into a

woman (Franklin 154). While there is some ambiguity about the protagonist’s exact

203

mental state, there is no question that Delany has created an “anti-hero” (Fox, "Politics"

e
49).33 Perhaps Westfahl’s identification of the author with the protagonist, which he
initially denies but then reestablishes, explains this contradiction between authorial
intention and final textual product. Rather than a “scathing self-criticism,” Famham’s
Freehold reflects the racial tensions, conflicts, and, finally, defenSive strategies of
Heinlein, an Anglo male writer focusing on race within a modern context. Heinlein is not
incapable of “self-criticism,” but this project is sabotaged by the very racism supposedly
being critiqued, as well as the primacy of his own experiences and position in society
(73). In fact, Heinlein does not “know exactly what he is doing,” as Westfahl confidently
asserts (82). For example, the relationship between Karen and Joseph promotes racial
’ equality in theory, but in application, the textual deScription is truncated and subverted.
Such racial equality lives a very brief and sickly half-life in the interim future but,
according to Heinlein’s characters, would not be pursued within historical American
society and does not exist in either of the potential futures Heinlein envisions. Heinlein is
unwilling to fully envision the ramifications of racial egalitarianism—unwilling, not
unable. When Westfahl writes that Heinlein “found it impossible to change himself, and
hence impossible to change F arnham” (my emphasis), his language reveals a defensive
strategy as well (72). If the project of racial understanding and unification Westfahl
suggests for Farnham and Heinlein is “impossible,” why does he bother critiquing
Heinlein, or the sf community more generally? According to Westfahl, this inability to

change also applies to the larger sf community: “Heinlein explains why American science

fiction often projects racism, and why its well-meaning writers cannot overcome their

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own racist attitudes” (ibid). This vocabulary of “cannOt” does not bode well for a more
inclusive and egalitarian racial future for sf.

Finally, Famham’s positive characterization rests, in large part, upon a vivid

 

moral contrast with a racial Other. Unlike Delany’s alien Other in The. Ballad of Beta-2
Heinlein creates a human Other embodying the negative traits of both white slaveholders
and (black) primitive cannibals. How can F amham not appear a hero when-he is the only
person resisting the futuristic black leadership which practices both white slavery and
cannibalism? He may not be very successful, as Westfahl suggests, but his position
seems the only morally acceptable one presented. While the text reflects a complex and
sometimes ambiguous view of racism and race relations, the well-meaning white
protagonist opposed to the gratuitous, unadulterated moral degradation of the black-
dominated society reveals an underlying racial hierarchy which is not critiqued within the
text. Westfahl believes this futuristic society represents the “racist fears of an uneducated
version” of Heinlein, namely F amham (79). According to Westfahl, Farnham “is
explicitly identified as a less educated and less worldly version of Heinlein” (ibid). Yet,
Farnham is a “junior enlisted man” and then a commissioned officer in the Navy, and, as
Westfahl himself notes, Heinlein graduated frOm the Naval Academy (90). In addition,
Heinlein is (in)famous for his glorification of the armed forces. For example, the armed
forces are portrayed as racially inclusive and egalitarian in Starship Troopers.34
Likewise, Farnham relates an experience abroad, in which he saw blacks in positions of
power over whites: “[he] recalled an area of Pemambuco he had seen while in the Navy,
a place where rich plantation owners, dignified, polished, educated in France, were black,

while their servants and field hands—giggling, shuffling, shiftless knuckleheads

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‘obviously’ incapable of better things—were mostly white men” (Famham’s 296). This
contemporary experience is reinforced by Farnham’s historical knowledge. Referring
back to the Roman Empire, Farnham concludes, “any ‘white man’ of European ancestry
was certain to have a dash of Negro blood” (297). F amham even acknowledges his own
“statistically certain drop of black blood” (ibid). Given all the other biographical
similarities between Heinlein and F arnham that Westfahl relates, and the theory of self-
criticism, I do not think there is sufficient textual support for a categorical educational or
experiential distinction between them.

Furthermore, Westfahl argues that “[f]rom an even broader perspective, we can
interpret events in the novel not as serious predictions, but as the predictable, though
, absurd, fantasies of an ignorant person like Famham—to argue that the entire story is like
a game being played inside Famham’s head” (78). At this point, the distinction between
author and character breaks down again. In trying to expand the distance between
Heinlein’s authorial point of view and that of Farnham and the text as [a whole, Westfahl
ends up conflating the author and protagonist in a different way than the other critics. In
Westfahl’s interpretation, Farnham occupies an authorial position; Heinlein might not
agree with everything Farnham says, but that is because the story springs from the
protagonist and not the author. There are several problems with such] an interpretation.
First, in calling this futuristic society a “fantasy” and a “game,” Westfahl contradicts the
realism, stability, and gravity of the text itself. Within the historical parameters of the
story, this society actually exists. In addition, Heinlein does not undermine this illusion
of reality and/or in any way connect this society to Famham’s psychology. A first-

person, unreliable narrator would have been an obvious choice if that were Heinlein’s

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intention. Finally, if F amham plays a game, it is a deadly serious one with grave
repercussions for himself and his family. Heinlein could have used overt satire, as

Schuyler did in Black No More if he had wanted to undermine the serious tone of the

 

text. There is no black humor or caricatures in Farnham’s Freehold, for example.
Instead, the degradation and peril of F amham’s situation reflects the terrible realities of
American slavery, and Heinlein’s explicit textual parallels invite such a comparison.
Rather than a fantasy or a game, Heinlein Creates an inverted image of American
slavery.35 Within this context, Famham’s failed escape attempt reveals the historical
reality of the black slave—the need for travel passes, the difference in skin color, the
difficulty in communicating with other slaves undetected, tracking dogs, etc. Farnham
does not escape, on his first attempt, because these significant hurdles prevented him;
Heinlein is trying to be historically accurate and realistic.

In addition, Heinlein needed a vehicle to return Farnham and Barbara to the past.
Simply eSCaping from his slavery, but remaining in the future, would not allow F amham
to go back in time, learn from his mistakes, and begin F amham Family: Part Two. In this
way, Heinlein closes off the possibility, the threat of this racially inverted future, while
paving the way for the new, improved Anglo family. In fact, the opportunity of time
travel acts as a moral test for the original F arnham family group. Joseph, Duke, and
F arnham’s former wife all choose to remain in the future because they have been
corrupted. Farnham and Barbara, on the other band, pass the test when they choose
possible death, but freedom, over racial servitude. Heinlein reinforces this positive
portrayal by having F amham and Barbara continue to make racially egalitarian

statements after gaining their freedom (Farnham’s 323-4). These statements highlight the

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sincerity and depth of their racial liberalism, in marked contrast to the indictment of the
futuristic black society’s cannibalism. Furthermore, Farnham does not have to assert
himself, to reach out in a mission of racial understanding and harmony because Heinlein
changes the past as well. Farnham and Barbara note the small changes they encounter
when they return, and F arnham happily asserts, “It could be importantly different. If the
future can change the past, or whatever, maybe the past can change the future, too.
Maybe the United States won’t be wholly destroyed. Maybe neither side will be so
suicidal as to use plague bombs. Maybe—Hell, maybe Ponse [the black slaveowner] will
never get a chance to have teenage girls for dinner!” (331). By changing the past, then,
Heinlein accomplishes several objectives simultaneously. First, it is another tool (like the
bomb shelter) to bring Farnham and family through the war alive. Second, it spares

F amham from an aggressive campaign of racial reform; he can isolate his family without
a guilty conscience. Lastly, it implies that such a racially-inverted future will not be a
reality the second time around.

The basic flaw in Westfahl’s argument about this futuristic society is that it does
not really matter if it were based on Farnham’s “absurd” fears rather than Heinlein’s
(78). Like the melodrama of Schuyler’s Blacfik Empire. the text stands on its own merits,
and the author’s attitude towards the text is a moot point, only of interest for authorial
characterization. Furthermore, Heinlein valorizes such fears in imagining such a society
and giving it realistic textual life. People-of-color do take over the world, enslaving,
drugging, castrating, breeding, and, most outrageously, eating whites. This “shocking
revelation of Black cannibalism” came in the last installment of the text’s original

serialization (Franklin 15 8-9). Bruce Franklin connects Heinlein’s “spectacular popular

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success” with his “extraordinary ability to project the fantasies of his audience” (156).
With Farnhanr’s Freehold. Heinlein chooses the “most deep-seated racist nightmare of
American culture”; “Just as the one nation that has ever used nuclear weapons has
recurring fantasies about nuclear weapons being used upon it, the nation most notorious
for enslaving and oppressing Black people has recurring fantasies about being enslaved
and oppressed by Blacks” (F ranklin157).36 Joseph, for example, illustrates the larger
concept reflected in the black-dominated futuristic society—that given the opportunity,
blacks would oppress and enslave others also. He asks Farnham, "'do you expect me to
weep? The shoe is one the other foot, that’s all—and high time [. . .] do you think I would
swap back, even if I could? For Duke? Not for anybody, I’m no hypocrite. I was a
servant, now you are one. What are you beefing about?" (Famham's 269). Within the
context of slavery, such race reversals propose peoplep—of-Color possess a similar desire
and ability to enslave whites (as did whites to blacks).37 Not only is this not grounded in
any historical fact, it implies there is nothing exceptional about American Slavery or
European colonialism. As a result, any lingering white guilt or responsibility is appeased.
In contrast to Heinlein’s portrayal of vindictive and power-hungry blacks,
contemporary Caribbean author Jamaica Kincaid and sf author Ray Bradbury emphasize
an increased tolerance, understanding, and compassion. In Kincaid’s Annie John (1983),
for example, her young protagonist ponders. Caribbean history thus:
we, the descendants of the slaves, knew quite well what had really happened
[during‘colonization], and I was sure that if the tables had been turned we would
have acted quite differently; I was sure that if our ancestors had gone from Africa

to Europe and come upon the people living there, they would have taken a proper

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interest in the Europeans on first seeing them, and said, “How nice,” and then

gone home to tell their fiiends about it. (76)
Kincaid’s focus on a historical, black perspective leads to a positive portrayal. In “The
Other Foot” (1951), Ray Bradbury also gives African-Americans a similar choice as
Joseph. After the mass migration of African-Americans to Mars, the rest of Earth is
largely destroyed by an atomic third world war. When representatives from Earth come
to Mars seeking help, the “shoe is on the other foot” (Heinlein 269). Heinlein’s
subsequent mirroring of Bradbury’s language (Joseph’s speech and Bradbury’s title)
implies an intentional reference to and, more importantly, revision of Bradbury’s earlier
text. Writing during the 19505, Bradbury creates a positive version of the Civil Rights
Movement. After a brief period when some blacks think about lynching and segregation,
the Martian blacks collectively decide to forgive past wrongs and to allow the Earthlings
to come to Mars. As Bradbury’s main character learns, "'Now everything’s even. We
can start all over again, on the same level'" ("Other" 91). Ellen Bishop ties the -
dissolution of racial revenge to the changed location in space. Like Delany in The Ballad
of Beta-2, Bradbury accelerates both time and space: “Bradbury shows us (former)
African Americans who are able to see the complex relation of self and other vested in
racial differences that the white man had for so long denied, because they are able to
occupy another territory (a psychological time-space that come to be literally represented
as Mars) from which a different view is possible” (92). When Edward James finds
Heinlein’s simple racial reversal an anti-racist argument, because "Heinlein’s point is that
an evil system is not the result of race, but of circumstance," he overlOoks the historical

specificity (as does Heinlein) which has not made it possible for Anglo-Americans to be

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enslaved by Afiican-Americans, nor revealed any collective desire to do so on the part of
African-Americans (36).. As Delany notes, only within the speculative parameters of
science fiction can such an “evil system” (James 36) be created (Delany, Introduction
xii). Heinlein’s supposed ‘color blindness,’ or switching of racial groups without regard
for historical or cultural differences, is what Baker and Tucker oppose; it is a false
egalitarianism because it elides white privilege and black oppression—past and present.

Placed within the historical context of the19505 and 1960’s, Famham’s Freehold
also enters a debate about black independence movements.38 Heinlein’s highly negative
portrayal of such a black-govemed state condones resistance to these civil and foreign
movements. The basic message, of the Chosen’s government, and Joseph’s collaboration
with it, is that blacks willturn on whites, taking advantage of any weakness. And isn’t
the atOmic war a “circumstance” which enables the “evil system” of white slavery to
come into existence (James 36)? The racial equality of “circumstance,” then, means that
not only would African-Americans have enslaved whites, but that they will in the future
if present societal trends continue. While such a “nightmare [. . .] dates back in literary
expressiOn at least to Cannibals All! or Slaves Without Masters, George Fitzhugh’s 1857
pro-slavery tract,” Heinlein uses it for the first time in his work in Farnham’s Freehold
(Franklin 157). Bruce Franklin theorizes that Heinlein wrote famham’s Freehold in
reaction to “very specific events in the 19605”: the 1963 March on Washington; the
Mississippi Freedom Summer; and, most importantly, “the urban revolts of 1964, 1965,
1966, 1967, climaxing in April 1968, during the week following the murder of Martin
Luther King, with massive uprisings in 125 US. cities” (158).39 In contrast to

Bradbury’s 1951 text, then, “[i]t took little prescience to realize in mid-1964 that the days

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of the non-violent Civil Rights movement were numbered” (ibid). When Delany shares
Isaac AsimOv’s racial comment at the 1968 Nebula awards ceremony, he suggests that
times of high “anxiety” and conflict bring racist discourse and ideology to the social
surface (“Racism” 390-91). This is the case with Heinlein’s _Ea_r_n_ham’s Freehold.40 In
this way, Heinlein’s text follows the example of Schuyler’s Black Empire serial. Writing
during the socially and politically unstable 19305, Schuyler advances the black militancy
‘ with which he believes his black. audience syrnpathizes. Similarly, Heinlein’s intention
might have been to analyze and criticize white racism (look what will happen if we
continue to ignore racial injustice and oppression in the US), but in doing so, he created
a horrifying vision of black leadership and morality which actually supports white
racism, bolsters the moral image of his protagonist, and. undermines historical black
independence movements. With the focus on the white protagonist and white identity, as
Westfahl himself acknowledges, perhaps it is not that surprising that the text as a whole is
white-biased. It is not until Delany specifically takes on this subjective and ideological
challenge in Trouble On Triton that Heinlein’s ‘failure’ is shown to be author specific
and not inevitable.41

Heinlein’s racial reversal of historical American slavery, oppression, and
resistance places his text in dialogue with other speculative texts written during the 19505
and 19605. First, Heinlein’s detailed and relatively direct discussion of contemporary
. racial events links him not only with Bradbury’s short stories, but also the alternate
history novels of the Afiican-American literary community. Sam Greenlee, Warren
Miller, and William Melvin Kelley all wrote texts examining the oppression, segregation,

and collective resistance of Afiican Americans. Therefore, these authors compare

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favorably with Kincaid rather than Heinlein in their emphasis upon the historical
oppression of African-Americans. Greenlee, Miller, and Kelley posit separate but equal,
race-based societies as the most radical alternative to the contemporaneous situation.
Miller explores the formation of a separate political state in Harlem for Afiican-
Americans in The Seige of Harlem (1964). In The Spook Who Sat bv the Door (1969),
Greenlee chronicles the establishment of a black revolutionary underground in the United
States. Finally, Kelley’s A Different Drummer (1959) follows the story line of Ray
Bradbury’s short story, “Way in the Middle of the Air” (1950)—the mass exodus of blacks
from the South. Like Schuyler’s oeuvre, these texts remain solidly in the field of
Afiican-American literature and criticism. For example, The Spook Who Sat bv the
Dopp, was republished in 1990 as part of the “African American Life” series. Similarly,
Kelley’s text has been paired with Schuyler’s Black No More by critics of African-
American literature, and recently A Different Drummer has surfaced in the
poststructuralist debate due to Kelley’s use of the Caliban figure. A Different Drummer’s
critical popularity within the African-American literary community and neglect by the sf
community stem from its portrayal of individual and collective racial identity. The
historically-specific racial focus of all of the above texts, however, stands in marked
contrast to the racial elision and estrangement of the science fiction genre as a whole.
Bradbury and Heinlein are the exceptions in this area rather than the rule. Therefore, in
its racial focus, M’s Freehold is closer to these African-American literary texts
than Delany’s science fiction. Even in his early, terrestrial texts, Delany transforms,
distances, and suppresses the historical racial elements.42 Hence, Dielany’s claim that

“thematically,” he is an “extremely conservative” writer (Silent 225). However, Delany’s

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inclusive, integrationist racial philosophy underlies his more radical use of science
fiction’s cognitive estrangement. The Ballad of Beta-2. discussed shortly, illustrates

Delany’s detached and integrationist approach to race within this volatile time period.

In hi51970 introduction to Schuyler’s Black No More. Charles R. Larson utilized

A Different Drummer as a measuring stick for Schuyler’s text. Larson asserts that at the
end of Black No More.

one is reminded that at least one black American novelist, treating a similar
theme, took advantage of all the things Schuyler ignored in Black No More. The
novel is William Melvin Kelley’s A Different Drummer (1962) which also
ponders the importance of the black American’s “racial culture,” satirically
presenting a story similar to Black No More: the reduction of the black population
in a part of the United States. (12)

Given all these textual similarities, it is surprising that Larson does not explain what “all
the things Schuyler ignored” might be. Apparently he felt the differences between the
two texts were so obvious that an explanation was superfluous. Within this context, I
surmise that that the key difference between the two texts, to which Larson refers, is their
portrayal of racial identity; in contrast to Schuyler, Kelley valorizes collective racial
identity and action. John M. Reilly also praises A Different Drummer, in contrast to

Black No More. but on aesthetic grounds rather than “racial culture.” In “The Black

 

Anti-Utopia” (1978), Reilly claims that “[o]f the two writers, Schuyler and Kelley, the
latter is certainly the artist. Still, I believe is it useful to pair the two, as I have done here.
If my description of anti-utopia has validity, then these two novels indicate the presence

of the genre in Afro-American writing” (109). Reilly’s context of African-American

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literature highlights the continued division of the two genres of African-American
literature and science fiction. Over thirty years after the publication of Schuyler’s text, an
alternate history text by an African-American is still not considered science fiction. It is
telling that Reilly must stretch to formulate a genre of only two texts, rather than
acknowledge the strong connections to the sf genre. Considering these two works within
the context of science fiction reveals their relationship to Delany’s texts as well.43
Delany’s negative attitude towards an emerging sub-genre of Afiican-American science
fiction will be discussed in more detail later; however, it springs from such generic
divisions and obfuscation.44 Finally, the African-American literary context affords a
converse critical evaluation of Schuyler and Kelley’s texts for both Larson and Reilly:
whereas a science fictional context leads to a more positive evaluation of Schuyler’s text,
the opposite is true of Kelley’s text. Comparing Kelley’s essentialist portrayal of race to
the poststructuralism of Delany and other contemporary science fiction writers illustrates
the difficulty of avoiding negative racial stereotypes within an essentialist framework,
even with the author’s best intentions of a more egalitarian and liberal politics.

These multiple, interrelated issues of racial identity, critical reception, and generic
placement underlie Houston A. Baker, Jr.’s 1986 article “Caliban’s Triple Play.” Baker
briefly mentions Kelley’s text because of its character Tucker Caliban, and Baker
9 connects Kelley’s use of Caliban with that of George Lamming and James Baldwin.
According to Baker, “Caliban’s Triple Play” is “the three-personed god of ‘natural’
meanings, morphophonemics, and, most important, metamorphoses” (393). Within the
Shakespearean context, Baker explains this more specifically as a return 'to a “pre-

Prosperian” island, “revising or deforming the contraries of Western civilization in order

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to return to a ‘natural’ signification. Such a world would witness Caliban not as student
of ‘culture as a foreign language’ [. . .], but rather as an instructor in a first voice, resonant
with ‘a thousand twangling instruments’ in nature” (392). In addition, Baker believes
that African-American critics must become like Caliban: [t]he Afro-American
spokesperson who would perform a deformation of mastery shares the task of Sycorax’s
son insofar as he or she must transform an obscene situation, a tripled metastatus, into a
signal self/cultural expression” (ibid). Baker’s emphasis on triples reveals his intention
to “escape, or explode, [the] simplistic duality” of Western culture (3 89).” However,
Baker maintains these dualities in his continuation of the Prospero/Caliban trope,
including the connection of Caliban with nature. First, Baker connects Caliban with
animals in his discussion of the phaneric display of gorillas (390). Then, he explores
Caliban’s knowledge of the forms and language of nature (392). The colonized, then,
maintain their ‘natural’ place in western dualities. Baker’s emphasis on an original and
natural state for people-of-color raises the issue of essentialism as well. In attempting to
give Caliban a voice, a specific vernacular sound, Baker essentializes languages, as Fuss
has noted. This essentialism goes beyond language, however. Underlying Baker’s
poststructuralist language and theory is a form of biological essentialism.

