3 Ways Octavia Butler Predicted Our Life With Police Today

Black History Year

PushBlack

History, Society & Culture

4.3 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 3 March 2025

⏱️ 3 minutes

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Summary

Once detained by police herself, Octavia Butler put her powerful observations of the world into her Parables series set in 2024 and 2032. How do her three predictions of what policing would be like today match up to our reality and future? _____________ 2-Minute Black History is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company. PushBlack exists to amplify the stories of Black history you didn't learn in school. You make PushBlack happen with your contributions at BlackHistoryYear.com — most people donate $10 a month, but every dollar makes a difference. If this episode moved you, share it with your people! Thanks for supporting the work. The production team for this podcast includes Cydney Smith, Len Webb, and Lilly Workneh. Our editors are Lance John and Avery Phillips from Gifted Sounds Network. Julian Walker serves as executive producer." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Once detained by police herself, Octavia Butler put her powerful observations of the world into her parables series set in 2024 and 2032.
0:15.5	How do her three predictions of what policing would be like today match up to our reality and our future.
0:22.8	I'm Len, and this is Two-Minute Black History, What You Didn't Learn in School.
0:31.7	Set in July 24, Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sor was written in the wake of the 1992
0:43.7	Los Angeles Uprising. According to Craig Lawrence Gidney, after being accused of using a
0:51.2	counterfeit bill at the grocery store, Butler was formed and detained by police officers.
0:57.0	The ordeal inspired the second novel in her parable series, Parables of the Talents.
1:03.0	Despite apocalypse, the SARS police system remains intact.
1:08.0	It serves capitalism, not the people. Citizens pay cops to respond to crime.
1:14.7	Literal walls separate the unhoused and poor from everyone else. In towns, a paramilitary group
1:22.1	carries out incarceration, policing, and shadow slavery. The town's citizens were surveillance collars monitored by the police.
1:32.1	The authorities inflict pain upon anyone trying to evade for slavery or escape.
1:37.9	As the protagonist Lauren comments,
1:41.3	even if the cops came today instead of tomorrow,
1:47.7	they would only add to the death toll.
1:56.7	Still, elders trust and rely on police. The system is violent, but it's all they've ever known.
2:01.4	I wonder what a badge is other than a license to steal.
2:06.9	Lauren says, what did it used to be to make people want to trust it?
2:20.2	Octavia Butler's Afro-Futurist vision doesn't condemn us to an apocalypse. It's a cautionary tale.
2:26.5	The police system has only been emboldened by increased militarization and impunity.
2:33.9	But there's still time to reimagine and build the future we'd rather have. In order to move towards the future, we've got to look to the past.
2:37.1	This has been Two-Minute Black History, a podcast by Push Black.
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