September 16, 2016 - 11:59
Kate Weiler
A wise pop icon once observed that “everybody makes mistakes... Everybody has those days... Everybody knows what what I'm talkin' 'bout... Everybody gets that way.” Like Hannah Montana astutely observed, everyone slips and falls once in a while, and while this can be often seen as embarrassing, it is important to discuss, especially in the light that Anne Dalke analyzes the concept in her chapter ‘Slipping.’ The notion of slipping, as discussed by Anne Dalke in a chapter of the same name, has proven itself to be a rather complex idea. Slipping can be often seen in this day and age as microagressions, instances where someone returns to comfortable traditions or stereotypes, and voices them; they are usually things one is not supposed to say, but are not exactly explicit. These slips are not always done with an intent to hurt others; they can be nothing more than simple mistakes. It shows its face in phrases or actions that uncover prejudice long ingrained in one’s society.
Dalke’s definition of slipping as “an act of associative mis-speaking” is intensely evident in Octavia Butler’s Bloodchild, but the short story also embodies the concept in the circumstances its characters are living in (Dalke, 254). Bloodchild illustrates a less obvious form of slipping than described by Dalke, that through regulations and subsequent actions. In the graphic, dystopian short story, Gan, a young man, lives in the “Preserve,” a community where humans (called Terrans) live in supposed harmony with an alien race, the Tlic (Butler). In this world, Terran men host their alien caretaker’s young, while most women are allowed to bear their own children and continue the human race. Because of this, a strange, intensely strained relationship between Gan and his caretaker, T'Gatoi, emerges over time, ultimately bringing to light the fact that while firearms are banned in the Preserve, they play an overwhelmingly large role in the story. When Gan goes to shoot an animal, an achti, with one of the family’s guns, he observes that afterword, “T'Gatoi would probably confiscate it” (Butler). He then explains why guns had been banned, due to “incidents right after the Preserve was established - Terrans shooting Tlic, shooting N'Tlic. This was before the Joining of families began, before everyone had a personal stake in keeping the peace. No one had shot a Tlic in my lifetime or my mother's, but the law still stood - for our protection, we were told” (Butler). This implies that after humans moved onto the alien planet of the Tlic, both races attempted to use firepower to assert dominance – the Tlic to defend their turf, the humans to pull a Columbus and colonize the natives – slipping back to violent traditions in attempt to gain the underlying advantage. After this explanation, which recounts the life-or-death stakes riding on firearms in the Preserve, readers would most likely assume that this is the last time a gun would be seen in the story. What is important to note here, though, is the inverse occurs. While guns are banned in the Preserve, they become increasingly prevalent in Bloodchild.
The very fact that Gan’s family has a host of guns in their house after the ban makes clear that their firearms are illegal. Gan decides to use the “most accessible” gun to kill a bigger achti for T’Gatoi; while she expected him to use a legal weapon to do it, he ultimately decides to use the gun because he is afraid to kill a large animal, and it will ease the process. This is clearly an example of a slip, shown through both thought and subsequent action. Gan is uneasy, and thus returns to the comfortable tradition of using a powerful weapon to assert dominance, and reinforce a hierarchy of species that has been held as fact by highly-regarded thinkers as far back as Aristotle (de Waal). Because Gan feels insecure and uneasy tasked with killing a large, imposing animal, he resorts back to the way humans used to use violence against creatures who lacked the power and sophistication of firearms. He subconsciously prioritizes the ease of asserting his dominance and getting his task done as easily and least painfully as possible over the possibility of having the firearm, also mimicking the slips that Dalke discusses, in which people trade off confronting underlying issues of prejudice and bias for slipping back into them.
As Bloodchild progresses, Gan’s family gun becomes a key character in the story. T’Gatoi confronts Gan, demanding to know if he used the gun to shoot the achti. Gan, gun in hand, affirms this, and remains defensive when T’Gatoi asks if he plans to shoot her with it. In defiance, asserting that he does not want to be her host, Gan positions the gun under his own chin. Even after T’Gatoi talks him out of killing himself in order to avoid being a host, Gan fights passionately for his right to keep the gun. Although “she grasped the rifle barrel, [he] wouldn't let go… pulled into a standing position over her” (Butler). He tells her to accept the risk of him having a gun, asserting that “we’re not your animals…there is risk…in dealing with a partner” (Butler). Again, Gan slips back into the common human tradition of defending his right to use of deadly violence, his words mimicking the second amendment of United States Constitution, guaranteeing citizens “a well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" (U.S. Constitution). In this way, the prevalence of guns in a supposed utopian society is an allegory for gun regulation. There is a prevalent human “slip” of resorting to violence, without much thought, as it has long been seen as a quick fix to problems in and out of one’s society, but it does not fix anything in the long-term. In the society portrayed in Bloodchild, the gun laws are so harsh that the amount of illegal, dangerous gun activity skyrockets, as seen in Gan’s actions throughout the story. This is a clear warning against harsh gun laws within societies, especially the United States, and those who want firearms banned altogether, and a proponent of affirmative actions such as background checks, in order to ensure that those who own a gun are trained to use it correctly and will not use it to harm others irrationally, a common slip in society today.
On September 15, 2016, Tyre King, 13 years of age, was shot and killed by a white police officer in Columbus, Ohio, because he had in his possession a BB gun which resembled a real firearm. The morning after King’s death, Mayor Andrew Ginther appeared to choke up as he questioned why an eighth-grader would be carrying a replica of a police firearm, commenting that “there is something wrong in this country, and it is bringing is epidemic to our city streets…a 13-year-old is dead in the city of Columbus because of our obsession with guns and violence” (Franko). By releasing this statement, Ginther places the blame not solely on the white police officer who slipped back to racial bias against young black men, but the prevalent slip of society to glorify lethal weapons, leading to an ongoing spiral of unnecessary violence and death. Like in Bloodchild, slips back to attempted social hierarchies and romanticizing, and in turn unnecessarily utilizing violence are prevalent in today’s far from utopian society, clearly presents a dire need for both gun reform and a shift in weapon culture, especially between police and minority civilians. Like Gan, the police officer was uneasy, and resorted to the comfort of firearms, and like Gan, King grew up oppressed, and in order to protect himself, he slipped and carried around a very realistic BB gun. This is an endless cycle which must be stopped. We, as a society, cannot stomach another black teen stripped of a future due to comfortable traditions and underlying racial prejudice.
Sources cited:
Butler, O. E. (2005). Bloodchild and other stories. New York: Seven Stories Press.
Cohen, J., & Dalke, A. (n.d.) Slipping. Steal This Classroom: Teaching and Learning Unbound. Bryn Mawr: Punctum Books.
de Waal, F. “What I Learned from Tickling Apes.” New York Times. 10 April, 2016. Print. (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/opinion/sunday/what-i-learned-from-tickling-apes.html?_r=1)
Franko, K., and Sanner, A. Associated Press. ABC News. 15 September, 2016. Web.
(http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/boy-13-fatally-shot-police-pulling-bb-gun-42104580)
U.S. Constitution Art./Amend. II.