It’s no secret that our current society aspires to have racially diverse neighborhoods, schools and workplaces. In Butler’s cautionary tale, does Lauren continue to hope for this? If so, how does racial diversity play into the Earthseed verse, “Embrace diversity. / Unite– / Or be divided, / robbed, / ruled, / killed / By those who see you as prey. / Embrace diversity / Or be destroyed.” Perhaps not at all. The word “diversity” is interchangeable with Lauren’s favorite word, “change.” Embrace change, roll with the punches in order to survive – this isn’t the first time we’ve heard this and it isn’t particular to the subject of race. In the 2020’s, society moves backwards in response to the deterioration of the government and environment. Distrust, poverty and fear leads to a populace increasingly desperate and intolerant. “It’s a world gone to hell,” says Lauren. “Being black can be dangerous these days,” is said matter-of-factly and generally about how “people are expected to fear and hate everyone but their own kind.” Racial antagonism is one of many possible human insecurities to be agitated in this dystopian future.
With that said: when Lauren isn’t writing about the feuds and violence that racial tension ignites, she writes about interracial couples with a personal and hopeful curiosity. She’s fascinated by the “heterogeneous mass…black and white, Asian and Latin” she observes while walking the freeway, makes note of Emery and Tori’s mixed origins, and most notably, risks her group’s safety when she comes between a mixed family (later referred to as allies) and thugs at a commercial water station. Zahra is quick to presume that Lauren’s cue was the baby’s innocence. Lauren corrects her. “The family, really,” she says. “All of them together.” Are these feelings a result of the failed community she left behind, one in which murder is a plausible reaction to a white Craig Dunn caught making love with a black Siti Moss? “Crazy,” says Lauren. Is the Interracial Couple another tenet or symbol for Earthseed, a religion in constant revision? After all, an Earthseed verse reads, “Accept the images / that God has provided… / The universe / is God’s self-portrait.” The way Lauren talks about the marginalized family, Travis, Natividad and Dominic pictured as Earthseed’s holy family isn’t far-fetched: “Tall, stocky, velvet-skinned, deep-black man carrying a huge pack; short, pretty, stocky, light-brown woman with baby and pack; medium brown baby a few months old–huge-eyed baby with curly black hair.”