“Here
Come the Whips and Chains”
LISTEN
Inspired
by the novel Kindred by Octavia Butler
© 2004 SOTA / Mr. Carames’ 9th Grade English
Class / Period One
Here come the whips and chains / still inflicting timeless
pain
Hate on a date with prejudice / so much you can’t
measure it
Here come the whips and chains / still inflicting timeless
pain
The only thing that changes is the name…
The pain I feel is so unreal
Every time you disappear / I wish that you were here
There was love, there was trust – there was even lust
I am Rufus – I win with a grin
As you cry, I sip gin
One day I look behind
160 years have passed
No one told me “Dana Escape”
I missed the open gate
Chorus: Here come the whips…
Oh no – my life’s at risk
Call Dana back from ‘76 to make sure I still exist
To keep up the family line
So she can live in her own time
I’m passing through time (which world is yours which
world is mine?)
I’m passing through sanity
This feels so unreal but can it be??
Chorus: Here come the whips…
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“It’s Not About Black or White”
LISTEN
Inspired by the novel Kindred
by Octavia Butler
© 2004 SOTA / Mr. Carames’
9th Grade English Class / Period Two
We claim to be a united nation
But all we teach is segregation
Let’s get together (let’s get together..)
Unite our frustration (let’s get together..)
How do we learn to trust
When we come from a world that has been so unjust?
—[spoken] Actions speak louder than words—
Talk about change and you don’t even know it
You preach equality
And you don’t even show it!
But we won’t let our agony keep us down
We’ll show a smile in place of a frown
But our smile doesn’t mean we’re content
‘cause in our minds everything is bent
Chorus
Touch of pain / color of my skin / scar of the cane / burning
within
Everyone has an understanding of what they think we should
beBut justice is about Equality
it’s not about black and white
so many colors mixed in the fight
people so afraid of assimilation
‘cause they know it’s the end of segregation
Chorus
Outro:
How can the world hope to heal its wounds with the world
afraid of change?
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Ekphrasis
Summary
of Kindred
In
Octavia Butler's novel, Kindred, a modern black
woman called Dana, living in Los Angeles in 1976, is thrown backwards
in time whenever her white, slave-owning ancestor's life is threatened.
Beginning in Rufus' childhood in 1815, she is repeatedly called
upon to preserve him, so that she might one day be born. Patterned
after slave narratives like those of Frederick Douglass and Harriet
A. Jacobs, Kindred gives the reader an immediate
experience of slavery and the scars it has inflicted on American
society
