Slavery: Our Peculiar Institution

I think this is going to be a great movie. I am glad that this story is going to be told. I like the fact that is coming out on Christmas 2012. We will either be excited because Obama was re-elected or we will be distraught because he lost. I am excited about this movie, especially with the cast. This movie will be a huge hit. I will of course read the book first.

It's the holidays, so of course I've been thinking a lot about Santa, sleighs -- oh, and slavery.

Recently I finished Octavia Butler's time-traveling and mind-altering novel, Kindred, about a black woman who gets sucked back to antebellum Maryland circa 1815. Butler uses science fiction to deftly weave together the tale of 26-year-old Dana and her great-great-grandfather "Marse Rufus," whom Dana gets called back in time to help throughout his life.

When first we meet young Rufus, he's drowning in a river near his father's cotton plantation. Inexplicably, Dana is transported from her home in Southern California to the riverbank. She drags Rufus from the water, gives him mouth-to-mouth and is then promptly wooshed back into her own time, 1976.

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