Baker’s description of critics of African-American or black literature reveals this
essentialism most clearly. In Fuss’ discussion of Baker and Gates, she directly addresSes
the role of a critic’s race in Gates’ theories of African-American literature. She points
out that, against essentialist notions of race, Gates makes a disjunction between “black
critic” and “critic of black literature” (85). While Fuss does not directly address Baker’s

increasing essentialism, her note that Baker’s “own affinity lies, even now, with the

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Black Aestheticians,” points in this direction (87). In contrast to Gates, Baker seems very
concerned in “Caliban’s Triple Play” to link the author with the text, in a display of
‘authentic’ racial identity:
If we fail to hear long choruses of Caliban’s triple playing in the issue [Critical
Inquiry; ‘Race,’ Writing, and Difference], still the collection creates an occasion
for several signifying black academics—those who have already journeyed back
to the vale and asked their mommas and daddies what did they do to be so very
black and to sound such funky blues—to sound racial poetry in the courts of the
civilized. Such soundings, I believe, augur new world arrangements, because the
answers given by the mommas asked (and the black daddies, too) is, ‘You’s
different, son, and the future.’ ( ‘Race.’ Writing._and Difference 395; my
emphasizes added)
Baker’s references to the family reinforces the racial connection begun with “black
academics.” As J osé David Saldivar notes in The Dialectics of Our America: Genealogy.
Cultural Critique. and Litepary History. “[t]he Calibanistic self that Baker describes does
not exist in empty space but in an organic human collective—in what he calls the family.
For this reason, the Calibanic self that he lays bare is not alienated from itself; it is in his
own folk” (148). Baker’s emphasis on family and kinship recalls Werner Soller’s theory
of descent, in contrast to consent. Within this cOntext, a (knowledgeable and legitimate)
critic or author of black literature must be black. Conversely, to be racially authentic, a
black author should use the vernacular.46
Kelley’s use of the Caliban trope mirrors that of Baker in several ways. First, a

main character of A Different Drummer, Tucker Caliban, embodies key elements of

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Baker’s Calibanic self. Like Shakespeare’s Caliban, Tucker Caliban is in a position of
servitude, in this case to a Southern white family. Like Baker’s Caliban, Tucker Caliban
revolts against this racial oppression. He mysteriously decides to leave his home,
destroying his house and possessions and salting the soil so that no one else can farm the
land. Several explanations are put forward for Caliban’s unusual behavior by various
characters, but no definitive reason is ever given—by the narrator or by Caliban himself.
In the void left by Caliban’s silence, the point of view of the other characters shapes
Caliban’s characterization. The first explanation for Caliban’s departure is given by Mr.
Harper, a venerable old (white) man from Sutton. According to Harper, Caliban’s revolt
is a long-delayed manifestation of the Afiican “blood” of his initial slave ancestor
(Kelleyl 5). Kelley uses racial essentialism positively in Harper’s story of the African,
emphasizing the great physical and mental strength, charisma, resistance, and courage of
Caliban’s ancestor. As a result, Kelley supports Baker’s familial connections and the
importance of descent. Similarly, Caliban’s white employer, David Willson, ponders
Caliban’s actions in a diary: “He HAS freed himself; this had been very important to him.
But somehow, he has freed me too. [. . .] Who would have thought such a humble,
primitive act could teach something to a so-called educated man like myself?” (151).
Willson’s portrayal of Caliban as “humble, primitive,” and uneducated constructs a
natural man. These cultural racial characteristics build on the biological racial
essentialism of Harper’s story of descent. In this way, Kelley’s text illustrates the
negative potential of Baker’s naturalistic racial theories, which are too closely linked to

47

older, biological constructions of race built on the idea of racial essentialism. Despite

being the titular protagonist, Caliban is effectively silenced by this naturalist

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characterization, and contrary to Baker’s promotion of Caliban’s indigenous sound, the
white characters continue to tell Caliban’s story for him. A Caliban entails a Prospero.

A Different Drummer does include a diverse number of character viewpoints,48
but they are all white. The older man, Mr. Harper, a young white boy named Mr. Leland,
David Willson, Dymphna Willson, Dewey Willson III, and Camille Willson each have a
separate chapter devoted to their story, their point of view. MOstly first-person, some of
these narratives are more focused on their connection to Tucker Caliban-than others.
Thus, Kelley spreads out the ‘Prosperian’ perspective over a group of people. However,
David Willson most directly represents Prospero. Willson’s narrative conveys the
unhappiness and impotence of an “educated [white] man” who eventually finds
‘salvation’ though the instinctual agency of his employee, Caliban (Kelley 151).
Furthermore, while there are other major African-American characters besides
Tucker—his African ancestor, his wife Bethrah, and Reverend Bradshaw, for
example—their stories are also told through that of the white characters. Kelley
considerably stretches the narrative perspective of his white characters in order to include
these black characters indirectly. For example, Dymphna Willson’s first-person narrative
includes lengthy direct quotation of conversations with Bethrah, as well as conversations
Bethrah and Caliban have outside of Dymphna’s presence (see the next paragraph for one
such quotation). In this combination of white narratives and black silences, Kelley may
be realizing Baker’s claim that the sound of Caliban is “incomprehensible” to whites: “It
is, of course, the latter—the [guerilla’s] ‘hoots’ of assurance that remain ’
incomprehensible to intruders—that produce a notion (in the intruder’s mind and

vocabulary) of ‘deformity.’ An ‘alien’ sound gives birth to notions of the

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indigenous—say, Afiicans or Afro-Americans—as deformed” (390). However, the white
characters sympathetically portray Caliban in Kelley’s text, and Kelley portrays these
_characters sympathetiCally as well. Thus, Kelley does not suggest that these multiple
white viewpoints are unreliable, and their various interpretations of Caliban and his
actions build upon one another, rather than conflict. In fact, Kelley follows Bradbury’s
lead, in “Way in the Middle of the Air,” in largely focusing on the reactions of whites to
the exodus of the Afiican-Americans. From this viewpoint, the motivation of the
African-Americans is elided, and, again, the sound of Caliban is silenced. Like Heinlein,
Kelley focuses on the white point of view (sympathetic as it may be), and the black point .
of view remains the effectively silenced Other as a result. Finally, Kelley implies that
the white point of view is basically accurate through the corroborating dialogue of the
other black characters.

Caliban’s wife Bethrah, an educated black woman, initially does not understand
his actions and viewpoints either. For instance, Bethra explains Caliban’s decision to
leave the employment of the Willson family to Dymphna Willson (the narrator of this
particular chapter) as follows:

I don’t really know, but maybe those of us who go to school, Dewey, myself, not

so much your mother, I guess your father, maybe we lost something Tucker has.

It may be we lost a faith in ourselves. When we have to do something, we don’t

just do it, we THINK aboUt doing it; we think about all the people who say certain

things shouldn’t be done. And when we’re through thinking about it, we end up
not doing it at all. But Tucker, he just knows what he has to do. He doesn’t think

[about it; he just knows. And he wants to go now and I’m going too. [. . .] I think

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maybe, ifI do whatever he tells me to do, and don’t think about it, well, for a
while, I’ll be following him and something inside him, but I think maybe some
day I’ll be following something inside me that I don’t even know about yet. He’ll

teach me to listen to it. (Kelley 114)

Even to his Afiican-American wife, then, Caliban is following some kind of instinct,

. which she hopes to develop also. Presumably the rest of the African-Americans in the
state follow Caliban in his exodus for similar reasons. Therefore, the text as a whole
portrays Caliban as a ‘natural’ man, without consciousness, who simply acts and does not
think. Bethrah’s comments, and the subsequent actions of the collective racial group,
suggest that all Afiican-Americans need to return to this less educated and instinctual
natural state.

In addition, Kelley contrasts Caliban’s actions with collective racial groups like
the National Society for Colored Affairs, a fictional version of the NAACP. A chapter
officer tells Caliban that the Society works to improve education and "is fighting your
battles in the courts" (Kelley 111). Caliban replies, "'Ain’t none of my battles being
fought in no courts. I’m fighting all my battles myself. [. . .] And ain’t no piece of
cardboard making no difference in how it turns out'" (ibid). Kelley seems to be
promoting a form of grass roots, individual action on the part of ‘the folk.’ This
interpretation is strengthened by the negative portrayal of Reverend Bradshaw as a
cynical parasite on the black community. An educated man, like David Willson,
Bradshaw can do nothing but marvel that Caliban motivates a collective black rebellion,
something Bradshaw has never been able to do. At the end of the text, Bradshaw is the

one African-American who does not leave and, therefore, he is lynched by the angry,

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racist whites. Kelley constructs Caliban’s revolt as an example of positive racial
liberation for all African-Americans, as well as for the white descendents of slave
owners, like David Willson. Kelley’s solution to the race problem, then, is to have both
blacks and white forget what they have learned and to follow their basic human instincts
instead. However, these ‘instincts’ prompt a massive separation of the two races in the
South. 15 Kelley constructing an essentialist basis for racial separatism or does the
historical legacy of racism in the South simply necessitate a departure, a new sOcial
beginning for African-Americans? Tucker Caliban’s approval for young Mister Leland’s
social education in racial egalitarianism supports the latter interpretation. In this case, the
Caliban trope encourages a racial essentialism at odds with the competing message of
social construction and variability.

Reilly believes A Different Drummer “relates to anti-utopia in that his characters’
crucial behavior defies rational explanation” (109). Here Reilly highlights the
dichotomies of rational versus instinctual or natural, as do Kelley and Baker. Kelley and
Baker go further, however, in valorizing the natural over the rational, the civilized, the
educated. In connecting this dichotomy only to genre (anti-utopia), Reilly overlooks the
racial ramifications of [privileging the natural over the civilized. When Kelley and [Baker
promote a natural, essential state for blacks, they reinforce racial stereotypes and the
western dichotomies upon which these stereotypes are built. Utilizing the
Caliban/Prospero trope, Kelley and Baker argue within the existing parameters of these
social and ideological constructions. Ironically, Baker levels this very charge at Henry
Louis Gates, Jr. (383) and the anthology “Race.” Writiygkand Difference more broadly.

Baker perceives a “firm inscription of the duality suggested by the venerable Western

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trope of Prospero and Caliban—figures portrayed in terms of self-and-other, the West
and the Rest of Us, the rationalist and the debunker, the colonizer and the indigenous
people” (389). At the end of his essay, Baker returns to a reconciliation of these dualities
through the Caliban figure: “Caliban’s triple play consists in what I described earlier as
supraliteracy; it is a maroon or guerrilla action carried out within linguistic territories of
the erstwhile masters, bringing forth sounds that have been taken for crude booting, but
which are, in reality, racial poetry” (394). Baker believes he has avoided promoting one
side of the duality over the other, as well as a divided position—“[t]he colonial subject’s
borderlining, his or her heroic and literate stance between two worlds” (289).49 However,
the naturalist and essentialist foundations of Baker’s Calibanic theory, of self and
literature, continually subvert his larger project of reconciliation. If Baker truly seeks to
“explode” these dualities (389), he should forsake the Caliban and Prospero trope
altogether and look elsewhere for alternative theoretical and literary models. Delany
would be the first to suggest science fiction as a good place to start.

According to Delany, science fiction creates a “textus” through the interplay
between “more conventional sentences” and the “new sentences available to s-f’
(lrpubi 287). This textus “allows whole panoplies of data to be generated at
syntagmatically startling points” (ibid). As mentioned earlier, Delany offers Star5_hip
Troopers and Heinlein’s gloss on race as one such “startling point.” More generally,
Delany argues that “the science-fictional-enterprise is richer than the enterprise of
mundane fiction. It is richer through its extended repertoire of sentences, its consequent
greater range of possible incident, and through its more varied field of rhetorical and

syntagmatic organization” (ibid). Thus, Delany specifically describes the much-heralded

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‘possibility’ of the sf genre. Delany does not claim all, or even the majority, of sf texts
fully realize this potential, but “on repeated exposure to the best works” (288), the
“apparent ‘simple-mindedness’ of science fiction” (287) “falls[s] away—by the same
process in which the best works charge the textus—the web of possibilities—with
contour” (288). Furthermore, this “web of possibilities” includes ‘tropes of great
originality” for Baker to discover (288).50 The expanded potential of sf, however, is
rather like a revolution in that it is difficult to stop at a certain prescribed point. From
Baker’s perspective, science fiction poses a distinct threat to the sanctity of racial
identity. The textus which allows for new tropes also invites new concepts of identity
and race. In addition, half of the ‘science’ ‘fiction’ textus is based on science: “[s]cience
fiction is science fiction because various bits of technological discourse (real, speculative,
or pseudo)—that is to say the ‘science’—are used to redeem various other sentences from
the merely metaphorical, or even the meaningless, for denotative description/presentation
of incident” (Delany, ME 284-5). Baker’s resistance to rationalism, objectivity, and
science poses a significant hurdle to an acceptance of this fundamental aspect of science
fiction. If A Different Drummer illustrates many aspects of Baker’s racial theory,
Delany’s The Ballad of Beta-2 offers a challenge. 1

In the Ballad of Beta-2. Delany depicts the scientific transformation of ordinary
sentences into literal events. In his first interplanetary text, Delany follows the
adventures of a student of galactic anthropology, Joneny Horatio T’waboga, as he tries to
decipher “The Ballad of Beta-2,” a folk ballad from the Star Folk. J oneny’s professor
insists that be complete a “historical analysis of that ballad—from primary sources,” but

Joneny believes both the Star Folk, a group of humans who traveled across space for 12

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generations, and their ballad are a waste of his time (B_all_a_d_ 9). Joneny argues that the
Star Folk are “just a dead end, with no significance at all. They were a very minor
transition factor that was eliminated from the cosmic equation even before its purpose
was achieved” (6). Likewise, the collection of ballads from the Star Folk does not"
include “a single'metaphor or simile that could possibly be called original or even
indigenous to life on the Star Ships. There’s nothing but semi-mythical folk tales
couched in terms of sand and sea and cities and nations [. . .,] complete fantasies with no
relation to the people living and dying on the ships” (8). Delany uses J oneny’s

I dismissive and derogatory! interpretation here as a vehicle for the plot, as an examination
of the unique linguistic constructs of science fiction, and as an example of a common
attitude towards science fiction. In addition, J oneny mirrOrs the enthnographic point of
view of Burroughs’ John Carter. However, the “cosmic” focus of galactic anthropology
illustrates Delany’s lesser interest in individual human races. As the plot unfolds, Joneny
realizes how wrong his initial assumptions were. He, and everyone else besides the few
remaining Star Folk, made the mistake of overlooking the scientific context which
transforms the fantastic language of the ballad into a historical chronicle of the events
experienced by the Star Folk on their journey.

The plot becomes a detective story, through which Joneny connects the linguistic
and historical ‘clues’ conveyed by the ballad. For example, the first stanza of the ballad
reads, “Then came one to the City/Over sand with her bright hair wild/With her eyes
coal black and her feet sole sore/And under her arms a green-eyed child” (M 10).

J oneny learns that, within the social and linguistic contexts of the Star Folk, “the City” is

one of their star ships, Beta-2, and the woman is a specific captain of one of those star

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ships, Leela RT-857. In Captain Leela’s Log Book, Joneny reads of her journey to one of
the other starships, under attack by an unknown force, and her return to Beta-2 in her
shuttle boat. Thus, the “bright hair” is the shuttle’s exhaust, “her eyes coal black”
represents the lack of visual contact with the shuttle, and the “sand” is a meson field in
outer space. Likewise, J oneny eventually realizes that the “green-eyed child” is an
alien/human hybrid who has been his companion during his time on the Star Folks’ ships.
Captain Leela returned to Beta-2 with this child “under her arms,” or impregnated by an
alien entity. Joneny eventually pieces together an entire alternate historical text through a
combination of linguistic discoveries. First, he learns that the Star Folk heavily utilized
euphemisms, in their ballads and also in their day-to-day discourse. The new physical
and social environment (outer space and their space ships) led to changes in their
language as well. The lack of gravity, for instance, made legs practically interchangeable
with arms so that all four appendages eventually became known as arms.51 Similarly, the
Star Folks’ “Market” was a place to genetically engineer children, not buy fiuits and
vegetables. Without direct contact with Earth, the new generations adapted their
language to suit their only known environment.

Through the ballad, and its misunderstanding, Delany reveals the importance of a
science fictional context. In the “science” part of science fiction, the “various bits of
technological discourse (real, speculative, or pseudo) [. . .] are used to redeem various
other sentences from the merely metaphorical, or even the meaningless, for denotative

description/presentation of incident” (Delany, Trouble 284-5). Within this context, the

 

Star Folks’ euphemisms act as “meaningless” metaphors. Without the “technological

9’ ‘6

discourse” of interplanetary travel, they are “complete fantasies, cotton-candy

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effusions” (BM 8). Joneny represents the reader of realistic fiction who expects hair
and eyes to refer to the human body and not a small space ship. He places the ballad
within his cultural textus rather than that of the Star Folk, with its extended possibilities.
As his professor points out, the Star Folk are worthy of study because no one else has
done what they have—lived and traveled through outer space for an extended period of
time (8-9). Therefore, J oneny cannot say that they did not discover anything new. Once
Joneny places himself in the physical environment of the Star Folk, “[i]mposSibilities
fluttered in his mind like moths” (54). J oneny’s first instinct is to deny what he sees,
rejecting the impossible. However, “[t]he same thing which made him collect impossibly
cumbersome books in a world of recording crystals made him look closely at all the
impossibilities around him now” (ibid). As he does, he is given another semantic
clue—the name of his companion, “The Destroyer’s Children” (55). Delany specifically
places Joneny’s misunderstanding of this name within the context of linguistics: “J oneny,
as has been pointed out, was not semantically alert enough to catch all he had been told
by that statement” (56). Once Joneny realizes that the Star Folks’ language is “for
denotative description/presentation of incident” (284-5), J oneny experiences a
“syntagmatically starling point” of his own: he realizes his companion’s true identity,

along with his full capabilities (Trouble 287). The Destroyer’s Children is not one

 

person, but a group of identical boys. The original “green-eyed child” has duplicated
himself (123). Furthermore, they share a common alien father, called The Destroyer by
the Star Folk because it was he who destroyed several of their star ships. At this point,

Joneny reaches the status of an experienced sf reader, one who knows the unique

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linguistic characteristics of the textus and, therefore, gains an accurate and meaningful
understanding of the ballad (m 285).

By remaining open to the (im)possibilities and learning the linguistic conventions
of the sf textus, J oneny earns a reward. He discovers the extraordinary potential of The
Destroyer’s Children for communication purposes. Not only can they withstand the
physical environment of outer space without protection, but also they “exist a little
outside of time” and can read minds (Delany, mag 123). Their mind-reading abilities
anticipate and mirror that of Rydra Wong in Babel-l 7 and Arkor and the other giants in
The Fall of the Towers trilogy. The prevalence of this characteristic in Delany’s fiction
reveals both the great importance he attaches to language and how his perspective on
essentialism differs from that of Baker. In opposition to a single natural language rooted
in a human race, Delany creates characters who change the known universe through their
polyglot abilities. Overcoming linguistic, cultural, national, and/or racial barriers is the
priority and not maintaining them, as with Baker, Kelley, and Heinlein. The first
alien/human child (Joneny’s companion) can reproduce or “duplicate” himself at will
also. Furthermore, they have access to their father—an alien being of tremendous
physical power who also shares the mind-reading and time-manipulating abilities of his
offspring. Therefore, The Destroyer’s Children will act as translators for
humans—throughout space and time. In this way, they expand beyond even the galactic
(spatial) scope of The Fall of the Towers and Babel-l7.

