Kindred Prejudice Quotes

Is racism a learned habit or is it a born concept? What about love? Hate? Empathy? This ties into the idea of “nature vs. nurture”, which questions what human characteristics are genetic as opposed to the result of environmental factors. This concept is closely tied to the book Kindred by Octavia Butler in which an overly empathetic character, Dana, travels back to the late 1800s in the deep south where she must deal with a variety of hateful, racist, and loving characters. She observes how society has morphed people and created racism and hate through Rufus and furthers her changing empathy as well as seeing that love is a sure constant through all of it. Through this, it can be seen that racism, empathy, and hate are learned behaviours while love is natural. Racism and hate are purely the result of one’s environment. In the book, Dana sees how slave owners were immersed in a world of hate and racism from childhood. “Quote about Rufus being racist when he was little,” (page). While it may not be malicious, he has become a product of the bigoted environment he’s grown up in. “Quote about Kevin not being racist,” (page). There’s a distinct difference between Kevin and Rufus’s opinions on black people even though they’re of the same race, gender, and class. Their contrasting opinions can be attributed …show more content…
Humans have evolved to care for one another in order to survive. Not all forms of love may be natural, but familial and platonic love are evolutionary traits. Romantic love has somewhat developed through society. Maternal and paternal love has to do with hormones and genetics, and platonic love fills our human desire to be social. “Quote about Sarah loving her kids,” (page) Sarah, although she knows that loving her children will hurt her, still loves them, If love was a learned process, she wouldn’t love them because that would lead to eventual