mixed habitat & densely vegetated hiding places

After some missed meetings due to schedule conflicts, the book club is back in action. So this is part 2 of my notes on our reading of Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora. (Part 1 is here.)


"separation anxiety" by Evie Shockley (2000)

In the 22nd century, ethnic minorities in the US have been segregated into their own self-contained geographical 'units' which no one can leave or enter without permission from the white-controlled government. This is obviously a dystopian story, but a nuanced one. The protagonist is a dancer whose work focuses on celebrating African-American dance, and she loves it, but has begun to feel that preserving a rigidly historical and "pure" version of her culture is stifling to her creativity. She's torn between following her best friend who wants to leave the unit and explore the outside world, and her brother who does not.

The story reminded me of accounts I've read of Black students experiencing the desegregation of US schools; some mourned the loss of an all-Black environment in which they felt protected from racism, even though the schools existed within an external racist power structure that limited their resources and options. Others said the story gave them Harlem Renaissance vibes, which I can also see.

I liked how the story explored these complex perspectives, but I didn't like the ending, which I and some others felt was a cop-out that let the main character off the hook for responsibility for her choices.


"Tasting Songs" by Leone Ross (2000)

A photographer has an affair with one of his models. I was immediately repelled by this story and its characters—it felt like the kind of litfic I have read too much of, focused on philandering, navel-gazing men. I guess the SF component is that the model has hyperhidrosis (a real condition) but the symptoms are exaggerated beyond what is medically realistic. The group debated whether this story belonged in a SF anthology or not, given that the SF premise is so thin and so little is done with it. One person suggested it might be better classed as magical realism.

But while there was some disagreement on these points, everyone agreed this story was not enjoyable to read! It centers a guy who is a self-involved jerk, and his only character growth is a vague, late realization that maybe women might have lives and stories that don't revolve entirely around him and his magical healing cock camera...?? It was also pointed out that the way the model's condition is handled gets into that ableist thing of disabilities being presented as fanciful superpowers. The rest of the discussion turned to speculating on how the story could have been written better... mostly by being a totally different story.


"Can You Wear My Eyes" by Kalamu ya Salaam (2000)

A man sees the world through his dead partner's eyes—literally. Her eyes are transplanted into his head, and this allows him to see the world as she saw it, including her memories and emotional associations with places and people.

Though this concept had potential (and some pointed out that it's been done better by other authors), the execution here is basically limited to the idea that if a man saw the world as a woman sees it, and realized how threatening and cruel men can be, it would destroy him. I think the main reason this didn't work is that the piece is very short and you don't get to know the characters at all, which makes it more of a thought experiment than a story. One person mentioned finding it gender essentialist, which I can see; the characters have so little development, they are basically just Man and Woman, and that comes off as pretty reductive.

It was also discussed that the way the premise is presented really sets the male character up to fail, not allowing him the tools or the context to realistically develop empathy with women, if that was supposed to be the point. It makes women's experiences look alien and incomprehensible, deepening a divide rather than building a bridge.

I didn't bring this up because I thought it might be a derail, but the story also made me think of how, especially in earlier generations, trans women would often be discouraged from transitioning by people telling them that they wouldn't be able to handle life as a woman after having experienced male privilege. This is obviously not the same as the scenario in this story, but it reminded me of the black-and-white thinking about gendered life experiences that it reflects.


"Like Daughter" by Tananarive Due (2000)

A traumatized woman chooses to give birth to her own clone. This is a SF take on a scenario that's all too real—parents seeing their children as nothing more than little versions of themselves, using them to feel better about their own lives, not letting them be their own people. It was pointed out that this author is mostly known for horror, which I didn't know, but the piece certainly reads as horror. I found it incredibly chilling, especially in the way the POV character (a childhood friend of the mom) is drawn into the situation and thinks she is helping, but is actually just transferring her own feelings of obligation toward her friend onto this poor child.

There was some discussion of the fact that "would human clones have souls?" was a hot question in bioethics at the time this story was written, which explains why it's brought up in the piece. I didn't know that at the time of reading, but I thought it worked either way and didn't feel dated, because the story is about who gets to be an individual, and I thought the idea of a soul was just another way of talking about that.

This was by far my favorite of this batch of stories, and it seemed most of the group also found it very affecting and well-crafted. I'm interested to read more of the author's work.