As a student of galactic anthropology, Joneny is understandably excited by his
discovery. He will return to his university with the next step in human evolution at his

side. Compared to humans, the Destroyer’s Children are a superior race, mentally and

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physically; they fulfill The Destroyer’s promise to Captain Leela that her descendants
would “live among the stars” (Delany, B_afilad 114). In this highly positive portrayal of
The Destroyer’s Children, Delany promotes collective consciousness and racial hybridity.
The Destroyer’s Children are “one” with each other, as well as their father, and they can
communicate with any sentient being (124). This collective consciousness “explodes”
the subjective duality Baker critiques, without access to a natural or essentialist state. In
fact, the racial hybridity of The Destroyer’s Children also “explodes” the concept of a
static, essentialist racial identity.52 In this way, Delany refutes the negative portrayal of a
mixed (whether double or multiple) physical or cultural background. Because of their
racial hybridity, The Destroyer’s Children do have a fragmented subjectivity, but all of
these factors only increase theirbeneficent power. Within the specific context of
American race relations, Delany’s alien/human hybrid mirrors the mixed racial position
of mulattos. Thus, The Destroyer’s Children belie the motif of the tragic mulatto. The
unlimited fertility of The Destroyer’s Children plays on the scientific fallacy of the
sterility of mulattos also.53

Delany highlights the promise of The Destroyer’s Children through a specific
contrast to the remaining Star Folk. Captain Leela becomes impregnated voluntarily
because she sees the increasing intolerance and rigidity of the Star Folk, physically and
culturally. She fears that by the time they reach their destination, the Star Folk will have
regressed so far that they will be unable to survive, let alone complete their mission of
contacting alien civilizations. A human/alien hybrid race seems to be the best chance for
their survival. As J oneny later relays, Captain Leela was correct. J oneny first describes

the Star Folk as “a bunch of chauvinistic, degenerate morons” (6) with a “primitive-

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barbaric stage” of “civilization” (Delany, Mad 7). After his arrival on one of the
starships, he sees the physical degeneration of the Star Folk first hand: “through the tubes
loped men—or men and women, he couldn’t tell: their eyes were small and pink,
probably half blind. They were bald. Their ear trumpets had grown to their skulls.
Round-shouldered, with nubby, nailless fingers, they paused and groped mechanically at
instrument dials and nobs” (43). In this way, Delany connects the cultural and physical
regression of the Star Folk. Because they feared change, the majority of Star Folk began
to ostracize and persecute the minority who believed in diversity—cultural, social,
intellectual, and physical. Eventually the dominant majority used the concept of a very
narrow and rigid Norm, both cultural and physical in connotation, to kill those who
deviated in any way. Through executions, pogroms, and riots (in conjunction with the
mass destruction caused by The Destroyer), all of the One-Eyes, the deviant minority,
were killed. Thus, the social and physical isolation or ‘inbreeding’ of the Star Folk led to
an actual devolution over time. The message is clear: those who value stasis, racial
purity, and isolationism are on their way to “extinction” (7). i

This message speaks to both Heinlein’s Famharn’s Freehold and Kelley’s A
Different Drummer. While both authors explore inter-racial relationships (romantic,
platonic, economic, homicidal) during the course of the text, they ultimately reinforce
racial divisions. In F‘arnham’s Freehold. an Anglo Adam and Eve consciously separate
themselves fi'om the rest of humanity because of their negative experiences with blacks in
the future. Kelley removes all Afiican—Americans fiom the South in order to escape
their past and present oppression. In these ways, both authors promote a separate-but-

equal, segregationist racial policy. On the other hand, within the social and political

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context of the 19505 and 19605, Delany becomes the racial integrationist. He rejects the
white privilege, social conservatism, and racial isolationism of Heinlein and the dominant
white majority in the United States. However, he also rejects the Negritude andrBlack
Power standpoint of Kelley. Furthermore, Delany’s racial integration involves both
social/cultural and physical elements. In Sarah Phillips (1984), for example, Andrea Lee
reflects on the qualified integration advocated by many African-Americans (and Anglo-
Americans). While actively striving for a general social integration, they reject romantic
and physical integration (sexual and/or reproductive) with other racial or ethnic groups.54
Finally, by placing the entire plot of The Ballad of Beta-2 in the future, Delany can
assume a racially mixed human population even before the human race comes in contact
with alien races. Delany’s positive portrayal of racial integration with aliens also stands
in marked contrast to the transfer of human racial xenophobia to an alien Other (Scholes
and Rabkin 188).”

Unlike Heinlein and Kelley, Delany chooses to use the greater possibilities of
science fiction, in The Ballad of Betafi, to distance the story from the contemporary
historical racial situation. The distance in time and space affords a metaphoric
exploration of race relations, and this metaphoric distance lessens the volatility of the
text’s racial message. The Ballad of Beta-2 also illustrates the common connection in sf
between space and time disruptions (or hyper extensions) and a deconstruction or elision
of racial identity. For example, the historical specificity (cultural and geographic) of
African-Americans is elided in The Ballad of Beta-2. The science-fictional context
(space and time) blunts the general racial message, then, and this estrangement combines

with the deconstruction of racial identity to repel readers interested in the promotion of

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collective racial identities. Thus, The Ballad of Beta-2 does not overtly challenge the
generic conventions of sf, but it lies outside the normative parameters of African-
American literature. The importance of the “technological discourse” in The Ballad of
Batik-2 also foregrounds the scientific aspect of science fiction (Delany, IIQILhLC 284).
For example, astronomy and astronautics, physics, engineering, and, of course, galactic
anthropology (combining linguistics, cultural studies, and race) all play roles in the text.
Joneny’s role as a student of galactic anthropology specifically recalls Disher’s
impersonation of an anthropologist in Schuyler’s Black No More. However, Delany
does not satirically and cynically undermine the profession in the way Schuyler does. If
Tucker criticized Schuyler for his qualified portrayal of science, rationality, and
objectivity, what of Delany’s straightforward promotion of the sciences?

When Tucker critiqued Schuyler’s “scientific rationality” in the 19905, he was
building on the anti-rationalist, anti-scientific arguments of Baker in “Caliban’s Triple
Play” (Tucker, “Can” 143). While Baker asserts that he “is not interested simply in
taking pot shots at ‘science,”’ he believes that science “is simply one system in a series of
‘interlocking information orders’ that often subserve state power” (386). More
specifically, “a black group initiative [is] contrary to the interests of the academically
isolated whitemales [like contemporary anthropologists] who have always done whatever
was necessary (fudging data in twin studies and so forth) to make science wor ” (ibid).
In contrast, Baker highlights the “debunking” power of Mary Louise Pratt’s essay,
"Scratches on the Face of the Country; or, What Mr. Barrow Saw in the Land of the
Bushmen," which appears in "Race," Writing, and Difference along with Baker’s essay

(Baker 387). Baker explains that Pratt’s “deeply intelligent and witty awareness of the

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necessity to deconstruct a disastrous scientific ‘objectivity’ and ‘informational’ neutrality
as covers for state power and oppression bring her essay into harmony with what [he]
would call vernacular rhythms” (3 87). Furthermore, texts like Pratt’s “will make a
difference where ‘difference’ is concerned in the future. ‘Science,’ by contrast, will more
than likely continue to march to stately drums” (ibid). This pessimistic, broadly negative
attitude towards science comes from one of the more liberal academicians within the
African-American literary community as well. _

On the other hand, Delany’s promotion of the sciences in The Ballad of Beta;2_
reflects a deep and abiding interest in science. A significant portion of Delany’s
autobiography, The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the
East Village. 1957-1965. is devoted to his multifarious and intensive scientific activities
as an adolescent. Delany notes that, “[a]s a child, I was fascinated by science and math,”
and he attended the Bronx High School of Science (9). Delany’s primary interests in
science and writing, as well as music, are reflected in his vocational leanings. At various
points in his life, Delany thought he would be a scientist, a musician, or a writer.
Delany’s choice to combine these interests in his career as a science fiction writer is
explained by a story he shares about his then-wife Marilyn Hacker. When asked by an
interviewer, “Why, in this age of science [. . .] do you want to be an artist?,” Hacker
responded: “I don’t really see that much difference between them [;. . .] Both are based on
fine observation of the world” (97). Delany continues, “It was a pretty clear expression
of her aesthetic back then—and one I was happy to take as my own” (ibid). Hacker and
Delany’s conflation of art and science mirrors the later scientific analysis of Donna

Haraway in which she argues for the fictive nature of science and its ability to tell

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stories.56 In fact, Haraway’s critical project is a realization of Delany’s belief that “self-
critical models are desirable things” (Jewel-Hinged 82); in this case, [Haraway is critical
of science and traditional scientific objectivity. In a critical essay entitled “Shadows,”
Delany expands on his view of scientific objectivity:57
Somewhere, in science, especially the human ones, we have to commit ourself to
objectivity. And, especially in the human ones, objectivity cannot bethe same as
disinterest. It must be a whole galaxy of attractions and repulsions, approvals and
disapprovals, curiosities and disinterests, deployed in a context of self-critical
checks and balances which, itself, must constantly be criticised as an abstract
form capable of holding all these elements, and as specific elemental
configurations. (J ewel-Hinged 81-2)
This critical model of objectivity complicates the simplistic, traditional definition of
objectivity. It more accurately describes the qualified scientific rationality Schuyler
portrays in Black No More. for example. Furthermore, Delany goes on to explicitly
highlight a primary function of anthropology as a “self-critical model [. . .] with which to
criticise our own culture” (J_ewe_1 82). In this context, the galactic anthropology of lh_e

B_allad of Beta-2 (as its name suggests) is a logical combination of the self-critical models

 

of anthropology and science fiction.

Delany explains this self-critical purpose of the “best science fiction” later in
“Shadows” (Jewel-Hinged 99). While “[m]uch science fiction inadvertently reflects the
[scientific] context’s failure,” “the best science fiction explores the attack” upon this
context in contemporary society (ibid).58 Moreover, not only the “scientific context” but

also the “social context” is “under an internal and informed onslaught” by “Women’s

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Liberation, Gay Activism, Radical Psychiatry, or Black Power” (ibid). Delany links the
scientific failure to “integrate its specialized products in any ecologically reasonable
way” to the social failure: the scientific failure is

painfully understandable in a world that is terrified of any social synthesis,

between black and white, male and female, rich and poor, verbal and non-verbal,

educated and un-educated, under-privileged and privileged, subject and object.

Such syntheses, if they occur, will virtually destroy the categories and leave all

the elements that now fill them radically revalued in ways it is impossible to more

than imagine until such destruction is well underway. (98)

The Ballad of Beta-2 is one such act of imagination. Its racial “synthesis” destroys the
“categories” of race and “radically revalue[s]” “the elements” which they contain. As
Delany breaks down these western dichotomies in his science fiction, he takes Baker’s
“guerilla action” one step farther than Baker is willing to go (394).

Finally, Delany’s deconstruction of race corresponds with current scientific racial
theories. The scientific focus of science fiction entails a general coordination between
contemporary scientific thought and the scientific theories of the text. While fiction, a sf
text cannot diverge too far, or in too many ways, fi'om contemporary scientific thought
and get published and/or sell well. For example, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ essentialist and
hierarchical concepts of race(s) coincided with tum-of-the-century scientific theories of
race and the restrictionist side of the immigration debate. Conversely, later writers like
Delany, Octavia Butler, and Marge Piercy would find it difficult to publish texts which

overtly contradict the current scientific and poststructuralist theories which advocate a

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constructed concept of race. Delany’s interest in science and inclusive racial views allow
him to utilize such theories with little qualification.

In his firll utilization of the sf textus, with its technological discourse and thematic
conventions, Delany challenges Baker’s racial boundaries for Afiican-American
literature. For example, the technological discourse of The Ballad of Beta-2. and
Delany’s other sf texts, conflicts with the general valorization of the vernacular in
theories of African-American literature. In addition, a significant portion of Delany’s
generic criticism involves his linguistic theory of science fiction, in opposition to the
normative thematic foundations9 The subtitle of Delany’s first full-length critical text,
The Jewel-Hinged Jaw: Notes on the Laraguage of Science Fiction, highlights the early I
manifestation of Delany’s language-based generic theory. Published in 1977, the
collection consists of a number of essays previously published between 1967 and 1976.
In the 1977 introduction to the collection, Delany writes, ‘[r]ereading the pieces, for this
edition, I am pleased with a consistency in their movement toward a language model
[. . .which] is, after all, their object” (12). Delany’s second collection of essays, Starboard
Wine: More Notes on the Language of Science Fiction, was published in 1984. The
critical texts in both collections not only promote a linguistic generic theory, but in doing
so, they utilize the academic discourse Baker rejects (in theory if not always in practice).

- In his alternate history novel Dhalgpen (1975), Delany does make significant use
of the vernacular. Because Dhalgrgen takes place in an alternate, contemporary United
States, rather than on another planet or in the distant future, Delany includes the historical
language of the underground subculture(s) he describes. This alternate history format is

more similar to Famham’s Freehold and A Different Drummer than Delany’s earlier

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novels. As McEvoy notes, “If Bellona [the specific city in which the action takes place]
had been on Mars, it could be dismissed as just science fiction, not relevant to today’s
problem. But by having it take place in middle America, and changing a few details, he
can make the book relevant to today” (109-10). In fact, by using Bellona as a place name
in both Dhalgren and an earlier novelette, ”Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious
Stones,” Delany explicitly draws attention to the terrestrial setting of Dhalgpen due to its
contrast with the extraterrestrial setting of the earlier text.60 McEvoy connects
Dhalgzen’s greater similarity to American society to a more autobiographical authorial
perspective as well:
[i]t is in Dhalgren that we get closest (of his earlier works) to Delany as a person.
No longer does he hide behind the predominantly heterosexual characters that
have been the focus of his earlier books. Most of the characters in Dhalgren are
gay, and the depictions of gays is drawn in a way that is seldom seen in
heterosexual literature. Delany knows gay bars, and by the time the reader has
read the book, the reader has a clear picture of what a gay bar looks like and how
some of the interactions go on inside one.
The same applies to blacks and their separate, usually unseen by whites,
culture. (116-17)
McEvoy’s emphasis on authorial autobiography, and its links to the specific portrayal of
sexuality and race in Dhalggen, raises several issues related to the vernacular. Most
broadly, Delany utilizes the specific, historical vernacular of these various sub-cultures
because they accurately reflect the social contexts he describes. Delany’s extended use of

the vernacular in this more realistic or mundane text, then, highlights the (variable)

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cultural foundation of all languages. 6’ As the title of Barbour’s Worlds Out of Words:
the SF Novels of Samuel R. Delany highlights, the new cultural context of sf in time
and/or space calls for linguistic changes. The evolution of the Star Folk’s language in

The Ball_ad of Be. tag is one such example. Similarly, in Babel-l7 learning the alien

 

language of Babel-l7 corresponds to ideological, logical, and even practical shifts in
mental processes (from targeting a new adversary to locating the fastener in an unfamiliar
restraint). Delany’s knowledge of and interest in semantics leads him to explore such
linguistic changes, and their effects, in his other texts. While the majority of sf writers do
not pay more than lip service to such linguistic details, the (black) vernacular is still lost
due to their unfamiliarity with it. As Westfahl argues in the context of Heinlein’s racial
texts, the normative white authorial position in sf does not include first-hand or detailed
knowledge of black culture and, therefore, of the black vernacular.

Delany’s personal experiences with the black vernacular allow him to utilize it,
when the social, cultural, or linguistic context is appropriate. McEvoy does not expand
on specific characteristics of the black culture he describes; however, Delany specifically
addresses the issue of the black vernacular in “Shadows.”62 Describing his early
childhood in Harlem and the private elementary school he attended, Delany asserts,
“[b]lack Harlem speech and white Park Avenue speech are very different things. I
became aware of language as an intriguing and infinitely malleable modelling tool very
early” (Jewel-Hinged 119). Delany continues, “I always felt myself to be living in
several worlds with rather tenuous connections between them, but I never remember it
causing me much anxiety. [. . .] Rather, it gave me a sense of modest (and sometimes not

so modest) superiority” (119).63 Delany, then, does not share Baker’s negative evaluation

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of a divided subjectivity. Like his positive portrayal of racial hybridity and multiple '

consciousness in The Ballad of Beta-2 Delany sees the added communicative potential

 

instead. His experiences in multiple social contexts—black and white, privileged, poor,
educated, heterosexual and homosexual (etc.)—allow him to act as a translator, like The
Destroyer’s Children, among these multiple, largely separated, and sometimes hostile
groups. The protagonist of Dhalgpen, Kid, also circulates fieely among diverse social
contexts—a gay bar; a street gang; a formal dinner party; the home of a stereotypical
white, middle-class family; a classroom; etc. In this context, Kid’s general ‘amnesia’
symbolizes the amorphous nature of his subjectivity and the “freedom” this entails
(McEvoy 106).64 Baker’s essentialist, monolithic concept of racial identity, on the other
hand, restricts this subjective, social, and linguistic freedom. Therefore, Delany’s use of
the vernacular in Dhalgr_'en meets Baker’s linguiStic qualification for Afiican—American
literature, but the text as a whole exceeds his theoretical limitations. The most obvious
sign of this is Delany’s racially-inclusive use of the vernacular; both black and white
characters utilize what is more accurately called a street or gang vernacular.65 Dhalgpen
is an example of Baker’s “supraliteracy,” but he cannot see this because of his racial
blinders (4).66 Since Delany does not essentialize sound nor privilege the vernacular, he
can utilize any discourse: the vernacular in portions of Dhalgpen, the technological
discourse of sf in many of his texts, the “subtle” acaderrric discourse of much of his
criticism, etc. (Baker 389). Delany chooses the one(s) most appropriate to the context of
his writing and, if necessary, revises an existing one to suit a new (imaginative) cultural

context. As we have seen, Delany learned the “infinitely malleable” nature of language

at an early age. ‘

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If Dhalgpen comes closer to fulfilling Afiican-American literary criteria than
Delany’s other texts, it is no coincidence that is controversial within the sf Community.
The same historical realism which called for the vernacular, and a corresponding subtlety
of the technological discourse, prompted many sf readers to question Dhalgpen’s status as
science fiction. Writing under a pseudonym, K. Leslie Steiner, Delany refuted this
criticism of the novel:

Dhalgren was a science fiction novel that (What? Yes, it is science fiction: the

hero enters over a bridge into a parallel world—see, sillyl—into an alter-version

of an American city where ". . .the ordinary laws of time and space,” as they used
to say, “no longer apply.” I mean, really!) attacked the field by being a great book

[. . .] in just those ways most science fiction is not even good: by densitylof

psychological construction and depth of social insight. (Delany, Shaka 93)
McEvoy also felt compelled to specifically address the science fictional elements of
Dhalggen (111), even as he acknowledged its unexpected realism (109-10). In addition to
its realism and great length (even for mainstream fiction), McEvoy posits the
experimental quality of Dhalgpen as a reason for its controversial reception (103-105).
Dhalgren presents the interesting paradox in that it has had record sales for a sf text, but
the total “response with the sf community—fandom and the professionals of the
SFWA—has been generally negative, or at the best averaged out to a slightly disavowing
neutral” (Barbour 90).67 Presumably, then, the majority of Dhalgxen’s sales lay outside
the sf community. As a result, Dhalgren serves as an example of the difficulty in
merging the African-American and ”science fiction genres, at least in terms of rigid

generic characteristics (and expectations). Perhaps this is why Delany has refused to

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limit his Writing to a single genre—writing science fiction, fantasy (including the sub-
genre of sword-and-sorcery), autobiography, criticism, autobiographical criticism,
pornography, etc. In doing so, Delany has challenged his readers, but as he notes in a

Callaloo interview, the popularity of Dhalgzep, Trouble On Triton. and the Neveryon

 

series suggests “[t]oo many people have already found something in them of value” to
deny a receptive audience for his generically revisionist and fluid texts (Slam 226).

Despite Delany’s optimism, however, the controversy surrounding his career
persists, even growing stronger over time. Delany asserts that “thematically” he is “an
extremely conservative SF writer” (225), but admits “[w]hat I am doing in almost all my
books is the genre equivalent of ‘gender bending’“ (S_ilpat 226). In his early and
continued exploration of linguistic and cultural theories (the ‘sofi’ sciences), Delany
flaunted both the essentialist bias of the African-American literary community and the
traditional conventions of sf. ThaBa_llad of Beta-2 (1965), Babel-17 ( 1966), and IQ
Einstein Intersection (1967), for example, are early, fictional manifestations of Delany’s
interest in language and culture. Within the sf community, this linguistic exploration and
experimentation won Delany his first Nebula awards. However, Delany’s experiences at
the 1968 Nebula Awards banquet illustrate the power struggles going on between the
older, more traditional sf writers and the younger, more experimental writers. Slusser’s
1977 critical text on Delany specifically centers on his representative embodiment of a
“structuralist imagination” and the importance of language to structuralism (3).68 Even
with his wider critical focus, McEvoy stresses the importance of texts and writing to the
vast majority of Delany’s oeuvre (45-6). McEvoy theorizes that Delany’s dyslexia

played a role in his linguistic interests: “[t]his difficulty with texts became a concern with

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texts and perhaps an obsession with words, which is especially evident in Delany’s
remarkable The American Shore, a 243 page critique of a short story by Tom Disch!”
(46).69 The increasing sophistication of Delany’s linguistic discussions, in his fiction and
non-fiction, has raised the theoretical bar for his readers.

