Harming not only slaves but free blacks as well in the novel, when Dana is transported back to the moment right after Rufus rapes Alice: Dana attempts to express how she felt about Alice’s right to refuse Rufus sexual advances and he replied, sarcastically saying “‘She must have thought she was a free woman or something”. In the novel, shows the oppression of black women. Dana asks Rufus: “‘...your father whips black people?’” and he replies “‘when they need it’” (Butler 26). Rufus does not see any wrong in his father’s violence toward black people, instead he accepts this as normal gesture because he has accepted the racist idea that blacks are inferior to whites and that it is acceptable for whites to abuse them, even saying that they sometimes “need” to be whipped. …show more content…
These social norms were taught to him by his society he was surrounded by, and they were developed to uphold a capitalist system this conditioning serves to keep the lowest class in Kindred, black people, “oppressed… effectively by ideology,” (Tyson