In October 2025, I finally decided to go to grad school. The time felt right. I was more secure in what I wanted to research and had built a solid network of friends, peers, creatives, and academic/ research idols. I was also being bullied in the best way by people I admire to get my behind back in school. They want to see me succeed, and while I really try not to focus on external motivation (I’m an unfortunate people pleaser), it felt really good to be recognized that way. By mid-November, my family was hit with an event that we are still dealing with today that upended my goal for grad school this year. I was devastated having to see grad school application deadlines come and go.
But I remember that my story has never been linear, and I’ve always taken the less-traveled road. I mean, that’s why the Blerd Library exists today. I was preparing for grad school applications, and I decided to redo my writing sample because I wanted one that spoke to who I am now, not the student from nearly 10 years ago. The paper, which is still untitled, uses an Afrofuturist feminist lens to explore the social positioning of Black women and the racialized fatigue that can lead to choosing the literal monster or alien in Octavia Butler’s Dawn in order to redefine humanity and improve the quality of life. Talking to folks within my network, I was constantly told to read Sylvia Wynter. Now, I won’t lie. Her work is what I call “literary calculus.” It is dense. It is intentional. It is mind-blowing. On Being Human as Praxis and Butler’s human characteristic Theory combined in his inogenesis series changed me yet again. As I look back on my notes, I wanted to share them because they are important in today’s political, economic, and racial landscapes.
In order to understand these notes, you have to understand Sylvia Wynter’s theory on man and Octavia Butler’s theory of human characteristics from the Xenogenesis series. I’ll be pulling these excerpts from my paper because I worked really hard on breaking down Wynter, and I can’t fathom redoing that work.
Context is important
Sylvia Wynter (1927- ) is a Black Caribbean novelist and philosopher who worked at Stanford University. Heavily influenced by Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, and W.E.B. Du Bois, Wynter sought to decolonize the meaning of being human. In her theory of Man1, she posits that Man1 was created by the Italian Renaissance’s study of humanity (philosophy, literature, history, and rhetoric). This definition creates the foundation for Man2, a Western bourgeois model of being human that narrowly focuses on their self-interest, or homo oeconomicus. (Wynter, McKitterick, 10) Wynter claims these models of man are overly represented in humanity, leading to degrees of humanity, creating imbalanced power dynamics between Western, colonial Man and its “subjugated Others (i.e., Indians and Negroes)” (Wynter 287). In Sylvia Wynter’s written conversation with Kathereine McKittrick, Wynter explains that the hierarchy of the labor force created during antebellum times (black enslaved, indentured, conquered neo-surf indigenous, white) and its historical implications force all Black peoples within the African diaspora into a “wholly human Other” societal position (Wynter, 46-47). Wynter proposes that humanity must be redefined through the lived experiences and voices of the other to reshape society because the definition of humanity is wholly influenced by Man2’s model of Western capitalist patriarchal colonial oppressions, serving and protecting the needs and desires of cis-het, wealthy, white European people.
Octavia E. Butler (1947- 2006) is a Black American speculative fiction writer. Her work explores race, intersectional environmentalism, and politics through Afrofuturistic and feminist lenses. In the Xenogenesis series, an alien invasion story that centers on the post-human legacy of a Black woman named Lilith, Octavia Butler details humanity’s “two incompatible characteristics” (Dawn 37). The alien race in the series, the Oankali, believe that humanity’s intellectual capabilities are enough to save humanity from destruction without alien intervention. However, while humans are intelligent, humanity submits to their “older and more entrenched” hierarchical characteristic, creating unnecessary suffering. In Butler’s essay, “On Racism”, published in NPR in conjunction with the United Nations-sponsored World Conference on racism, Butler doubles down on the human contradiction theory stating: “Simple peck-order bullying is only the beginning of the kind of hierarchical behavior that can lead to racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, classism, and all the other “isms” that cause so much suffering in the world.” (Butler, NPR)
With that context, here are my notes, edited for readability.
Why color inside the lines?
Humanity is a social construct, like all of the labels placed on us. It’s a signifier that these people are different than others on this planet. It’s a weapon. Something that is given weight and proved worthless depending on someone’s labels. If humanity is subjective, then it means everything and nothing. One’s humanity is directly connected with the ability to exist with dignity, and that is dismissed far too often. How is the child’s humanity acknowledged if they are forced to smother their voice and hide themself? How is Black women’s humanity accessed and/or recognized at the bottom of the societal hierarchy? If your humanity is linked to your dignity, who are you allowed to become if humanity is only recognized in those of the wealthy, straight, able-bodied, and white? By this definition, I am not human. I am not human. Should we fight for Humanity? Why fight for something that doesn’t recognize my existence? If we are not considered human, what are we? What does that mean for our hopes and dreams? My indelible characteristics seem to cancel out my humanity. What does that make me? My children? My community? Is this why I relate to the monster and its dangerous othering? All I wish is to simply exist with dignity.
I’m realizing that in this world, as I experience it and help my kids navigate it, all I’m doing is reminding my children, the next generation, that their humanity is conditional, if it exists at all. It’s dependent on someone else’s mercy from higher up the social ranks. I expose the truth to them and also try to help them see the silver lining. This unfortunate truth means that they can shape their being into whatever they so choose. The limitation of humanity doesn’t exist for people like us. We are free to define us and our future as we see fit, outside the label. We are free. Yes, it’s more dangerous this way because humanity brings security and comfort given by colonial and other oppressive systems. But if I am not human, if my humanity is not recognized or respected, what does that security mean to me? I ask again, why would I protect humanity if it never included folks like me? The more I think about it, and the more I let Wynter’s words rattle in my head, the more I can imagine a small, affluent gaggle of white men, huddling together after a night of horrific debauchery, deeply engaged in an ethnocentric conversation, debating the right of existence of an ethnic cultural group they don’t understand. This is why I believe Butler’s human contradiction is right: our desperate need to dominate others will always lead to the degradation of someone else’s humanity. Far too many people’s humanity is being denied with inaction and/or violent suppression. Sudan, Gaza, Congo, America, the whole of the African diaspora. Humanity is denied to us. So why should our envisioned futures be modeled by this Western definition? What could it look like if we considered everyone, if we fostered the voices of all??
I hope you attempt to read Wynter and Butler. I hope they radicalize you. I hope they give you the courage to imagine a new world and new systems for us. Because the one we have now has never given a single fuck about us.
The Author (no date) Octavia E. Butler. Available at: https://www.octaviabutler.com/theauthor (Accessed: 14 January 2026).
Butler, O.E. (2001) On Racism, NPR. Available at: https://www.npr.org/2001/08/20/5245679/on-racism (Accessed: 14 January 2026).
McKittrick, K. (2015) in Sylvia Wynter: On being human as praxis. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, pp. 1–90.
Sylvia Wynter (no date) Sylvia Wynter | Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages. Available at: https://dlcl.stanford.edu/people/sylvia-wynter (Accessed: 14 January 2026).
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