By the 1995 publication of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. John Clute and
Peter Nicholls assert, “[t]here is no doubt that by the 19805 [Delany’s] fiction (and
criticism) had become less accessible, and the real debate about his career must be
whether or not he gained more than he lost with his adoption of a denser style towards the
later 19705” (317). As a result, Clute and Nicholls theorize “different audiences at
different points” in Delany’s career: “a very wide, traditional sf readership up to and
including Dhalgren [. . .] and a narrower, perhaps more intellectual, campus-based
readership thereafter” (ibid). Certainly, Delany understands the linguistic and theoretical
challenges he presents to his readers. In a 1988 essay titled “Neither the First Word nor
the Last on Deconstruction, Structuralism, Poststructuralism, and Semiotics for SF
Readers,” Delany explicitly attempts to explain these difficult linguistic and cultural
theories to the sf community. Of course, an understanding of these theories would aid
readers of Delany’s texts (fictional and non-fiction), but Delany gives additional reasons
why “science fiction readers [should] be interested in such debates” (148). The third,
“personal” reason is “positioned at the very interface of [the] first two”:

[Delany] would like to see a debate about our own practices of equal interest grow

up, here, within the precincts of science fiction—a debate informed by the same

disposition toward analytic vigilance, with the same willingness to historify and

demystify the vast range of sediments, unquestioned self-evident positions, and

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givens under which our genre, its fandom, its readership struggle, along with
energetic attempts to deconstruct those oppositions at which so much discussion

,9 6‘

of science fiction stalls: “technology” vs. “science, reviewing” vs. criticism,”

“pro” vs. “fan,” “commercial” vs. “quality,” and “craft” vs. “art.” (Shorter 150)
Delany’s resistance to these specific sf dichotomies parallels Baker’s resistance to the
larger dualistic nature of western culture. As we have seen, however, Delany’s reliance
on structuralism, poststructuralism, and semiotics flies in the face of mainstream African-
American criticism.

Therefore, Delany's detailed and pervasive utilization of structuralist and
poststructuralist theories not only challenges his sf readers, but also combines with his
scientific interests to make his texts even more objectionable than those of Gates in the
field of African-American Studies. Baker’s theory of the Calibanic Self, with its natural
soundings and ties to family and kinship, implicitly criticizes Afio-American writers who
do not subscribe to these tenets (and reflect them in their work)—they are ‘inauthentic,’
not racialized, not ‘black.’ As a result, most of Samuel Delany’s non-fiction and much of
his fiction, without an extensive use of the (black) vernacular and with an emphasis on
technology (vs. Baker’s nature), would indict Delany himself as somehow not being true
to his authentic racial self, to his racialheritage, to his people. Certainly, Delany resists
such theories of identity and literature. In an interview, he emphasizes difference and not
uniform notions of identity which allow a person to be categorized: "Whatever identity
you have, be it the identity of a black person or a gay person, of a male, of a female, is

what allows you to be put in a category [. . .]. Identity is not what makes you an

individual. Difference is what makes us individual." (Beckerman). Delany’s

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“difference” here is not the racialist, essential difference utilized by Baker, but more like
the Derridian “dijférance” which is constructed through contrast with others (Freedman
148).70 In the context of gay identity, Delany makes his stance on the construction of
identity even more clear: “For me, Gay Identity [. . .] is an object of the context, not of the
self” (Longer Views 143). There is nothing ‘natural’ about Delany’s concept of racial
identity, and Baker’s connections between naturalness, nature, and race do not apply to
Delany’s discussion of (various concepts of) race in science fiction.

The threat Delany posses to literary theories that are based on race—like the
African-American literary theories of Joyce, Baker, and Gates—is clearly seen in his
postmodern view of the “black artist” and the sub-genre of African-American science
fiction. (“Racism 392). Delany believes that the small ‘b’ for black artist is “a very
significant letter, an attempt to ironize and detranscendentalize the whole concept of race,
to tender it provisional and contingent” (ibid). Also, with the advent of such writers as
Octavia Butler in the 19705, Steven Barnes in the 19805, and Nalo Hopkinson in the
19905 comes the increased threat of racial/racist labeling and grouping. Today, Delany
questions the relatively new category of “African-American science fiction” (395). In
“Racism and Science Fiction” (1994), Delany first shares his positive experiences at
Clark Atlanta University’s Afi'ican-American Science Fiction Conference (395).
However, “[t]his aware and vital meeting to respond specifically to black youth in
Atlanta is not [. . .] what usually occurs at an academic presentation in a largely white
university doing an evening on African-American sf” (ibid). Delany asserts that “as long
as racism functions as a system, it is still fueled by aspects of the perfectly laudable

desires of interested whites to observe this thing, however dubious its reality, that exists

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largely by means of its having been named: African-American science fiction” (ibid). It
is in this context that Delany objects to consistently being placed with Octavia Butler at
conventions, conferences, and in interviews (395-6). As Delany notes, in terms of his
writing and his influence in the field, he has more in common with “cyberpunk writers”
like William Gibson than Butler (ibid). Yet, he has appeared only once with Gibson and
more than six times with Butler (396). Delany resists a label like “Afiican-American
science fiction” because it racially segregates otherwise dissimilar writers from the genre
as a whole. He simultaneously promotes individual difference and inclusive
intermingling because “what racism as a system does is isolate and segregate the people
of one race, or group, or ethnos from another” (“Racism” 393). For Delany, then, any
reform of the sf community would involve greater inclusiveness, but not greater
compartrnentalization. In this we can see Delany joining Schuyler in resisting an over-
simplified categorization as an African-American writer. Such a category or label is not
only inaccurate, but also restricting and separatist.

Delany insists on exploring a dazzling multiplicity of issues in his texts, reflecting
the multiplicity of his interests and his subjectiVity. Therefore, any critical study of his
texts poses the challenge of selection and the problem of elision. In his section on
Delany and his 1984 novel, Stars in MyPocket Like Gatlins of Sand. Carl Freedman
acknowledges this difficulty. In addition to the “politics of gender and to specifically
feminist concerns,” Delany

. pursu[es] a close examination of the politics of sexual orientation and of that
entire complex of social marginalities designated in earthly terms by such rubrics

as race, ethnicity, and nation. Very few novels, within science fiction or beyond it,

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have ever tried to do as much as Delany’s magnum opus. If the personal interest

[. . .] that Delany has maintained in the texts of critical theory makes his work an

inevitable or at least “natural” reference point for a study like the current essay,

the immense scope of his finest novel makes it an extremely difficult text with

which to come to terms. (Freedman 147)

Within the present work, Delany is also an essential “reference point.” Not only does
Delany investigate the intersection of subjectivity with race in his science fiction, but his
extensive critical writings are an invaluable resource as well. Finally, the timing of
Delany’s entrance into the sf community offers a unique vantage point from which to
critique the field after Schuyler. However, Delany’s autobiography, The Motion of Light
In Water, offers a more accurate presentation of his diverse interests and the many facets
of his postmodern subjectivity.

Delany’s 1988 autobiography explores the personal basis for his multiple
interests. Sexuality, gender, race, and vocation are ideological sites where the social
“impinges” on the psychological, or the object “contour[s] and constitute[s]” the subject
(Starboard 188).71 Not just serving as a historical/social background for Delany’s fiction,
then, the autobiography embodies his multiple subjectivity and its associated freedom,
contradiction, and tension. Early on Delany shares a feeling of “pivotal suspension”
between the many dichotomies dividing American society:

I was a young black man, light-skinned enough so that four out of five people

Who met me, of whatever race, assumed I was white. [. . .] I was a homosexual

who now knew he could function heterosexually.

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And I was a young writer whose early attempts had already gotten him a
handful of prizes, a few scholarships [. . .].

So, I thought, you are neither black nor white.

You are neither male nor female.

And you are that most ambiguous of citizens, the writer.

There was something at once very satisfying and very sad, placing myself at this
pivotal suspension. It seemed, in the park at dawn, a kind of revelation—a kind
of center, formed of a play of ambiguities, from which I might move in any
direction. Mm 52)

First, Delany’s personal “satisfaction” stems from the “romantic ambiguities” of
subjective positions in the “center” of these dualities and the possibility of freedom,
agency, and/or individuality attached to such neutral positions (242). His “sadness” is the
flip side to this neutral coin, in that Delany does not fit within the existing, dualistic
categories of American society. Therefore, he is an outsider who also faces intense sOcial
pressure to conform, to make himself fit these categories at whatever personal cost.

In fact, Delany later shares his revisiOn of this “revelation” and places a
reexamination of these issues of (subjectivity in the context of a mental breakdown
(Mopipp 52). In the hospital he “began to see that what [he’d] taken as a play of freedom
and mystical possibility had actually meant something quite different” (242). The
difference includes the Oppressive ideologies of race and sexuality which, especially pre-
1960’5, “pull you toward the most conservative position you might inhabit, however
poorly you might be suited for it” (ibid). As a means of self-examination, Delany

tentatively lists three labels and subjective positions which place him within the existing

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social categories, but not in the “most conservative position[s]”: “A black man. . .?/A gay
man. . .?/A writer. . .?” (212). He proceeds to take each of these fragments of his
subjectivity individually and use it as a lens to zoom in on the corresponding sections of
his life experiences. In this way, readers (joining Delany in his voyage of discovery)
learn additional information about Delany’s life not'previously related in the
autobiography, although overlapping in time. We also follow the process of
interrogation or critical analysis through which Delany matures, coming to terms with the
multiple elements of his identity and learning strategies of resistance to the way these
elements were (are) “hugely devalued in the social hierarchy” (ibid).

Delany’s persOnal struggle here seems to illustrate the extreme dispersal of
identity discussed by Diana Fuss. Fuss suggests:

It does seem plausible that, like the female Subject, the Afro-American subject

(who might also be female [and gay]) begins fragmented and dispersed [. . .]. If

so, then for both the female subject and the Afro-American subject, “the condition

of dispersal and fragmentation that Barthes valorizes (and fetishizes) is not to be

aChieved but to be overcome.” (95)72
Delany continues the process of fragmentation begun by Fuss, adding sexuality and
vocation to race and gender. While Delany does not specifically address genderin this
one section, elsewhere in his autobiography he spends considerable time examining
emerging feminist concerns during this time period, particularly through the vehicle of
his wife Marilyn Hacker. In all of his Writings, Delany takes the divided racial
subjectivity of Du Bois and Schuyler and fragments it much further. Even the

overarching format of the autobiography reflects this fragmentation. Small segments or

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“arbitrary fragments” from different contexts and time periods are numbered by
individual fragment and by larger sections or groups of fragments Motion 300).73 For
example, Delany begins with section “1” and continues through “85,” but breaks up
section “8” into everything from “8.1” to “8.103” and “8.29.” Brian McHale addresses
this postmodem “disintegration” in his book Constructing Postmodernism (254):
Postrnodernism’s shift of focus to ontological issues and themes has radical
consequences for literary models of the self. A poetics in which the category
‘world’ is plural, unstable and problematic would seem to entail a model of the
self which is correspondingly plural, unstable, and problematic. If the world is
ontologically unstable (self-contradictory, hypothetical or fictional, infiltrated by
other realities) then so perhaps am ‘I.’ (253-4).
McHale’s theoretical pluralism here parallels Delany’s autobiographical pluralism, as
well as its connection to science fiction’s culture-building project (multiple worlds).74
As both Fuss and McHale imply, a “dispersed” (Fuss 95) or “plura ,” “self-
contradictory,” and “unstable” subjectivity can be “problematic” (McHale 253-4).
However, Fuss’ suggestion that such fragmentation or division should be “overcome”
does not mean an indiscriminate merging of the elements into a monolithic, static
identity. As Delany attempts to show in this autobiography, the multiple subjective
elements should be identified, explored, and reconciled with one another as much as
possible. For example, the three elements of race, sexuality, and vocation are set side-by-
side and connected to other elements of his autobiography. In this way, they are ‘united’
in one life story and a single artistic endeavor, yet they remain distinctly recognized

individually as fundamental elements of Delany’s subjectivity. At the end of the three

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sections, Delany no longer questions, but confidently asserts: “A black man. / A gay man.
/ A writer” (Mptkrp 242). He also implies that these multiple subjective positions serve
as bridges or “a rhetoric that joins each [columnj—however tenuously—to the other”
(212). The “two columns” to which he refers here are the public and private dichotomy
of western discourse and its embodiment in his “two accounts” of his life (212)——“one
resplendant and lucid with the writings of legitimacy, the other dark and hollow with the
voices of the illegitimate” (29-30). 75 While these two “columns” or “accounts [. . .]
seem as if they take place on different planets,” Delany “insists that the gap between
them, the split, the flickering correlations between, as evanescent as light-shot water, as
insubstantial as moonstruck cloud, are really all that constitute the subject: not the
content, if you will, but the relationships that can be drawn out of that content, and which
finally that content can be analyzed down into” (212). Delany values bridges between
subjective divisions, then, and not the maintenance of discrete units. Given his inclusive
and dynamic fiction, it is fitting that Delany emphasize fluid connections rather than
static separations in his autobiography.
|Trouble on| Triton

As the example of Delany’s autobiography highlights, the fragmentation of
‘ subjectivity relies on social context. Therefore, not only is identity or subjectivity
fragmented, but the fragments are a matter of context also—a very unstable and
potentially disconcerting subjective position. In opposition to an interior, static
essentialism, a constructed or provisional subjectivity relies on exterior materials—the
social and physical environment. Thus, subjectivity is provisional due to the tension

between the fragments and the fluid social context. The object focus of science fiction

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provides an ideal location for exploring this social fluidity and, logically, the
corresponding provisional nature of subjectivity as well. In Delany’s sf criticism, he
discusses the unique relationship between the subject and the object in science fiction. In
Trouble on Triton. he specifically revises the ideological position of the static, essentialist
protagonist of traditional science fiction. 76 Imagine John Carter traveling to the Outer
Satellites, a new social context, and finding himself the outsider, the Other. Without the
traditional white, male hero, the reader must look elsewhere for viable, attractive
subjective altematives. Through the gradual deconstruction of the static protagonist and
corresponding shift toward the dynamic minor characters, Delany not only critiques a
heroic model, but also the larger failings of traditional science fiction. The object focus
of science fiction, the change in social setting, logically entails a change in subjectivity.
If subjectivity is constructed through the social environment, the protagonist should not
simply change the world(s) in which ‘he’ comes into contact, but also be changed by that
world. However, this focus of attention on the object, or world setting, has historically
functioned to obscure the subject altogether in science fiction.

In “Reading at Work, and Other Activities Frowned on by Authority: A Reading
of Donna Haraway’s ‘Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist
Feminism in the 19805’” (1985-88), Delany places his multiple consciousness in a causal
relationship with his physical context: A

my eye lifts from the text and again strays, glances about, snags a moment at a

horizon, a boundary that does not so much contain a self, an identity, a unity, a

center and origin which gazes out and defines that horizon as the horizon is

251

defined by it; rather that horizon suggests a plurality of possible positions within

it, positions which allow a number of events to transpire” (Lgrgpr 117).77
This “horizon,” object, context, or world results in similar “positions” as Delany’s
autobiography. At the end of his reading of Haraway’s essay, Delany tries “to articulate
the positions fiom which [he] write[s], as a male, as a black male, as a gay black male, as
a gay black male whose works is the writing of paraliterary fictions” (ibid). These
subjective positions (or fragments) reflect particular social contexts and they lead to a
specific interpretation of Haraway’s text. Therefore, Delany invites the reader to
interpret Haraway’s text, “restructur[ing]” his interpretation and potentially
opening up additional interpretive “positions” (118). This collective or dialogic model of
reading reflects Delany’s “ontology of the open horizon—which relativizes discourse to
rhetoric, refuses closure and the transcendence of history, places the subject back into its
object-context, and privileges the active, social self over the passive sovereign self” (K.
James xxxvii).

In “Aversion/Perversion/ Diversion” (1991), Delany more fully explains the
constructed and provisional nature of subjectivity in the context of his “gay” position
(Qagg). Delany asserts,

The point to the notion of Gay Identity is that, in terms of a transcendent reality

concerned with sexuality per se (a Universal similarity, a shared necessary

condition, a defining aspect, a generalizable and inescapable essence common to
all men and women called “gay”), I believe Gay Identity has no more existence

than a single, essential, transcendental sexual difference. (Longer 142)

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This is the point at which Schuyler discards race as a meaningful concept—of positive
value for African-Americans. Delany too notes the two “strategies” composing Gay
Identity (similar to those of race); one used negatively for the “heterosexist oppression of
gays” and the other used positively to promote “gay rights” (ibid). However, Delany
goes on to offer a qualified endOrsement of the second of these two strategies
(particularly necessary, presumably, because of the first), “even if, at a theoretical level,
[he] question5[s] the existence of that identity as having anything beyond a provisional or
strategic reality” (ibid). This “provisional or strategic reality” comes into play in terms
of the social and historical contexts of Gay Identity. “For [Delany], Gay Identity—like
the joys of Gay Pride Day, weekends on Fire Island, and the delight of tickets to the
opera—is an object of the context, not of the self—which means, like the rest of the
context, it requires analysis, understanding, interrogation, even sympathy, but never an
easy and uncritical acceptance” (Lgagar 143). Therefore, Ken James believes Delany’s
“interest in such recondite analytical practices as Marxian critique, deconstructive
criticism, and discourse analysis” lies in their “exploration of the social constitution of
the individual subject” (xxi). In addition to the social context, Delany emphasizes the
importance of a historical context. For example, Delany noted in his autobiography that
the terms “gay” and “black” did not exist in the early 19605 as we know them today
(Maggi. 242). Because of their contextual basis, their “meanings, usage,” and rhetoric
change over time (ibid).

Delany argues that this “concept of ideohistory” is very common in science
fiction, in contrast to mundane fiction (J ewel-Hinged 272-3) . Along with the

“convention of idiocentric omissions (or opacities),” the concept of ideohistory “allow[s]

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science fiction to treat ideas as signifiers—as complex structures that organize outward in
time and space (they have causes, they have results)” (273). By simultaneously
historicizing an idea like ‘gay’ or ‘race’ and treating it as “a new idea” (the ideocentric
omission), then, science fiction is freed “from the stricture that has held back so much
modern thought, of treating ideas as signifieds—-—as dense, semantic objects with essential,
hidden, yet finally extractable semantic cores” (ibid). As a result, science fiction is one
vehicle for the required “analysis, understanding, interrogation” of such ideas Lon er
143). Science fiction highlights the historical and social fluctuation of ideas because of
its object-focus, its foregrounding of the contextual background (in mundane fiction)
(Starboard 188). In “Shadows,” Delany explains how science fiction writers examine this
context, this exterior “world”:
Nothing we look at is ever seen without some shift and flicker——that constant
flaking of vision which we take as imperfections of the eye or simply the
instability of attention itself; and we ignore this illusory screen for the solid reality
behind it. But the solid reality is the illusion; the shift and flicker is all there is
(Where do s-f writers get their crazy ideas? From watching all there is very
carefully.) (Jewel-Hinged 51-2)
Therefore, not only does the context fluctuate due to time, spatial, and social differences,
but also in its very apprehension and its metaphysical nature. Through its contextual and
speculative emphases, science fiction illuminates this “shift and flicker” more than the
“solid reality” portrayed by mundane fiction.
In “Dichtung and Science Fiction,” Delany discusses the difference between the

object focus of science fiction and the subject focus of other literary genres (Starboard

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188-9). According to Delany, the other “literary modes [. . .] are all characterized—now,
today—by a priority of the subject, i.e., of the self, of human consciousness” (Starboard
188). In contrast, “as a paraliterary mode,” science fiction is “concerned with the subject,
certainly, but concerned with those aspects of it that are closer to the object: Hownis the
subject excited, impinged on, contoured and constituted by the object?” (ibid). This
unusual literary hierarchy raises several issues. First, the object focus of sf is another
factor in the longevity of the traditional white male hero. Displacing subjectivity as the
center of the narrative encourages a stable, static, relatively unimportant protagonist.
What fluctuates instead is the context—the physical and social environment and the
specific adventures the protagonist experiences. For example, John Carter’s psychology,
and its development, is not the focus of Burroughs’ Mars series. The first text becomes a
full-length novel and then an extended series through the varying settings. Thus, the
object focus of sf maintains an essentialist theory of subjectivity through neglect.
However, as Delany’s sf criticism highlights, if an author specifically addresses
subjectivity, the object-focus of 5f encourages a more accurate portrayal. The emphasis
on the social and physical context shows us how the subject is “excited, impinged on,
contoured and constituted by the object”——how subjectivity is constructed, in other
words. Furthermore, the contextual and the speculative elements of sf emphasize
subjective instability, variation, and the potential for change. Delany incorporates both of
these subjective trends in Trouble on Triton.

