Race in Mind of My Mind

The following passage is from p. 334 of Mind of My Mind by Octavia Butler:

Mary: “God! You’re white so much of the time, I never thought you might have been born black.”

Doro: “It doesn’t matter”

Mary: “What do you mean, ‘It doesn’t matter’? It matters to me.”

Doro: “It doesn’t matter because I haven’t been any color at all for about four thousand years. Or you  could say I’ve been every color. But either way, I don’t have anything more in common with black people - Nubian or otherwise- than I do with whites or Asians”

Mary: “You mean you don’t want to admit you have anything in common with us. But if you were born black, you are black. Still black, no matter what color you take on.”

Doro: He crooked his mouth a little in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “You can believe that if it makes you feel better.”

Mary: “It’s true!” He shrugged “Well, what race do you think you are?”

Doro: “None that I have a name for.”

Mary: “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Doro: “It does when you think about it. I’m not black or white or yellow, because I’m not human, Mary.”

            Race comes up at various times throughout Mind of My Mind, but I continually have difficulty keeping track of who is what race.  More racial questions seem to be asked than answered.  Doro especially constantly changing bodies complicates the races.  Mary uses her race defensively at the beginning of Mind of My Mind.  When she is introduced to her husband, she almost instantly demands if her race matters to him (p. 289).   Mary says she never thought Doro would have been born black because of his white exterior and behavior.  Doro replies that race does not matter, yet he chooses to be white most of the time.  His whiteness possibly makes life easier for him as he runs around the world manipulating people.  Mary accuses him of wanting to turn on his black heritage, but he claims that is not the case.  Doro and Mary approach race from very different standpoints.  Mary clings to her blackness and becomes defensive before it is even brought up.  Doro has supposedly put race behind him even though he chooses to remain white a significant part of the time.             

Interestingly, despite their disagreements on race, both Mary and Doro end up acting as a type of slave owner throughout the story.  Mary controls people’s minds and therefore actions, and Doro controls people’s actions and overtakes their bodies.  Butler seems to be breaking down the binary of race by changing the binary to human and non-human.  Later in the story Mary does things that nearly seem non-human.  Could it be possible that race is based on behavior more than skin color, or must it always come down to skin color?  Throughout Mind of My Mind, bodies frequently do not matter; Doro switches between bodies with no problem and Emma changes her figure from young to old at will.  If bodies do not matter, the internal soul/spirit or whatever it is called should be what really matters.   Or is it?  Mary draws strength from connecting with and controlling the minds of many other people.  She can not only read their thoughts but consume who they are as a person.  Once she learns to control it, all her battles are internal and mental.  She can force others to lose control of their minds and submit to her completely. If she wanted, she could make people act any race she desired.  Still, she sees race as an important issue when she says, “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter’? It matters to me!” 

Mind of My Mind definitely raises many interesting questions about race and the cultural construction of racial binaries.  I am looking forward to class discussion to see what kind of conclusions everyone has drawn from these texts.  Nothing seemed too definitive to me, but I continued to raise more and more questions as I read as far as mind control, body control, slavery, race, and even human and non-human behavior.

Question:

Who is right, Mary or Doro?  Is race something that is skin-deep, or are the issues deeper than that?  Has the binary in Mind of My Mind been changed from a color issue to a human-non human issue (the way in which one behaves)?