The protagonist of Trouble on Triton. Bron Helstrom, is the traditional white,
male hero of science fiction. He is not significantly influenced by his environment, and

his “simplexity [. . .] is in essence a form of solipsism” (Barbour 127).78 If Trouble on

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_'l‘_ri_tan is an exception to the general sf rule of subjective neglect, Delany chooses to
explore the very psychology which has been elided. Furthermore, Delany uses the
context or object-focus of sf to critique this static, isolated, selfish subjectivity. The
discrepancy between Bron’s point of view and the context leads the reader to question
Bron’s reliability and begin to see his subjective type as an anachronism.79 In this case,
Delany uses the context to illustrate how an individual's subjectivity is not significantly
“contoured” by a new environment. The new environment of Trouble on Triton is the
Outer Satellite moon of Triton, and its contrast to Bron’s home planet of Mars grounds
the social and subjective critique of the text. The socially and politically more
conservative planets, Mars and Earth, become political allies in a war against the more
radical Outer Satellites. Bron is the reader’s narrative focus for this larger social context.
Within a traditional sf narrative, therefore, Bron would be the warrior/hero largely
responsible for winning the war on behalf of the good guys. However, Bron’s actual
wartime activities undermine this stereotype. Furthermore, Delany contrasts Bron, his
subjectivity and actions, to that of other Outer Satellite residents. They represent the new
subjective possibilities which Bron rejects. Unlike Kid in the terrestrial Bellona of
Dhalggen, Bron will not take advantage of all the new freedoms offered by his altered
social context.80

Delany’s choice of a white, male protagonist in Trouble on Triton continues his
dialogue with Robert Heinlein. In written communications to Michael W. Peplow,
Delany revealed one of his inspirations for Trouble on Triton and, specifically, Bron
Helstrom—Heinlein’s 1963 Glopy Road (Peplow, “Meet” 120). Peplow summarizes

Delany’s reaction to Glog Road as follows: Delany “liked the pure adventure aspects of

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the story but hated its hero—‘an incredibly conservative, “normal” six-foot blond hero
(190 pound ex-athletic star)”’ (ibid).81 As a result, Delany intended Trouble on Triton to
be a “cutting, if not killing, dissection of just what I think a primarily heterosexual blue-
eyed blond male is” (qtd. in Peplow 120).82 Delany takes the same traditional, heroic,
white male, sf protagonist as Heinlein and offers a more radical critique than F amham’s
Freehold. In addition, Delany’s “dissection” and critique of the white, heterosexual male
psyche inverts the normative psychological and literary ‘pathologizing’ of homosexuals,
women, and blacks. In fact, as Bron models this process of psychological Othering in his
daily life, he reveals his own disabling limitations and psychological disorder to the
reader. In this way, Trouble on Triton affirmatively answers the question lefl: by
Farnham’s Freehold—can an author focus on a white male protagonist and his
subjectivity without undermining his critical, revisionist intentions?83

In Bron Helstrom, Delany takes a traditional sf hero and fleshes out his
psychology, highlighting the negative potential of such personality characteristics. First,
Bron desperately desires subjective unity, to be an integrated ‘whole.’ He pleads with his
romantic interest, the Spike, “Help me. Take me. Make me whole” (T_rou_bl_e 107). Neil
Easterbrook argues that Bron “fetishizes himself as a clear and distinct Cartesian subject
[. . .]. Cartesian subjectivity and hierarchy appeal precisely because they are clear,
certain, coherent, stable—and so by the principle of parsimony, preferable” (67).” What
Easterbrook’s accurate and inclusive description lacks is a specific articulation of the
racial, gender, and sexual components of Bron’s “Cartesian subjectivity” and the
privilege attached to these positions.85 The “hierarchy” Easterbrook briefly mentions

entails something besides “parsimony.” When he notes that “Bron wants to be ‘at the

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center’ (306) within a culture with none, “Easterbrook implies what needs to be stated
explicitly———the normative and privileged position of the white, heterosexual male (Bron)
in western culture and the science fiction genre more specifically. Barbour is one of the
few critics to foreground the importance of Bron’s racial status:
Bron Helstrom is Delany’s first WASP protagonist, a member of the dominant
racial and economic group in our Western world [. . .]. He is the symbolic bearer
of the social attitudes associated with the Richards in Dhalgren and singled out
for attack in Delany’s ‘Sex, Objects.’ That he is also the first protagonist in
Delany’s sf with whom we are compelled not to identijy assumes great
importance in this context. (122)
Without this direct and detailed ideological placement, Delany’s social, generic, and
subjective critique is limited. Within the generic context, for example, we would not see
Bron Helstrom as the distant ancestor of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter or a step-
brother to Heinlein’s protagonist in Glog Road. Only such men can utilize a theory of
integrated subjectivity because they are so centrally located that the 'margins' do not
overlap their subjective boundaries. Furthermore, their corresponding social (economic,
political, etc.) privilege supports this illusion of subjective independence. Du Bois’
theory of a double-consciousness for African-Americans, Fuss’ application to women of
such a multiple theory of subjectivity, and Delany’s autobiographical explorations of his
sexuality highlight several groups who do not make use of such an integrated theory of
subjectivity. When Delany places Bron within a new social context that displaces the
historical centrality and privilege of the “WASP” male, he joins Fuss and Huyssen in

highlighting the false universalism of this specific, limited subjective position.86 Bron

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becomes simply one of many on Triton, who is only different in his continued resistance
to such social and subjective egalitarianism. -

In its unity and sameness, then, a monolithic subjectivity rejects the Other and
reveals a fear of possible racial, gender, or sexual ‘contamination.’ Bron’s frequent
critical label of “solipsistic” (Barbour 127) or “narcissistic” (Massé 53) highlights this
subjeCtive isolation, rejection of the Other, and repetition of the same. As Michelle
Massé notes, Bron desires an “acknowledgement of [his] uniqueness and superiority”
(53). His persistent resistance to being a “type” (5) and his longing for ‘the good old
days’ spring from these desires (Delany, '_l'ro_ubl_e 254). According to Bron, the past [our
present] was more “simple” in its overt sexism (254). Delany implies that Bron glorifies
this historical period because it would 'justify' his now marginal ideological position(s)
and its related sexism, heterosexism, and racism (ibid).” Bron’s utilization of the past as
a defensive mechanism reveals his limited understanding that he is an anachronism in the
heterotopic world of Triton. As an anachronism, Bron “still thinks in
binaries—man/woman, owner/owned, client/servant, and so forth” (Easterbrook 66).
Bron utilizes these outdated “binaries,” and their hierarchical organization in western
culture, to “classify others to establish his own difference” (Massé 54). In his
classification, Bron limits by definition and misrepresents by stereotype. Therefore, he
represents the ‘anachronistic’ divisions, prejudices, and psychological defenses prevalent
in contemporary western society. More specifically, Bron mimics the ethnographic gaze
of the western explorer/naturalist/anthropologist. However, Delany strips the superficial
objectivity and false universalism from the classification and hierarchical ranking of a

Carl Akeley, Theodore Roosevelt, or a John Carter.88 As a result, the three characters

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closest to Bron in the text—Lawrence, the Spike, and Sam—become “inferior types, who
show moreover no consciousness of their ‘lowly’ status: the Spike is a woman, Sam a
black, Lawrence old and gay” (Massé 56). Similarly, “Bron is the only character in the
novel who frequently uses racist and sexist terms—‘crazed lesbian,’ ‘obnoxious faggot,’
‘nigger,’ ‘cock-sucker,’ ‘whore,’ and ‘dyke’” (55). Bron’s anachronistic terminology,
then, reflects his anachronistic ideology and values, and it overtly and vividly reveals the
bias of his formerly normative subjective position.

Delany also critiques the psychology of the traditional sf protagonist through the
related characteristic of stasis. Bron’s monolithic, enclosed subjectivity does not change,
even when subjected to the pressure of new social and/or physical environments. “In
Triton’s flux, Bron is a static character” (Massé 52). According to Delany’s science
fiction theory, of course, Bron should change; a new subject should result from a new
object. Bron’s exception to the rule is not an oversight, however; it is the very basis of
Delany’s generic critique. Not only should the object focus of science fiction lead to new
subjective models, but the traditional sf protagonist supposedly embodies the larger
progressive characteristics of western society and the white race. Within this traditional
dualistic context, western cultures and their representatives were politically, culturally,
historically, and even geographically moving toward a more advanced, positive stage of
development. On the other hand, people-of-color and their ‘native’ cultures were

89 Therefore, Bron’s psychological and

incapable of cultural or psychological change.
cultural stasis illustrates the contradiction and hypocrisy within the dynamic, progressive
characterization of the traditional sf hero. Furthermore, Bron’s persistent Othering

reveals the motivation behind the traditional hero’s stasis—it protects him from cultural

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and biological contamination and ensures his triumph against the inferior, usually
adversarial natives. If he assimilated (i.e. changed) socially and/or sexually (including
reproduction), he could not maintain his superior position. Within this larger context of
racial essentialism, Bron’s subjective essentialism reflects a desire to keep the larger
‘race’ pure—biologically, culturally, and psychologically. Thus, individual stasis
protects posterity.

Bron’s interest in the ‘survival of the species’ connects to stasis in this way
(Delany, Imu_bl_e_ 232). As Lawrence informs Bron, his chances of meeting a woman
with “a mutually compatible logic perversion” (212) is approximately “one out of five
thousand” (213). With these statistical odds in mind, Bron decides to become a woman,
in order "to preserve the species” (232). Bron believes that only in preserving and
passing on his beliefs, his anachronistic cultural norms can “mankind” survive or have
any positive value (231). In an interesting twist from the alien cloning of The Ballad of

Beta-2 Delany has Bron attempt to reproduce through sexual and psychological

 

alteration of himself. After his alterations, Bron’s counselor tells her, “[i]n one sense,
though you are as real a woman as possible, in another sense you are a woman created by
a man—specifically by the man you were” (251). This reproduction of the Self, the
same, is doomed to failure in the heterotopic society of Triton, however.9O Unlike Hugh ’
Farnham and Barbara in Heinlein’s £a__rnh_am’s Freehold. this new Eve will not ‘go forth
and bear fruit.’

After the fact, Bron realizes the impossible situation s/he has created. She must
be passive in order to attract the type of man she used to be, but then her chances of

finding ‘Mr. Right’ are very slim to non-existent (Delany, Trouble 263). Furthermore,

 

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Bron’s ‘feminine’ passivity basically continues her passivity as a man. According to
Massé, “in the main [Bron] is passive in his actions and relationships”; “he is dependent
upon the responses of others to maintain his image” (57). This critical evaluation of
Bron’s passivity brings us firll circle, back to his request to the Spike to “make [him]
whole.” Bron’s plea reveals not only his desire for a monolithic subjectivity, but also his
paradoxical reliance on others for this ‘independent’ subjectivity. Thus, Delany utilizes
Jacques Derrida’s theory of linguistic “difi’érance” to highlight the logical impossibility
of Bron’s subjective position. As Carl Freedman points out, Derrida’s theory of
diflérance has important ramifications for identity:
Not only does every signifier differ from every other; it also thereby defers to
every other, in the sense that the differential determination of its own meaning is
always to be found elsewhere. Accordingly, meaning—and therefore all thought
and all identity—cannot be securely achieved in any particular act of
signification. On the contrary, it operates in a fitful, problematic way throughout
the entirety of the signifying system. (148)
Therefore, what Bron refuses to acknowledge is the fundamental diffusion of his
mOnolithic, isolated identity. It is only “elsewhere,” in relationship with others that his
poststructuralist subjectivity can be constructed.
As a result, Bron’s sex and gender changes are not enough to extricate her from
“the hopeless tangle of confusion, trouble, and distress” she had hoped to leave behind on
Mars (Delany, Irpabjp 277). The underlying subjective stasis eventually overcomes all
of Bron’s defensive mechanisms, and she projects her subjective stasis upon the objective

world. Trouble on Triton ends with Bron firmly believing that “dawn [. . .] would never

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come” (ibid). In Appendix B, Delany has the fictional philosopher and mathematician
Ashima Slade sympathetically comment on Bron’s precarious subjective position:
Our society in the Satellites extends to its Earth and Mars emigrants, at the Same
time it extends instruction on how to conform, the materials with which to destroy
themselves, both psychologically and physically—all under the same label:
Freedom. To the extent they will not conform to our ways, there is a subtle
swing: The materials of instruction are pulled firrther away and the materials of
destruction are pushed correspondingly closer. Mk: 302-3).
Bron’s mental breakdown at the end of the text is one example of such psychological
“destruction.” In a moment of metafictional reversal, Delany also compares himself to
Slade as follows: “for Slade the concept of landscape is far more political than it was for
the author [Delany] of the older work [Trouble on Triton]” (302). With Slade, Delany
returns to the importance of “landscape” or the object/world to the construction of
subjectivity. In Triton’s different “landscape,” the positive qualities of the traditional sf
hero are revealed to be flaws. On Triton, heroic “male aloneness” becomes a logical
perversion and leads to unhappiness, dynamic becomes passive, stasis leads to infertility,
independence relies on others, and finally male becomes female (216). A traditional sf
hero, like Bron, would not be able to survive in the poststructuralist world of difference
fully realized in Triton. As Delany asserts, when the results look most revolutionary,
that‘s when the writer is most attending to the tradition” (S_il_ep_t 226).
Delany’s critique of the traditional sf protagonist relies on the heterotopic society
of Triton. First, the changed social context illustrates the concept of an “ideohistory”

(Delany, Jewel-Hinged 273). Bron’s anachronistic sexism, for example, shows how the

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concepts of gender and sexuality have changed over time. These changes explain why
Bron is now the unhappy minority in Triton society. When Ashima Slade notes that
“there is no class, race, nationality, or sex that it does not help to be only half’ (TM
302), Fox declares that this “precept [. . .] reinforces the attack on an ideology of absolute
categories and ‘pure’ identities, positing instead the need for (minimally, at least) an
acceptance of dualism, of fusions rather then separations” (“Politics” 51). Therefore,
Bron’s repetition of the same contrasts with the multiplicity embodied in Triton’s society,
a multiplicity affecting sexuality, gender, race, politics, and religion. John F ekete
explicitly contrasts Trouble on Trition: An Ambiguous Heterotopia with Ursula Le
Guin’s The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utgria (1974) because of this multiplicity.91
According to F ekete, “Le Guin’s interest is in the emergence of the liberatory novum, of
individual initiative [. . .]; she works [. . .] toward the classical utopian aspirations of
Western philOsophy: reconciliation in the potential harmony of all. Delany, by contrast,
presents the dominance of dispersion” (13 1). As we have seen, this “ dispersion”
applies to the construction of individual subjectivity, but this reflects a larger social
“dispersion’ in Delany’s text as well. Triton’s society simply does not have a ‘center.’
The extraordinary range of acceptable sexual practice on Triton illustrates this
heterotopic quality. The Spike summarizes this aspect for the reader early on: “I mean,
when you have forty or fifty sexes, and twice as many religions, however you arrange
them, you’re bound to have a place its fairly easy to have a giggle at” (Ir_oupl_e 99).
Since Triton society rests on the inviolability of the subjective, every aspect of society is

tremendously expanded to meet the subjective demands of its citizens (277).

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The subjective and social “dispersion” of Trouble on Triton is reflected in the
major characters. First, Delany allows the other characters, representing the Other, to
speak for themselves to a much greater extent than either Heinlein or Kelley. The
discrepancy between their words and actions and those of Bron aides in undermining his
subjective point of view. As readers continue through the text, they perceive that Bron’s
point of View is unreliable and that his subjectivity embodies the Other of Triton society.
Within this context, the other characters serve as examples of subjective alternatives.
Bron’s ‘friends,’ those people who get close to him and who also serve as the other major
characters in the text, each represent an alternative to one of Bron’s subjective poSitions.
Lawrence, for example, offers a site for exploring Bron’s heterosexuality and the position
of homosexuality in Triton society. Lawrence’s overt and socially-accepted
homosexuality contrasts with the suppression of homosexuality in Heinlein’s texts
(Delany, mpg 287), and the underlying heterosexism of The Dispossessed. In “To
Read The Dispossessed,” Delany faults Le Guin for her “fictive thinness” in portraying
Bedap, a homosexual man (Jewel-Hinged 297). For example, Le Guin resorts to “cliche”
and “mystifie[s]” Bedap’s homosexuality and its relationship to offspring and familial
groups on the world of Annares (292-4). Delany creates the various co-ops and
communes of Triton society to revise Le Guin’s exclusion of homosexuals from familial
groups. Furthermore, within the “systems-off” system of reproduction on Triton, Bron’s
great concern about the survival of the species is unusual Shorter 340). Finally, Delany
places homosexuality within the same constructionist grid as biological sex and race.
Any person on Triton can undergo a simple psychological procedure to change their

sexual “fixation,” from “an ordinary, bisexual, female-oriented male,” for example, to

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any of the other many options ('_Tr_oab_le_ 227-9). Both Bron and the Spike undergo such a
procedure during their lifetimes.

Bron’s other fiiend, Sam, and Bron’s love interest, the Spike, bring the issues of
gender and race to the fore. Sam, a black man, primarily serves as vehicle for
investigating race on Triton, but later in the text, the issue of gender surfaces in an
unexpected way. A white woman, the Spike is the primarily site for exploring gender
issues. In the second note of “Appendix A: From the Triton Journal: Work Notes and
Omitted Pages,” Delany writes, “Everything in a science fiction novel should be
mentioned at least twice (in at least two different contexts)” (Trouble 282). Race and
gender act as two such contexts, along with the previously-mentioned sexuality. Delany
refuses to simplify his ‘heterotopic’ interests, either in the multiple subjective positions
available to people or in the enabling social context. In this ‘love story’ gone awry, race
serves as a prologue to the more extensive discussion of gender in the text. For example,
Bron’s relationship with Sam sets up his later 'failure' with the Spike. Because Sam, the
Spike, and Lawrence all embody the ideological positions Bron rejects, he treats them in
the same self-centered, callused manner. Conversely, they successfully function within
the heterotopic, egalitarian social environment of Triton. Their relationships with Bron,
despite his shortcomings, exemplify an Openness to difference he lacks. In this regard
and in his combination of race and gender, Sam offers a convenient single site for
discussing Bron’s subjective limitations. Sam also illustrates the maintenance of racial
identity within the poststructuralist, postmodern world of Triton. Delany’s portrayal of
an individualist, constructed, provisional concept of race answers the challenge of

African-American literary criticism. However, like the sf readers of Trouble on Triton,

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the critics might be shocked, offended, and/or challenged by his ‘answer.’ In fact,
Delany consciously intends for his portrayal of race to be “disturbing,” as his quote from
Michel Foucault’s The Order of Things emphasizes: “Heterotopias are disturbing,
probably because they make it impossible to name this or that, because they shatter or
tangle common names, because they destroy ‘syntax’ in advance, and not only the syntax
with which we construct sentences but also that less apparent syntax which causes words
and things (next to and also opposite one other) to ‘hold together’” ME 292). In
Trouble on Triton, race cannot be easily “named” because it does not “hold together” in
the essentialist, collective manner desired by African-American literary critics.

Delany first illustrates the limits of Bron’s point of view in his portrayal of Sam, a
black man in his “all-male” sexually ‘unspecified’ co-op (man. 27). In his
unhappiness and insecurity, Bron obsessively compares himself to others, always aware
of and manipulating power relations and jealous of anyone who appears more
‘successful,’ better adjusted, etc. Therefore, Bron persists in applying stereotypes and
limiting Sam’s subjectivity through singular, narrow classifications. At first, Sam is
“handsome, expansive, fiiendly with everyone (including Bron), even though his work
kept him away eleven days out of every two weeks. All that bluster and backslapping?
Just a standard, annoying type” (25). Bron even admits his “dislike” for Sam based on
these positive personal characteristics (ibid). In addition, Sam’s physical description and
demeanor play into common, contemporary black stereotypes. First, he is happy, easy-
going, and ahnost ‘grinning’: “Sam leered hugely, jovially, and blackly over the rail” at
the men of the co-op (ibid). Sam’s physical body is the focus of attention as well: “[h]e

had a large, magnificent body which he always wore (rather pretentiously, Bron thought)

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naked” (ibid). In an ‘obsession’ with Sam’s color and body parts, the reader also sees "a
broad, black hand" and "black fists on narrow, black hips" within the three short
paragraphs of Sam’s entrance and introduction (ibid). Buying into this stereotypical
portrayal of the ‘happy Negro’ and his physical attributes, the reader might join Bron in
his later “revelation” that “Sam was not so average. Under all that joviality, there was a
rather amazing mind” (26). Similarly, when Bron concludes that Sam "was as oppressed

I"

by the system as anyone else," his friend Lawrence tells him that oppressed by the
system' was just not Sam at all: Sam was the head of the Political Liason Department
between the Outer Satellite Diplomatic Corps and Outer Satellite Intelligence; and had all
the privileges [...] of both" (ibid). Sam’s subjective complexity simply will not fit Bron’s
narrow stereotypes then. In addition, Sam’s personal, social, and economic success
conflicts with Bron’s negative readings.

When Bron is forced beyond a one-dimensional portrayal of Sam, he changes
tactics and utilizes his standard defense mechanism of projection. Placing Sam in his
own position, Bron surmises, "[t]he fact that Sam chose to live in an all-male nonspecific
[co-op] probably meant that, underneath the friendliness, the intelligence, the power, he'
was probably rotten with neurosis; behind him would be a string of shattered communal
attempts and failed sexualizationships" (T_rp_u_l_)l_e 27). Bron’s final "illusion" of Sam’s
hidden "neurosis" is shattered by the knowledge that he is part of a family commune also
(ibid). Left with no areas of weakness to exploit, Bron again turns to projection. He
confronts Sam, asking "what are you hanging out with a bunch of deadbeats, neurotics,

mental retards, and nonaffectives like us for [. . .] ? Does it make you feel superior? Do

we remind you how wonderful you are?" (ibid). Bron’s narcissism is so strong, he

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cannot conceive of personal motivations or psychological mechanisms beyond his own.

”92 as follows: “what Bron usually does to

Delany describes Bron’s “protective reaction
justify his behaving in the selfish and hateful ways that make him such a hateful man is
manufacture perfectly fanciful motivations for what everyone else is doing—motivations
which if they were the case, would make his actions acceptable” Shorter 335). Of
course, Sam again contradicts Bron’s projections, explaining that he comes to their co-op
as a personal refuge, to escape politics for a while (T_‘rppm 27). Bron is finally at an
utter 1055. However, rather than incorporate this new information about Sam into a larger
understanding of and respect for the differences of others, Bron decides to avoid the
whole issue by simply returning Sam’s friendliness (28). Bron has lost this particular
battle, then, but not the larger subjective war, for he has avoided moving beyond the
limits of his enclosed and defensive subjectivity. As Bron progresses through the text,
his avoidance, projection, and self-delusions must get more extreme in order to protect
this monolithic, static subjectivity.93

In this implicit comparison between Sam and Bron, Delany places the white male
under intense psychological scrutiny. This is an effective reversal of Schuyler’s and
Fanon’s analyses of the black man and his troubled psychology. In Delany’s text, it is a
white man who feels alienated fiom society, who has neuroses, who cannot build healthy
sexual/romantic relationships and who, ultimately, turns to physical modification in an
attempt to remedy his situation. In contrast, the black man occupies the center—the
social, political, and economic position of privilege and power. Sam seems to be

genuinely happy and fulfilled as well. Thus, Delany makes the black man (and the

woman and the homosexual), the dynamic character and not the traditional sf

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hero/protagonist. Unlike Bron’s stasis, Sam has successfully adapted to the changed
physical and social environment of the moons. Sam, then, continues to serve as a gauge,
a testing ground for Bron, and the reader, throughout the text. However, Delany also
utilizes Sam to undermine essentialist concepts of race and to promote an individualist
approach to subjectivity.

When Bron joins Sam on a political mission to Earth, he learns that Sam has
undergone extensive physical modifications. Sam once was “a rather unhappy, sallow-
faced, blonde, blue-eyed (and terribly myopic) waitress” (L'o_uble_ 126). In addition to
the physical attributes of Bron’s biological sex change, then, Sam gained the physical
characteristics associated with the black race: darker skin, hair color, and eye color, as
well as increased musculature and possibly height. Sam reveals that her physical model
was “the six-foot plus Wallunda and Katanga emigrants who had absolutely infested the
neighborhood” at Lux on Iapetus (ibid). Just as Bron has modified his expectations,
assumptions, and stereotypes about Sam, as a black man, the rug is pulled out from under
his feet again by these revelations. Bron is shocked out of his complacency, as is the
reader. In Schuyler’s Black No More the reader is always privy to the 'origins' of the
characters, and we can laugh along with Disher and Schuyler at the joke played upon the
ignorant (racist) whites who do not know Disher was once a Negro. In Delany’s text, the
reader more immediately and, perhaps, uncomfortably, faces a thorough deconstruction
of racial beliefs. Delany’s scene is a test, an evaluation of the extent to which humans
continue to base identity on gender and race. Bron’s response to Sam’s revelation, our
own response as readers, and the motivation behind Sam’s modification all serve as

‘evidence.’

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Sam’s physical sex and race changes invert several specific social and literary
norms. First, we see another unhappy white person who turns to physical modification
for help. Similar to Bron in this respect, Sam differs in the racial modification and the
subsequent success of her changes. Therefore, in the context of race, Sam is more similar
to Schuyler’s character Max Disher. The inversion in this case is the race which is linked
to personal happiness and a successful career. Sam’s decision to change into the likeness
of a black man brings sexual and romantic satisfaction, social acceptance, economic
affluence, and political power and prestige. In this way, Delany builds on the general

inversion of racial norms at the end of Black No More when whites tan to make

 

themselves look fashionably darker, and he clearly avoids an assimilationist label for his
character.” Sam’s motivation for her sex and race changes also modifies Schuyler’s
portrayal of inter-racial couples. Both Max Disher and Sam are attracted to white
women, and their racial modifications spring from a desire to fit the romantic/sexual ideal
of these women. As Sam relays, she had “a penchant for other sallow, blonde, blue-eyed
waitresses, who, as far as the young and immature me could make out then, were just
gaga over the six-foot-plus Wallunda and Katanga emigrants” (T_rpabjg 126). Delany
plays on the social taboo of sexual and romantic relationships between white women and
black men, as does Schuyler. However, Delany reverses the site of the attraction, the
agency in the coupling, from the black men to the white women. It is the white
waitresses in Delany’s example who desire the black emigrants. Furthermore, Sam’s
subsequent succeSs with white women seems to affirm her earlier belief about their desire

for black men. Bron meets a “blonde, blue-eyed woman [. . .who] was part of Sam’s

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family commune,” for example, and Bron herself makes a play for Sam at the end of the
novel (128).

Sam’s racial modification illustrates her openness to difference and change as
well. Both Sam and Bron undergo a physical sex change, but Bron’s change springs
from a desperate need to maintain the same, to create an appropriate Eve for her
anachronistic Adam. Sam’s change stems from desire, and she will incorporate any
difference in order to more easily fulfill that desire. In his autobiographical writings and
in his fictional texts, Delany privileges desire. First, it stands on its own as a defining
element of subjectivity:

I am the sweeping tapestry of my sensory and bodily perceptions. I am their

linguistic reduction and abstraction, delayed and deferred till they form a wholly

different order, called my thought. I am, at the behest and prompting of all these,
my memory—which forms still another order. I am the emotions that hold them
together. Webbing the four, and finally, I am the flux and filigree of desire

around them all. on er 150)

The strong and pervasive influence of desire also fosters contact with Others. Sam, for
example, successfully manipulates the desire of the white women for a racial, national,
and sexual Other. As Robert Elliot Fox asserts in the context of Delany’s pornographic
novel, The Tides of Lust, “[t]he sexual plane becomes the level on which opposites
literally come together” (“Politics” 53). 95 In his autobiographical writings, Delany also
describes large groups of men, from different racial and economic backgrounds,
gathering to fulfill homosexual desire. In The Motion of Light in Water. for instance,

Delany describes his multiple sexual experiences in a group of trailers; a particularly

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detailed narrative includes two men, one white and one black (130-1). Even in the
meeting places that predominantly drew men from a particular racial or national group, a
variety of racial and economic characteristics are described: “a young man, white, with
dark hair, of about twenty-five, who usually wore a suitjacket—in a population largely
black and Hispanic and usually in jeans and sport shirts” on er 120). Delany’s more
long-term relationship with Bob Folsom also fits this pattern of desire-motivated
connection with economic, racial, and/or geOgraphic Others.96 Finally, Delany fictionally
combines this more short-term sexual and long-term ‘romantic’ desire in the couple of
Marq Dyeth and Rat Korga in his 1984 novel Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand.
Carl Freedman specifically discusses their relationship in the context Of “how desire
functions as cognition in the comprehension (in some sense) of difference” (161). In
these varying social contexts, both fictional and non-fiction, desire promotes
communication, integration, and more egalitarian relationships.

The success of Sam’s modification also stems from the compatibility of her
change with the larger social norms. Unlike Bron, Sam’s change dramatically increases
her chances of finding a satisfactory partner. These subjective and social differences
converge in the idea of a heterotopia. Both Bron's and Sam’s incorporation of the (sexual
and/or racial) Other in their physical bodies symbolizes the already existing multiplicity
of their subjective positions, a multiplicity based on a fragmentation into multiple
categories—like race, sex, and gender—and also the “range of possibilities” within each
of these larger, ideological categories (go—11133 50). Delany’s multiple subjective
positions in his autobiography, for example, reflect some of these larger categories.

Bron’s sexual configuration as “an ordinary bisexual, female-oriented male” illustrates

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the inclusive nature of a single category as well; supposedly “exclusive” heterosexuality,
in distinct opposition to homosexuality, really contains both male and female elements
(M 228). The full “range of possibilities” within each category can be seen in the
further breakdown in Triton society into “forty or fifty different sexes, falling loosely into
nine categories” (Impala 99). Delany vividly conveys this categorical multiplicity and
complexity through a visual evaluation of Bron’s sexuality:

“You could be a male who is partway through one of a number of possible sex-

change processes. Or you could be a female who is much further along in a

number of other sex change operations [. . .;] you might have begun as a woman,

been changed to male, and now want to be changed to—something else [. . .;] Or

[. . .] you could be a woman in very good drag.” Mills; 219)

Bron, of course, rejects such multiplicity and ambiguity of sexuality and gender.

The same type of visual ambiguity applies to color, a primary characteristic of
race. As a preface to the more detailed and direct account of a multiple sexuality (above),
Bron discusses the ‘whiteness’ of the Taj Mahal with a character specifically identified as
of African-descent:

“The significance of ‘white,’ like the significance of any other word, is a range of

possibilities. Like the color itself, the significance fades quite imperceptibly on

one side though gray toward black, and on another through pink toward red, an so
on, all the way around, toward every other color; and even toward some things

that aren’t colors at all.” (TIMI; 50)

White, like black or any other color, cannot be discretely named and contained. The

same principle applies to a name or category like “white” or “black,” denoting a human

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race. Of course, the irony of Bron’s elaborate and knowledgeable, theoretical lecture lies
in his racism in personal practice. While he possesses a ‘logical’ understanding of the
heterotopic nature of subjectivity, his narcissism and need for status prevent any direct
and practical application of this knowledge to his own subjectivity. Thus, even his sex
and psychological changes are an ineffectual ‘rebellion’ because Bron cannot admit the
multiplicity, dispersion, and ambiguity of his own subjectivity—before and after the
changes. As a result, Bron breaks down into “real psychosis” at the end of the novel,
alone and locked within her room (Sharpe; 338).

Within the heterotopic society of Triton, individuals can literally construct their
subjectivity through physical and psychological modifications. This “mutability and
freeplay” is based in the founding principle of Triton society—subjective inviolability
(Freedman 15 9). This great political=personal freedom combines with the technological
advances of Triton to afford the type of individuality Delany promotes in the Beckerman
interview. In contrast to identitarianism, Delany believes “[d]ifference is what makes us
individual” (Beckerman).97 Sam is an excellent example of a heterotopic, mutable
individuality and an embodiment of Tritonian subjective inviolability. Sam first
illustrates her refusal to be limited to a single, essential identity through her physical
changes. In changing both her sex and race, Sam mirrors an earlier exchange between
Bron and the Spike. When Bron comes to pick up the Spike clothed completely in black
attire and a black mask, she responds by enveloping herself from head to toe in a white
costume. The Spike tells Bron, “Now [. . .] we can roam the labyrinths of honesty and
deceit, searching out the illusive centers of our being by a detailed examination of the

shift and glitter of our own, protean surfaces”; “Now, proofed in light and light’s

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absence, we can begin our wonderings” (I_r_o_1_1_b_l§ 98). Readers enter into a similar
process of investigation, and they might question the concepts of “honesty and deceit,” as
Bron does, when discovering Sam’s former identity. The readers too must “search out
the illusive center of [Sam’s] being” because “of the shift and glitter of [her] protean
surface.” When race and sex become like costumes, taken on and off at will, any form of
essentialist identity is impossible. A costume is an apt analogy for Sam’s physical
changes because of their mutual grounding in a playful, individual concept of race as
well. Delany joins Schuyler in emphasizing an individual rather than collective racial
identity. In Trouble on Triton. race can take the form of personal expression.

This racial individuality highlights the cultural basis of race. First, Sam’s
personal changes rely on larger cultural conceptions of race; she modifies her color and
musculature in order to fit a particular racial image. Therefore, in keeping with the
costume analogy, Sam performs the part of a black man, physically and psychologically.
These complex intersections of culture, biology, and race bring up the issue of racial
authenticity. While Sam ‘imitates’ the Afi'ican immigrants physically, and perhaps
psychologically as well, she biologically modifies her body and her imitation is a success.
Therefore, Sam lives the daily reality of a black man. When Lawrence notes the common
oppression of women, in opposition to men, he raises the possibility of authenticity being
based in a shared cultural experience(s) (mm 212). Thus, even though Sam has not
always been black, his subsequent cultural experiences as a black man could accurately
place him within that racial category. Bron’s racial othering suggests that racial prejudice
still exists, although rare in the Outer Satellites. Delany qualifies an either/or racial

categorization, however. While Sam becomes a black man, he cannot erase his past as a

’ 276

white woman. After her sex change, for example, Bron protests that she does not feel
“all the time, every minute, a complete and whole woman” (249-50). Her counselor
responds,

“being a woman is also a complicated genetic interface. It means having that

body of yours from birth, and growing up in the world, learning to do whatever

you do—psychological counseling in my case, or metalogics in yours—with and
within that body. That body has to be yours, and yours all your life. In that sense,

you never will be a ‘complete’ woman. We can do a lot here; we can make you a

woman from a given time on. We cannot make you have been a woman for all

the time you were a man.” (251)

Bron’s dissatisfaction with her sex change stems from her obsession with singularity and
wholeness. She still resists a multiple subjectivity, even if it is experientially based. In
Sam’s case, he is ‘authentically’ a black man, “from a given time on” only. However, in
her acceptance of difference, her motivation of desire, and the relative lack of racial
prejudice on Triton, Sam does not feel Bron’s need for a single sexual or racial
categorization. This “free play,” in opposition to rigid, static dichotomies, is what makes
Sam an attractive subjective alternative to Bron and Triton a potentially attractive social
alternative to Earth (Freedman 159).

In the reality of fluctuation, Delany highlights the contextual basis of sexual or
racial identity, similar to his personal definition of gay identity. This changing context
has serious implications for cultural theories of race. First, it raises the possibility of a
diminishment of racial prejudice and oppression over time, as on Triton. Prejudice based

on the human races, as we know them today, might disappear entirely or be subverted to

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another group. With a common oppression, or any other cultural factor(s), as the basis
for racial identity, such changes would threaten its very existence. Also, racial identity
based in common oppression maintains the ‘racial problem’ argument and does not afford
an affirmative utilization of race. Octavia Butler, for instance, objected to the
overwhelmingly negative response to a proposed “anthology of science fiction by and
about black people”: “Most of the stories that we got [. . .] were about racism, as though
that was the sum total of our lives. Especially, and I hate to say it, all the stories we got
from white people were about racism because that was all they apparently thought that
We dealt with” (“Black” 18). Finally, both a diminishment of oppression and a positive
valuation of race highlight the variability of personal experience. Basing racial identity
on common oppression, then, relies on a false totalization, a reduction of multiple,
varying racial experiences into a single, normative racial identity. Within this context, all
blacks who seek racial authenticity must enact the cultural characteristics related to race
in their society. They must also suppress individual differences or cultural anomalies.98
Delany explores the viability of a purely cultural theory of race through Sam, but
also offers a more traditional example of black identity through a woman of African
descent named Miriamne. Through these two characters, Delany answers a challenge
later articulated by Walter Benn Michaels in Our America: Nativism. Modernism, and
Pluralism (1995):
If race really were culture, people could change their racial identity, siblings could
belong to different races, people who were as genetically unlike each other as it’s
possible for two humans to be could nonetheless belong to the same race. None

of these things is possible in the United States today. And, were they possible, we

278

would think not that we had finally succeeded in developing an anti-essentialist

account of race but that we had given up the idea of race altogether. (133-4)
Obviously Sam does change her racial identity, and the concept of race is maintained.
Furthermore, Sam’s openness to racial and sexual changes reflects a larger multiplicity of
identity. When Lawrence contradicts Bron’s erroneous, simplistic judgments of Sam, we
learn of Sam’s multiple interests, relationships, and categories. Not content with a single
commune, for example, Sam has multiple, diverse living arrangements. Most
importantly, Sam’s active, voluntary participation in the subjective and social heterotopia _
Delany creates results in a very different personal outcome than Bron. In contrast to
Bron’s social isolation and subjective failure, Sam ends the text in the midst of a busy
nightclub, happily trying to “get laid” (Trouble 262).

While Sam represents the great and positive potential of subjective inviolability
on Triton, Delany also includes a character representing a more traditional racial identity.
Bron meets a woman named Miriamne who not only fits the physical description for
black identity (“dark and frizzy-haired”), but also offers a contrast to the other characters
in her open acknowledgement of her personal background (km 45). When Bron asks
her how she takes her coffee, for example, Miriamne responds, “Black [. . .] as my old
lady [. . .——-] That’s what my father always used to say. [. . .] My mother was from
Earth—Kenya, actually; and I’ve been trying to live it down ever since” (48).

Miriamne’s comment about “living it down” might refer to racial prejudice. Within
. Triton social norms, however, it more likely refers to the social taboo of mentioning
personal background, especially ties to the more conservative societies on the planets.

Tritonian subjective inviolability means people can construct an identity, a life any way

279

they desire, without direct reference to prior experiences. Bron’s mental response to
Miriamne’s comments supports this more general reading. Certainly capable of racist
stereotypes and vocabulary, Bron simply thinks, “Typical u-l [unlicensed zone or person
living in this area]. . .always talking about where they come from, where their families
started” (ibid). Furthermore, Delany uses their dialogue to first introduce this social
norm: Bron “never” talks about his own parents “in concession to a code of politeness
almost universal outside the u-l that, once he had realized it existed, he’d found
immensely reassuring” (49). The subjective inviolability of Triton, then, provides a
space for Sam’s successful changes, but it also suppresses personal history and descent.
Only persons living in the zone explicitly outside of Triton laws, and social norms more
generally, comfortably speak of their personal background. Thus, this social and
subjective freedom is a double-edged sword. Like the terrestrial New World, Triton
offers equality and unprecedented opportunities to ‘make oneself,’ but only if you are
willing to give up the past and your previous identity and /or status within it. Bron is a
negative example of someone unwilling to do this; Miriamne is a more positive example.
While she is apparently less well-off financially than Bron, Miriamne is clearly the
sympathetic victim of Bron’s sexual jealousy and not the target of Delany’s authorial
criticism. Furthermore, Miriamne may live in the u-l, but she has the freedom to
maintain connections to her past, including racial affiliations. In this way, Delany
illustrates the possibility of primarily cultural and descent-based theories of race existing
simultaneously, and without apparent conflict, in a given social context. Finally,
Miriamne’s emphasis on descent parallels Sam’s physical alterations. Delany does not

completely divorce race from the body.

280

Walter Benn Michaels’ racial analysis also reveals the limitations or impartial
nature of Belany’s cultural concept of race. While mutable, race remains tied to the
physical body. Like Schuyler, Delany uses modern technology to ‘construct’ racial
identity through physical elements. Advances in scientific understanding of the body
allow Delany to expand on Schuyler’s ‘cosmetic’ changes as well. Schuyler only had
glandular changes to draw upon during the 19303, while Delany can utilize the very
building blocks of the human body, genes, in the 19705. Delany also explores the
complex connections between the physical body and subjectivity. In contrast to both the
earlier writing of Schuyler and the later writing of Octavia Butler, Delany explores how
subjective elements lead to physical changes and, conversely, how physical changes
impact a person’s subjectivity. Schuyler and Butler explore diverse racial bodies, but
leave a static, essentialist subjectivity intact.99 In Triton society, changes are both
physical and psychological. Delany begins by explicitly acknowledging the importance
of culture in a quote from Mary Douglas prefacing Trouble on Triton: “the social body
constrains the way the physical body is perceived”—by others and by the individual.
This half of the racial debate has been largely covered already.

However, in Longer Views. Delany stresses a more balanced role for the physical
body:

I am the sweeping tapestry of my sensory and bodily perceptions. I am their

linguistic reduction and abstraction, delayed and deferred till they form a wholly

different order, called my thought. ‘I am, at the behest and prompting of all these,
my memory—which forms still another order. I am the emotions that hold them

together. Webbing the four, and finally, I am the flux and filigree of desire

281

around them all. [. . .] Am I the sexual surge and ebb that cannot quite be covered
by any of the above, but that impinge on all the others and often drown them?
What of the bodily apparati in general, as they fall, pleasingly or painfully, into
the net of myself? I am always an animal excess to the intellectual system that
tries to construct me. I am always a conscious sensibility in excess of the animal
construction that is I. And that is why I am another, why my identity is always
other than I. (150)
First, “[S]ensory and bodily perceptions” begin and ground Delany’s subjectivity. In
addition, “desire” and this “sexual surge and ebb” seem to be partially based in “the
bodily apparati.” More generally, this “animal excess” suggests a power and autonomy
beyond containment by the mind. Thus, although we only get a very brief synopsis ’of the
changes Sam undergoes as a result of the physical modification, the drastic improvement
in his general situation suggests they are quite radical, with psychological, emotional, I
social, as well as physical effects. Similarly, after Bron’s sexual modification, she
changes not only in physical circumstances (literally having corporeal changes, having to
change abodes, etc.), but also psychologically. Delany illustrates the intimate connection
between a person’s body and psyche through the racial and sexual changes of Sam and
Bron. In doing so, he enters into a debate between “essentialists and constructionists”
over the importance of the body to subjectivity (Fuss 53). Fuss, for example, discusses
Adrienne Rich’s “distinction [. . .] between the body and my body [. . .] as a useful place to
begin the project of reintroducing biology, the body as matter, back into poststructuralist
materialist discourse” (Fuss 52). Fuss joins Delany in asserting a balance between the

body and culture: we “cannot ignore the role social practices play in organizing and

282

imaging ‘the body,’ but nor can [we] overlook the role ‘my body’ plays in the
constitution of subjectivity” (Fuss 52).

Fox places this body/mind debate with the larger context of global culture and the
dichotomies of western civilization. Acknowledging Delany’s quotation of Douglas, Fox
situates Douglas’ analysis specifically within “the West” and contrasts it to “traditional
societies” in which “the physical self gives articulate expression to the social” (“Politics”
51). Katherine F ishbum similarly links such “embodiment” to African-Americans and
their narratives (xii). First, Fishbum believed that,

the indisputable fact of their embodiment in a culture that valued the mind at the

expense of the debased body faced these early writers with two interrelated

narrative dilemmas. One was how to demonstrate their own capacity to reason
without minimizing the physical horrors of enslavement, the accounts of which
were necessary to the abolitionist cause. The other, which is the obverse of the
first, was how to demonstrate the fact that, however imbued with reason they
already were, African Americans still needed a fundamental change in their
material circumstances if they were ever to achieve their full human potential.

(ibid)

In addition, trying “to elude the dualistic thinking that separates mind from body, by
valorizing mind over body,” Fishbum realized the “importance of the body to slaves and
ex-slaves” (ibid). The Afi'ican-Americans, in effect, “were not trying to write
themselves into Western metaphysics as equal to whites, but were instead, more radically
and daringly, rethinking metaphysics itself” (ibid). This is the mind/body,

West/traditional society, white/Other dichotomy to which Fox refers and which Delany

283

questions in his texts. As a result, Delany’s complex balance between the body and
subjectivity takes part in a larger African-American challenge to the western hierarchy of
the mind over and in opposition to the body.100 While Fishbum specifically refers to
early African-American writers, a similar focus on the body inspires the racial
essentialism of later critics of African-American literature. Schuyler and Butler, of
course, also utilize the body as a site of racial exploration. However, their psychic
essentialism obscures the effect(s) of the body on subjectivity. Thus, Delany has a much
more complicated, extensive (and realistic, in my opinion) view of the implications of
even constructed notions of race. He explores how physically changing a ‘race’ (i.e.,
taking on the exterior features associated with a particular ‘race’) would impact the
“intellectual system” of an individual in ways these other sf writers have neglected.
Schuyler’s Black No More and Butler’s Pattemmaster series serve as instructive

10’ When Disher becomes a white man, little

counterparts to Delany’s Trouble on Triton.
seems to change about his personality; Schuyler focuses on how the world perceives
Disher and how his exterior circumstances change. Likewise, Butler’s character Doro
‘body hops’ for centuries. Originally an African male, Doro inexplicably and frequently
transfers his mind/spirit from one body to another. The ‘hosts’ die a spiritual death, and
Doro ‘occupies’ the male, female, young, old, African, African-American, European,
and/or Anglo-American bodies. However, each body Doro possesses seems to be little
more than a temporary host (perhaps because he does not occupy any for very long), and
his personality surprisingly does not change. Unlike Sam’s undetected (i.e. successful)

racial transformation, Doro is consistently portrayed as a black man. He usually occupies

black male bodies when he is physically present in the narrative, for example. While

284

Butler frequently mentions his other female and/or Anglo bodies, these bodies are
generally occupied ‘off stage’ or quickly discarded. Furthermore, Doro identifies himself
as a black man, despite having transferred from his original body when only a teenager.
Both of these factors result in the other characters perceiving him as a black man as well.
They are shocked, surprised, or unsettled when he occupies a white body. For example,
Doro’s daughter Mary is relieved when he visits her in a black male body because when
he came in a white body, “All [she] saw was this big stranger sitting on the side of [her]

bed” (Butler, Mind 20). Likewise, Doro seduces Anyanwu, the protagonist of Wild Seed

 

by choosing a black male body he knows will please her (225-6; 233). The texts as a
whole support these perceptions as well. Unlike Delany’s careful and accurate use of the
correct pronoun, Butler always uses a masculine pronoun in reference to Doro.102 In
these ways, Butler creates a much greater disconnection between the body and the
mind/soul/emotions than either Schuyler or particularly Delany. In fact, the larger plot of
the Pattemmaster series, with its telepathic theme, emphasizes the mind and its
independence from the body.

Doro’s example is supported by the other main character of Wild Seed, Anyanwu.
Born an African woman, Anyanwu can modify her existing physical body to become
every type of person that Doro can, plus take animal form. Yet, her psyche also remains
remarkably stable considering these radical physical changes. As she explains to Doro,
“you have not understood how completely that one body can change. I cannot leave it as
you can, but I can make it over. I can make it over so completely in the image of
someone else that I am no longer truly related to my parents. It makes me wonder what I

am—that I can do this and still know myself, still return to my true shape” (Butler, Wild

28S

I94). Unlike the genetic changes of Sam or Bron, then, Anyanwu retains an original,
more authentic “true shape.” She tells Doro that the body of a young, dark-skinned
African woman is “the shape [which] flows back to [her] most easily. Others are harder to
take” (13). Butler’s treatment of the body in the Pattemmaster series initially seems the
most destructive to any concept of race. The corporeal flux is overwhelming, almost a
‘small world’ of bodies, and Doro and Anyanwu travel throughout the globe and live for
centuries so there remains no historical or cultural similarity on which to base race either.
Yet, both characters are consistently portrayed as a black man and a black woman
psychically, and this psychic configuration influences their choices of physical form.
There seems to be a form of psychic essentialism at work here, with racial and sexual
connotations. The lack of logical explanation or scientific grounding for the changes of
the two characters only reinforces this essentialism. Doro does not undergo a physical
operation to ‘construct’ a race; he simply is. In this context, no matter how often a body
is modified or completely replaced, or in which culture a person lives, he/she will always
maintain the same racialized and sexualized identity. Race’s “power to shape human
lives in very real ways” is clearly illustrated here despite its complete dissociation from
the human body (Tucker, "Can" 148).

Contemporary science fiction writer Marge Piercy takes Butler’s dissociation of
race and the human body one step further. One of science fiction’s most radical
reinterpretations of race consciousness involves the postulation of societies in which the
culturally-constructed aspects of race(s) are explicitly assumed by groups other than
those historically attached to them. Piercy’s Woman on the Edgeof Time (1976), for

example, describes a society which takes up the challenge Walter Benn Michaels offers at

286

the end of Our America: Nativism. Modernism and Pluralism, namely that “[i]f race

 

really were culture, people could change their racial identity, siblings could belong to
different races, people who were as genetically unlike each other as it’s possible for two
humans to be could nonetheless belong to the same race” (133-4). A Mexican-American
woman, Connie or Consuelo, mind travels to the future and visits a society in which,
“Decisions were made forty years back to breed a high proportion of darker-
skinned people and to mix the genes well through the population. At the same:
time, we decided to hold on to separate cultural identities. But we broke the bond
between genes and culture, broke it forever. We want there to be no chance of
racism again. But we don’t want the melting pot where everybody ends up with
thin gruel. We want diversity, for strangeness breeds richness.” (Piercy, Woman
103 -4)
In the village Connie visits most often, a black man tells her that, the "'Wamponaug
Indians are the source of our flavor of culture. Our past. Every village has a culture‘" (96).
When Connie implies that his association with this culture must be the result of poor self-
esteem and a racial inferiority complex, he tells her of another nearby village: "'I have a
sweet friend living in Cranberry dark as I am and her tribe is Harlem-Black. I could
move there anytime. But if you go over, you won’t find everybody black-skinned like
her and me, any more than they’re all tall or all got big feet'" (ibid). Furthermore, while
generally people remain most attached to the “culture” in which they were raised,
“[w]hen you grow up [...,] you can fuse into another” (104). Michaels asserts that in
such a situation, “we would think not that we had finally succeeded in developing an anti-

essentialist account of race but that we had given up the idea of race altogether” (134).

287

Perhaps, ethnicity would be a more appropriate term for the cultural connection Connie
encounters. In fact, Piercy never actually uses the word ‘race’ in her text (only racism),
but when Connie speaks of “black Irishmen” and “black Chinese,” it is clear that notions
of race are being invoked (104).

Piercy’s maintenance of racial connotations serves several functions. First, the
reader, like Connie, is forced to confront the situatedness of our racial concepts. If we
choose to foreground the “constitutive differences—cultural specificity, group history,
political position”—of races, as Tucker does, we would have to reject Piercy’s
reconceptualization of race consciousness because it purposely and rather randomly
scrambles the cultural signifier and the physical signified ("Can" 148). In fact, Piercy is
creating new kinship groups to replace the old. A revision of Werner Soller’s
terminology becomes helpful here as we depart from natural childbirth altogether;
Piercy’s futuristic society operates along familial lines of 'new descent.‘ While consent
can be a factor, the society is characterized by a general focus on descent. In addition,
Piercy’s ‘race consciousness’ becomes not only an awareness of how race has historically
operated, as in Schuyler and Fanon, but an advocation of race’s positive “power to shape
human lives in a very real way” (Tucker, "Can" 148). Where the other authors
deconstruct (biological) race in order to Work towards a (politically, socially,
ideologically, and culturally) ‘raceless’ society, Piercy revises race in a positive context.

.Margaret St. Clair does something very similar in The Dancers of Noyo (1973),
where the culture of the Pomo Indians of California is taken up by Euro-American
‘hippies’ and their descendents. Through a ‘performance’ of the Porno Indian culture, the

Euro-Americans experience an ‘authentic’ spiritual vision which connects them with the

288

Original Indian inhabitants of the land (and symbolizes a validation of their tie to the
culture). A 'new descent’ is established here also. In this sense, Piercy's and St. Clair’s
texts foreground a purely cultural concept of race oriethnicity, but establish a new
physical tie as well. The vocabulary of village, tribe, and family associated with
historical and biological concepts of race is retained. In this way, Piercy and St. Clair
parallel the ‘carry-over’ of Butler’s psychic essentialism and Schuyler and Delany’s
continued utilization of the body. In their widely-varying racial revisions, Piercy, St.
Clair, Butler, and Delany embody Schuyler’s paradoxical position of focusing on race,
but in such a way that the concept is radically redefined and revalued.

The proliferation of racial issues in contemporary science fiction, and the ease
with which sf lends itself to such discussions, counters Houston A. Baker’s uneasiness
about a neglect (or discarding) of race in the context of science and technology and an
emphasis on its construction. Certainly, ‘Race’ has not been ‘erased’ by the quotation
marks placed around it in the field of science fiction. A new group of writers focusing on
race in sf and fantasy includes Neal Stephenson, Steven Barnes, Nalo Hopkinson, and
Mike Resnick.l°3 Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash produced quite a splash in the sf
community in 1992. His emphasis on technology and its intersection with ethnicity

compares favorably with Marge Piercy’s 1991 novel, He She and It. Stephenson and

 

Piercy use cyberspace, cyborgs, and robots to investigate the complex construction of
racial subjectivity in a postmodern cram" In their emphasis on technology and
computerization, both authors develop issues generally eschewed by Delany and Butler.
In addition, Steven Barnes began his series on Aubrey Knight in 1989 with Gorgon Child

and continued with Firedance in 1994. He also wrote Blood Brothers in 1996. Nalo

289

Hopkinson has written many short stories, as well as two novels—Brown Girl in the Ring
(1998) and Midnight Robber (2000). The texts of Knight and Hopkinson illustrate a new
trend in science fiction: the incorporation of magical realism and the marketing of ethnic
fiction within the sf genre. For example, Hopkinson utilizes little science or technology,
relying instead upon magic, rituals, and supernatural characters. However, the cover of
Brown Girl in the Ring specifically identifies the text as science fiction in three ways: the
label on the spine, the explanation about Hopkinson winning the Warner Aspect search
for "science fiction's voices of the future," and the endorsement by Octavia Butler. Mike
Resnick also joins Barnes and Hopkinson in the 19903. His portrayal of -a futuristic
Afi'ican-inspired community sparked some controversy in 1998 because he challenges the
validity of racial authenticity. The fact that Barnes, Hopkinson, and Resnick all
significantly utilize Africa in their texts highlights the racial inversion that has taken
place in the field; the racial focus which had to be suppressed in the past, now is the

105 These newer

primary marketing feature of this developing branch of science fiction.
authors can emphasize ethnicity and integrate African studies and science fiction to a

much greater degree than either Delany or Butler at the time of their entrance in the field.

290

 

l Babel-17 (1966) and The Einstein Intersection (1967) won Nebula Awards. See Samuel
R. Delany: A Primafl and Secondary Bibliographyg 962-1979 for a complete listing of
Delany’s texts during this time period (Peplow and Bravard).

2 Once again, Michael W. Peplow gives an excellent overview. In “Meet Samuel R.
Delany, Black Science Fiction Writer,” Peplow covers Delany’s early career (pre-1979)
and provides an especially good introduction for readers outside of the sf community.

3 Delany’s critical texts include The Jewel-Hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of
Science Fiction (1977), The American Shore: Meditations on a_'_l"_2_ile of Science Fiction by
Thomas M. Disch-Angouleme (1978), Starboard Wine: More Notes on the Langgage of
Science Fiction ((1984), Wagner/Artaud: A Play of 19mand 20th Century Critical Fictions
(1988), The Straits of Messina (1990), Silent Interviews: On Language, Race. Sex
Science Fiction. and Some Comics (1994), Longer Views: Extended Essays (1996), and
Shorter Views: Queer Thoughts & The Politics of the Paralitera_ry (1999). His two
autobiographical texts are Heavenly Brefliast: An Essay on the Winter of Love (1979)
and The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction in the East Village. 1957-65
(1988)

4 Seth McEvoy’s 1984 text follows George Edgar Slusser’s 1977 The Delany
Intersection: Samuel R. Delany Considered as a Writer of Semi-Precious Words, Douglas
Barbour’s 1979 Worlds out of Words: The SF Novels of Samuel R. Delany, and Jane

Branham Weedman’s 1982 Samuel R. Delany.

291

 

5 Jay Schuster’s web page on Delany provides a sampling of such recent public
involvement. Schuster also lists Delany’s numerous literary nominations and awards.

6 Freedman names Robert Elliot Fox’s work as one exception to this “general neglect”
(160). Peplow’s 1979 article in The Crisis is another, as well as the Black American
Literature Forum’s 1984 issue devoted to Delany, Octavia Butler, and Charles R.
Saunders.

7 McEvoy discusses the many “factors” that led to Delany’s first sf or fantasy novel, The
Jewels of Aggtor (19). In his autobiography, Delany similarly mentions his initial,
recurrent dream or “nightmares” (the basis of M) and his wife Marilyn Hacker’s job
at Ace Books (a company which published much science fiction) W 75-6).

8 Ironically, Delany attributes the relative lack of racial prejudice in the sf community to
another factor as well—the lack of black writers. He believes that once the percentage of
black writers in the field reaches “thirteen, fifteen, twenty percent of the total. At that
point, where the competition might be perceived as having some economic heft, chances
are we will have as much racism and prejudice here as in any other field” (“Racism”
386)

9 Peplow is quoting from Delany’s letter here.

'° The Fall of the Towers trilogy (1970) is a revised collection of three previously-
published novels: Captives of the Flame (1963), The Towers of Toron (1964), and M
L Thousand Suns (1965). Delany offers an overview of his revisions in the “Author’s

Note” at the beginning of the 1970 trilogy edition.

H See his autobiography, The Motion of Ligl_rt in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing
in the East Village, 1957-1965, for example. Seth McEvoy’s early chapters on Delany

292

A;

 

also highlight Delany’s attempts at feminist revisions in female characterization (19, 24-
27, 37-41).

‘2 Of course, this is the racial and moral dichotomy Edgar Rice Burroughs utilizes in the
Mars series, particularly A Princess of Mars.

'3 The Xenogenesis trilogy is composed of Dgwn (1987), Adulthood Rites (1988), and
I;n_agg (1989).

‘4 Donna Haraway also notes the cover of Dawn in Pringte Visionjs (381).

’5 Other examples include the covers of Delany’s The Fall of the Towers trilogy and
Babel-17, which stereotypically foreground a female character with ample cleavage
revealed.

'6 In a freshman English course I taught, many of the students expressed their confusion
and/or admitted to misreading the text based on the strength of this first impression.

‘7 James explores this issue in more detail near the end of his essay (“Yellow” 39-44).
See also Gary K. Wolfe, The Knowgnd the Unknown: The Iconography of Science
rm.

’8 In a 1986 interview, Butler asserts, “Science fiction writers come from science‘fiction
readers. I think that as more and more blacks begin to read science fiction, then more
blacks will take up writing science fiction, and this is already happening to a certain
degree” (“Black” 16).

‘9 See the next section (250) for more on the differences between these texts and their
portrayal of race.

20 Similarly, Fuss advocates maintaining the concept of race, “even though we may

recognize its essentializing usages,” because “to see ‘Blackness’ as an ethnic marker

293

(equivalent to Germaness or J ewishness) has historically worked to homogenize black
identity, to de-particularize the black subject” (92). In addition, “to substitute ‘ethnicity’
for ‘race’ would be to e-race[. . .] the rich and color-full history of ‘race’ in Afro-
American culture” (93).

2’ See 141-3 for more on Fuss. Fuss joins me in connecting Baker’s scientific and
poststructuralist resistance (93).

22 See the following section on Trouble on Triton (250) for a detailed discussion of how
Delany revises a Heinlein protagonist in that text.

23 .As we shall see, Delany somewhat overstates his case here. His extensive and graphic
depictions of sexuality and gay identity, for example, are unusual within science fiction.
24 I realize these are false divisions in terms of the texts alone. Later, I will discuss the
illogical nature of this generic division. As Schuyler’s texts exemplified, the deciding
factors seem to be the race of the author, the author’s literary affiliations, and/or the
author’s position on race. This stands in direct contrast to Delany’s linguistic basis for
science fiction.

2’ Delany’s Introduction to Glory Road was published in July 1979. It is especially
interesting that Delany does not specifically refer to his own text, Trouble on Triton
(1976), in his “bibliography of novel-length responses” to Heinlein’s texts (Introduction
vii) since he had previously admitted to Michael Peplow that Trouble on Triton was an
intentional response to Heinlein’s Glog Road (Peplow, “Meet” 120). Peplow’s article,
“Meet Samuel R. Delany, Black Science Fiction Writer,” was published in April 1979,
and his information was taken fi'om letters written by Delany in 1978 (121). See 256-7

for more on Peplow’s article and Trouble on Triton as a response to Heinlein’s text.

294

26 James joins Fred Erisman in seeing four other Heinlein texts as “being a deliberate
attempt at education in racial tolerance” (34). The first three juvenile books (1954-5 6)
and the fourth text, Double Star (195 6), are “powered by [the] contemporary debate about
civil rights” (ibid).

27 Likewise, Denise Richardson was cast as Carmen. All the major characters, in fact, are
visibly Anglo in the film.

28 See Westfahl’s Note 3.

29 This quote and the following were suggested by Gary Westfahl’s summary of the two
texts (73).

30 Franklin discusses this technique in more detail (156-7).

3 ’ Delany’s description of the sex activity between Captain Leela and the alien, The
DestrOyer, in The Ballad of Beta-2 also highlights Heinlein’s sexual suppression here.

32 Elsewhere Westfahl argues more generally that, “as Heinlein came to realize, the
stance of the Self-Reliant or Society-Generating Individual is necessarily racist”'(74).
Franklin emphasizes F amham’s isolation within a broader context as well (154).

33 See the next section on Trouble on Triton (250).

34 Heinlein could be distinguishing between various branches of the armed forces.
Farnham, for example, is in the navy, and Johnny Rico is in the futuristic equivalent of
the army. Without any overt comment on Heinlein’s part within the text, however, there
is no basis for such a distinction. Interestingly, Schuyler also highlights his positive
experiences with the army in his autobiography, Blg and Conservative. While far from
fully egalitarian, the army offered the possibility of respect, money, and travel for

African-Americans.

29S

 

r

’5 Heinlein does use games, and particularly bridge, as a trope for the text. However, his
portrayal of the ‘game’ of bridge seems to be in line with the highly serious and
‘competitive’ portrayal of race relations in the text.

’6 Toni Morrison explores a similar use of the “Africanist presence” by white authors,
particularly American males, in Playing in the Daik: Whiteness and the Literary
Imagination (6). As we shall see, her ideological focus is in tune with Delany’s revision
of Heinlein’s typical white, male protagonist in Trouble on Triton.

37 In The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz F anon asserts that "[t]he native is an oppressed
person whose permanent dream is to become the persecutor" (53). See the next
paragraph on Kincaid and Bradbury for a refutation of this assertion. Even granting the
general applicability of F anon's assertion, however, his "dream" falls short of actual
practice/historical manifestation. Either through the restriction(s) of inequitable power
relations or personal inhibitions, these "dream[s]" have not become a collective reality.
38 Hermann Lang’s The Air Battle: a Vision of the Future (1859) contains an early
example of a fictional black-dominated society, in this case a very positive portrayal.

39 Franklin also specifically and convincingly links the Chosen with Black Muslims,
especially their negative portrayal by the media during this time period (158-9).

40 Heinlein’s Sixth Column also fits this pattern. Serialized in 1941 and published as a
novel in 1946, it springs from the anti-Asian ideology surrounding World War H (see
Westfahl 71-2). Subsequently reprinted as The Day After Tomorrow (1951).

4' See the next section on Trouble on Triton (250).

42 The Fill of the Towers trilogy (1963-65), for example, takes place on a futuristic Earth,

like Famham’s Freehold. However, Delany does not reenact the same (even if inverted)

 

296

'

racial divisions as historical Earth (American) history. Instead, he transforms Heinlein’s
‘black cannibals’ and Burroughs’ black and green (Native American) ‘savages’ into the
most advanced, telepathic race in the society. However, the dark-skinned tribal members
are morally neither better or worse than the other races composing Toron society.
Furthermore, as the trio of protagonists symbolizes, each gender, race, economic class
(etc.) is responsible for and included in the rehabilitation of their shared society. This
more inclusive and even integrationist philosophy (as seen in The City of a Thousand
Suns, for example) also finds embodiment in The Ballad of Beta-2.

43 It is not until the 19603 that other black, male writers follow Schuyler’s lead; a time of
increased racial consciousness and conflict (and general social upheaval—the Women’s
Movement, Anti-War Movement, Sexual Revolution, etc.). 13 there a connection
between times of turbulent social events/movements and a turning towards the
speculative elements of sf? When more traditional mores are being questioned and
undermined, perhaps new ideas are usefully-formulated and envisioned within sf.

4" See the end of this section (244-5).

45 See Slusser’s structuralist analysis of triples in Delany’s The Fall of the Towers.
especially Book One: Captives of the Flame or Out of the Dead City. as it was later
renamed (23-4).

46 Baker also makes a rather vague reference to “vernacular rhythms” (3 87). In his
implied definition of this term, the emphasis seems to be on a particular ideological or
political perspective rather than language alone. It is in this context that Delany’s
revisionist attitude towards science fiction comes closest to meeting Baker’s literary

criteria.

297

g

47 On the other hand, Mike Resnick’s recent stories of Kiranyaga illustrate the
impossibility of trying to reconstruct a pre-Prospero Calibanic self. A medicine man of
the Kikuyu people of Kenya travels to another world to establish an ‘authentic’ Kikuyu
society. All of the pre-modern, pre-westem elements of Kikuyu culture are reestablished
without revision. What the narrator comes to realize (through a long process of struggle,
conflict, and death) is that his ‘people’ do not want such a society and that he is an
“anachronism” (8). Racial constructions, reconstructions of culture and identity, do have
"power to shape human lives in very real ways," as Tucker asserts, but Resnick joins
Schuyler and Fanon in focusing on the negative potential of these racial constructions
(especially for women) (Tucker, "Can" 148).

48 Presumably this is why Reilly finds A Different Drummer “a more complex and well-
developed, illustration of the Black anti-utopia” (108). However, while Reilly notes the
“alternative viewpoints,” he does not discuss the race of these characters as a factor in the
story (109).

49 Baker offers Derek Walcott as an example of such a divided position. Fanon would
also fit this description. In addition, Don L. Birchfield’s sf story “Lost in the Land of
Ishtaboli," examines a Native American man trapped between native and modern cultural
elements. Double-consciousness (or multiple) can be perceived as both positive and
negative—as a gift which allows more extensive communication or as artificial, imposed,
coercive, and harming the human psyche through division and conflict. The Caribbean
concept of creolization or Creoleness is similar to Baker’s concept of “supraliteracy”
(394); both of these theoretical concepts attempt to unify disparate cultural and racial

elements, especially with the intention of avoiding disabling dualisms. According to Jean

298

 

Bemabé, Patrick Chamoiseau, and Raphaél Confiant, “[b]ecause of its constituent
mosaic, Creoleness is an open specificity [. . .]. It is expressing a kaleidoscopic totality,
that is to say: the nontotalitarz'an consciousness of a preserved diversity” (892). Of
course, in the Caribbean, there usually are more than two elements. Therefore,
Creoleness cannot rely as easily on a natural or essential racial state, like Baker’s
Calibanic self. Samuel Selvon’s epilogue to Foreday Morning, "Three into one can’t
go—East Indian, Trinidadian, West Indian,” is a more specific example of this
multiplicity.

50 Of course, the Caliban/Prospero trope exists in science fiction as well. Robert Shelton,
for example, discusses Wells’ The Island of Doctor MM (1895) in these terms (8). He
’ builds on the idea of Prospero as “the original model of the mad scientist” put forth by
Robert Plank in The Emotional Sigpificance of Imaginag Beings: A Study of the
Interaction Between Psychopathology. Literatureand Reality in the Modern World
(1968). Brian Aldiss also briefly mentions the Dr. Moreau-Prospero connection in his
chapter on Wells in both Billion Year Spree and Trillion Year Spree. In “Quarks,” even
Delany briefly notes the Calibanic nature of a character in The Stars My Destination.
However, in Bester’s text, Caliban is caucasian and he is opposed to the positive,

“Arcadian” character, “black Robin” (Delany, Jewel-Hinged 147). Delany’s critique of

 

Bester's book involves Robin’s “eventual marriage to the only other non-caucasian in the
book,” not the larger Caliban trope (ibid).
5 ' Joneny identifies this as “[t]he spiral of decreasing semantic functionality” (Delany,

Ballad 48).

299

 

52 Delany’s racial diversity is muted, however, by the actual embodiment of the new,
hybrid race. The Destroyer’s Children are white males, and the cloning form of
reproduction ensures this similarity perpetually.

5’ Of course, the sterility theory for cross-breeds had been proven to be a biological
falsehood in the mid-19003 by Charles Darwin. However, the specific sterility of
mulattos continued to be a topic of discussion in the United States into the twentieth
century. I

5" Lee’s story portrays African-American parents from the Civil Rights Era dealing with
the effects of social integration on their children. When their son brings home a Jewish '
girlfriend, they reject her (63-4). Their son responds angrily: “You and Daddy spend all
of your lives sending us to white schools and teaching us to live in a never-never land
where people of all colors just get along swell, and then when the inevitable happens you
start talking like a goddam Lester Maddox!” (64).

55 Delany’s portrayal of aliens and alien/human integration can be fruitfully paired with
Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis series.

56 See my earlier discussion of Haraway (10-11; 65).

57 Published in Delany’s collection of critical texts, The Jewel-Hinged Jaw: Notes on the
Language of Science Fiction. “Shadows” was also published in two parts in Foundation
(6 and 7/8). In addition, some of the text was published as part of the “Appendix A” in
Trouble on Triton.

58“Shadows” was published in its different manifestations (see above note) between1974

and 1977.

300

59 In the introduction to Worlds Out of Words: the Sf Novels of Samuel R. Delfly,
Douglas Barbour emphasizes how unusual is Delany’s linguistic basis for the genre (7-
14).

6° Delany uses the Martian context again in Trouble on Triton.

6’ Mundane is Delany’s term for mainstream fiction. Mundane highlights the generic
characteristics of the text rather than an ideological position (mainstream versus
marginal—science fiction).

62 Given Delany’s extensive writings on linguistic issues, the relatively small space
devoted to the black vernacular illustrates his inclusive racial views. He refuses to limit
himself linguistically, as do Baker and Gates in their essentialism of (a specific, authentic
racial) sound. Within his purely cultural linguistic context, all discourses are potentially
available for his use.

63 Delany’s autobiographical comments here, where he connects language with “worlds,”
also explain his early and sustained discussion of the cultural basis of language and its
connection to the sf enterprise of ‘culture building’ (J ewel-Hinged 119).

64 See McEvoy for a detailed analysis of one, representative aspect of this larger textual
“freedom”——the sexual (106-109).

65 Nightmare and Dragon Lady, for example.

66 By racial blinders, I mean the limitations imposed by Baker’s theories of race. Not just
Dhalgren but also Delany’s other texts (fiction and non-fiction) serve as “guerilla action
carried out within linguistic territories of the erstwhile masters” (Baker 394). However,

Delany’s “guerilla action” is not solely racial in emphasis and motivation, but also in

301

terms of sexuality, gender, economics, etc. Similarly, Baker’s resistance to scientific
discourse prevents him from acknowledging Delany’s sf texts.

67SFWA stands for the Science Fiction Writers of America. Douglas Barbour gives a
nice overview of the major critical reviews of Dhalgren (89—90). He also offers some
reasons why Dhalgren might appeal to a more general audience (90). In 1984, McEvoy
bases his assertion that “90% of the sales of Dhalgren were outside of the science fiction
audience” precisely on the fact that it “sold more than 700,000 copies”—600,000 more
copies than “a good-selling science fiction novel” (102). McEvoy also discusses the
generally negative response to Dhalgren within the sf community throughout his chapter
on the text.

68 Slusser acknowledges that the term “structuralist imagination” comes from Robert
Scholes (3).

69 Beyond the great breadth and depth of Delany’s linguistic interests, McEvoy suggests
that Delany intentionally made Dhalgren difficult to understand in order to obscure the
explicit and widely varying sexual content (117).

70 Also see the next section (262).

71 See the beginning of the next section for a more detailed analysis of this phenomenon
in the context of science fiction.

72 Fuss quotes Nancy K. Miller here, from her 1986 article “Changing the Subject” (109).
See my section on Schuyler (152-3) for the beginning of this argument.

7’ Delany’s autobiographical format would ideally suit the hypertext medium.

74 Joanna Russ’ The Female Man (1975) is an excellent example of the connection

between a plurality of worlds and a plural subjectivity.

302

¥

75 After writing the two “parallel narratives, in parallel columns,” he specifically

addresses this division in section 8.103:
If it is the split—the space between the two columns (one resplendant and lucid
with the writings of legitimacy, the other dark and hollow with the voices of the
illegitimate)—that constitutes the subject, it is only after the Romantic inflation of
the private into the subjective that such a split can even be located. That locus,
that margin, that split itself first allows, then demands the appropriation of
language—now spoken, now written—in both directions, over the gap. (29-30)

76 Trouble on Triton (1996) was originally published as Triton (1976). I have chosen to

 

use the title Trouble on Triton because this is the edition of the text from which I quote.
77 I am indebted to Ken James for drawing this particular quote to my attention in his
introduction to Delany’s Longer Views (xxxvii).

78 The term simplexity originates in Delany's Empire Star.

79 See Easterbrook, 65-66.

80 Delany’s 1984 novel, Stars in My PockiLikLe Grains of Saga, revisits this contrast
between more conservative and more radical societies. Once Delany has addressed, and
rejected, the traditional sf hero, he can focus on one of the new subjective characters. In
§_ta_r§, Marq Dyeth illustrates a new subjectivity, shaped by almost total freedom. Delany
contrasts Marq’s subjectivity and the social context which shaped it with that of a slave
named Rat and his more conservative society.

8‘ Peplow’s quotations come from the letters Delany wrote to him in preparation for the
article in The Crisis. Some of the foregrounded quotes are specifically dated, but those in

the body paragraphs are not. In an author’s note at the end of the article, Peplow

303

 

generally acknowledges that “the biographical information was supplied by Samuel R.
Delany in letters sent to me between June 26 and August 12, 1978. The author also very
kindly read my manuscript for factual errors and made several suggestions that I have
incorporated” ("Meet" 12 l).

82 Elsewhere, Delany relates another inspiration for the text: “[a] couple of things were
devilling my memory, including a recent dinner at a French restaurant not far from our
flat in London, where I’d watched some people behave with what had struck me as
unthinkable insensitivity to someone else at their table” Shorter 319). Subsequently, he
began writing a “fictive letter a woman might write to tell a truly unpleasant boyfriend it
was all over”—the Spike’s farewell letter to Bron near the end of Trouble on Triton
(ibid). This biographical inspiration involves similar issues as the literary one of
Heinlein’s text.

83 Peplow, however, does not believe Trouble on Triton completely fulfills Delany’s
stated critical intention. Whereas Delany describes Bron as “a protagonist who is seen by
the other characters as a ‘thorough louse,’” Peplow asserts that “Bron, with all his
obvious faults, emerges as a human being. He’s too human for Delany’s obstensible
purpose” ("Meet" 120). Furthermore, “Triton is not the black man’s revenge that some
readers might expect” (ibid).

84 Easterbrook also compares Heinlein and Delany’s texts. However, he focuses on
Heinlein’s The Moon 13 a Harsh Mistress (1966) and Elton. Also, herdiscusses the
political nuances of the texts more generally and does not address the authors’ textual

representations of race in any detail.

304

¥

85 Michelle Massé’s otherwise excellent discussion of Bron lacks specific gender and
racial components as well. She comes closest to acknowledging Bron’s specific
ideological position in her discussion of his reactions to the other characters and his need
to negatively classify or label them (55, 56). In addition, .she connects Bron to Delany’s
earlier novels, but only in terms of Delany’s self-critique of “what seems now an
impossible heroism” (53).

86 See my discussion of Schuyler for more on Fuss and Huyssen.

87 Of course, Bron makes these specific comments as a woman. However, I will argue
shortly that this sexual and gender change only reinforces the stability of his earlier
position (as a white male).

88 See my earlier discussion of Burroughs and Haraway’s third chapter of Mg

Visions “Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden, New York City,

 

1908-36.”

89 See my discussion of Burroughs for a more detailed explanation of this dichotomy.

90 Michelle Massé also notes this repetition of the same in Bron’s change, connecting it to
his dependence on others as well: “he becomes his own mirror image as well as
incorporating at least the appearance of the Spike and Sam before his sex [and race]
change” (60).

9' Bulent Somay, Easterbrook, and Tom Moylan also compare the two novels.

92 This term comes from one of the interviewers and not Delany.

93 See Delany’s explanation for the importance of Bron’s lying to Audrey and the ending

of the novel in Shorter Views. 334-6.

305

 

94 Sam’s physical change, from white to black, is more similar to the main character of
William Hjortsberg’s Grey Matter (1971), who “chooses to move his consciousness into
a black body because of its beauty” (E. James, "Yellow" 27). As Edward James notes,
however, after the initial change, “the reader loses any sense of ‘race’ as being special”
(ibid). Clearly, this is not the case with Sam. Not only does Delany place herracial

- change outside of the chronology of the text, but he also uses Sam as a vehicle for
discussing the complexities of a postmodern concept of race.

95 Published in 1973, The Tides of Lust has a variant title of m.

96 See McEvoy for the connections between the “triple” of Folsom, Delany, and Hacker
and the “triples” of Babel-17 (55).

97 Freedman discusses Delany’s negative portrayal of identitarianism and positive
portrayal of “mutability and free play” in the context of the Family and the Sygn in flag
in My PocketiLike Grains of Sand (159).

98 For example, Delany’s financial status and educational experiences growing up
contrasted with the collective Harlem norm; see Delany’s autobiography, The Motion of
Light in Water.

99 More on this shortly.

’00 Of course, this hierarchy is yet another reason to discard the Caliban/Prospero trope
[and its traditional privileging of the mind of Prospero over the body of Caliban.

101 Butler's Pattemmaster series consists of Pattemmaster (1976), Mind of My Mind
(1977), _S_a_rv_i_m_r (1978), Wild Seed (1980), and Clay's Ark (1984).

’02 Delany’s use of pronouns is most marked in his description of Ashima Slade and

 

his/her multiple sex changes (Trouble 297).

306

 

 

‘03 Other recent texts of interest include Starhawk’s The Fifth Sacred Thing (1993) and
Stanley Kim Robinson’s Mars series.

104Darryl A. Smith also investigates the intersection of race and technology in his short
story about robots specifically constructed with African-American identities and physical
features (published in Dark Mam). Of course, Smith's story raises the issue, articulated

by Edward James, of robots as substitutes for (human) racial others ("Yellow").

‘05 Barnes use of a 'New Africa,‘ ruled by an authoritarian (despotic) black man recalls

_ Schuyler's Dr. Belsidus in "Black Empire: An Imaginative Story of a Great New

Civilization in Modern Africa" (Black Empire).

307

1882
1896:

1897

1906

1907-1910

1910

1911:

1912

1912

1912

1924
1926

1931

1936-38

1940
1944
1945
1952

1962
1965
1966
1971

1977

Timeline

Chinese Exclusion Act

World's Columbian Exposition, attended by Edgar Rice Burroughs and
Franz Boas. .

W. E. B. Du Bois' "The Conservation of Races" presented at the American
Negro Academy.

Franz Boas invited by W. E. B. Du Bois to give commencement address
and attend Negro conference. Du Bois' The Health and Physique of the
Negro American published.

Dillingham Commission on Immigration of the US. Congress.

Franz Boas' speech from the Second National Negro Conference of May,
1910 published in The Crisis as "The Real Race Problem."

Franz Boas' Dillingham Commission study and The Mind of Primitive
Mgr published. Boas and W. E. B. Du Bois attend First Universal Races
Congress in London. Du Bois' editorial published in The Crisis.
Burroughs' A Princess of Mar_s_ serialized in All-Story Magazine, F eb.-
July. Tarzan of the Apea also serialized in Oct.1

Burroughs' The Gods of Mars serialized in All-Story Magazine. Jan-May.
The Return of Tarzan serialized in New Stogg, June-Nov.

Burroughs' The Warlord of Mars serialized in All-Story, Dec. l913-Mar.
1914. The Beasts of Tarzan serialized in All-Story Cyalier. May-June.
Immigration Act of 1924

Schuyler's "The Negro Art Hokum" and Langston Hughes' "The Negro
Artist and the Racial Mountain" published. ,

Schuyler's Em No More: Being an Account of the Strange and
Wonderful Workings of Science in the Land of the Free. A. D. 1933-1940
published.

Schuyler's The Blacgk Internationale: Story of Black Genius Against the
World serialized under the pseudonym of Samuel 1. Brooks in the
Pittsburgh Courier fiom Nov. 21, 1936 to July 3, 1937. Black Empire: An
Imaginative Stom of a Great New Civilization in Modern Africa also
serialized under Samuel 1. Brooks in the Pittsburgh Courier from Oct. 2,
1937 to Apr. 16, 1938.

W. E. B. Du Bois' Dusk of Dawn published.

Schuyler's "The Caucasian Problem" published in What the Negro Wants.
Franz Boas' Race and Democratic Society published.

Frantz F anon's Black Skin. White Masks published as Peau Noire
Masques Blancs. '

Delany's The Jewels of Aptor published.

Robert Bone's The Negro Novel in America published.

Schuyler's autobiography, Black and Conservative. published.

Schuyler's Black No More republished with Introduction by Charles
Larson. Octavia Butler publishes "Crossover."

Death of Schuyler.

 

308

1978

1987
1991

1992

1999
1997

2000

John M. Reilly's and Ann Rayson's articles on Schuyler published in Black
American Literature Forum.

Michael Peplow's article on Schuyler published in The Crisis.

Schuyler's The Black Internationafi and Black Empire serials published
together as a book, Black Empire. ‘

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s article on Schuyler published.

Modern Library edition of Schuyler's Black No More published.

Jeffrey A. Tucker's article on Schuyler published in Race Consciousness:
African-American Studies for the New Century. Into Darkness Peering;
Race and Color in the Fantastic published.

Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora
published.

 

' Some of these publishing dates for Burroughs' texts came from Irwin Porges' Edgar

Rice Burroughs: the Man Who Created Tarzan. See his "List of ERB's Complete Works"

for additional publishing dates (787-99).

309

WORKS CITED

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American Identifl Explorer: Immiggation and Migration. Comments for Prescott Hall’s
“Racial Effects of Immigration.” CD-ROM. Michigan State University:

McGraw-Hill, 1997.

Appiah, Anthony. “The Uncompleted Argument: Du Bois and the Illusion of Race.”
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Appleman, Philip, ed. Darwin: A Norton Critical Edition. 2nd ed. New York: Norton,
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Baker, Houston A., Jr. “Caliban’s Triple Play.” Critical Inquiry 13.1 (1986). Rpt. in
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Barbour, Douglas. Worlds Out of Words: The SF Novels of Samuel R. Delaay. Frome,
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Barnes, Steven. Blood Brothers. New York: Tor, 1996.
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- - -. Gorgon Child. New York: Tor, 1989.

Baruth, Philip E. "The Excesses of Cyberpunk: Why No One Mentions Race in
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Beardsley, Edward H. “The American Scientist as Social Activist: Franz Boas, Burt G.
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