Whiteness in the Handmaid's Tale

I came across a thread on twitter about race in The Handmaid's Tale that is very contrary to how we've talked about the novel in class and how I have thought about it in my recent blog posts. I thought the threat by Mikki Kendall (@Karnythia on Twitter) was something every fan of the novel should think about so I'm going to retype the Tweets below:

"The incredible whiteness of Handmaid's Tale has left me completely underinvested in watching it or rereading it."

"Also if the worst you can imagine is a reality where your children are stolen & you are subjugated...well white feminism lets talk."

"Handmaid's Tale had more of an impact before I knew about reproductive tourism & how transracial adoption can be trafficking in some cases"

"I don't know, the all white dystopia framework bothers me on so many levels."

"It requires me to believe that not only are my people gone, but often that they vanished quietly without any real resistance. As if."

"Like...Black people did not survive slavery, Jim Crow & the War on Drugs to be taken out by a handful of white boys with guns."

"Realistically no community of color in America would go down without a fight & frankly we would band together to win."

"White middle class women might not be ready to knuckle up. But...that means get your weight up. Stop projecting."

"Even the first time I read it I couldn't understand Offred's passiveness. And I was 13. Her logic was very "White girl in horror movie"

""I can't go to my job, access money or vote anymore. I'll just wait here & hope" NOPE. You leave when shit starts going left."

"Also hi, this myth that inner cities are full of cowards that won't fight...beloved that is all these folks do. That's how they survive."

"There's a scene where Offred sees a Black woman in passing & describes her hopeless stare & cheap clothes & well..."

"A community of Black people facing oppression fights back. So do Latinx, Asian & Indigenous communities. And poor white communities"

"That's not projection. That's American history. We know flour can be used to make a bomb for a reason. So the lack of rebels bugs me"

"Realistically the women would be poisoning the men & blowing up their homes long before any new framework could be established."

"You can fight a whole rebellion with household supplies in a pinch....I just got a plot bunny. DAMN IT"

Okay, so those are all her tweets on the subject. I have to confess I hadn't thought about the novel like that all until reading her thoughts, but they make a lot of sense. It does seem somewhat racist and counter-intuitive to me that the majority of black Americans would essentially be forced back into a type of slavery by being Marthas or working in the colonies - realistically those people would never give in that easily. Atwood is not concerned with how her dystopian world impacts people of color, she focuses so wholly on the impact towards white women while largely ignoring the many other stories. Part of this is surely because she wrote the novel in the 1980s, but that doesn't mean she should not be criticized for it.

The Hulu show has clearly tried to make the show more intersectional (not that they would use that word since the show shies away from feminist language) - since in the show Luke and Moira are black as well as other minor characters. However, Rita is still black, which matters too. I still think the world and story Atwood created are important and somewhat feminist, however there is clearly more criticism needed by black feminists and scholars. Any discussion of The Handmaid's Tale as a seminal feminist text ought to include a discussion of how the novel fails people of color, especially women, by failing to tell their stories and underestimating how easily their communities would be destroyed and repressed.

Being Scared of the F-Word

I lied, I'm not done talking about Handmaid's Tale thinkpieces yet. Perhaps the most important one written since the show came out is from MTV News' Rachel Handler called "On the Handmaid' Tale, Bernie Sanders, and Feminism." Handler was prompted to write the piece after watching the cast and creators of the Hulu show at the Tribeca Film Festival go out of their way to avoid calling the show a feminist project. 


Handler was disturbed and disappointed by this, especially considering Margaret Atwood herself has shied away from calling her story feminist in numerous interviews. Handler wrote: "What struck me instead was the haunting notion that we've reached a point in history where an explicitly political, feminist work of art must be depoliticized and downplayed for fear of alienating the men who might feel excluded by it."

Many writers and commentators are forgiving the cast, creators, and Atwood for their refusal to discuss the OBVIOUS feminist and political themes of the story, but Handler's refusal to allow this dilution of the meaning is important. Hollywood has a long, established habit of this type of practice since drawing large audiences for projects is more important than appearing feminist or diverse. On this, Handler points out that "stories about men have always been viewed as status quo "human stories," while stories about women, or people of color, or queer people have always been viewed as "stories about women, or people of color, or queer people," forcing their casts to go on the defensive."

Here, it's hard to blame the cast since they want the project to be successful and therefore don't want to 'alienate' potential fans who would shy away if the project was marketed as FEMINIST. But at the same time we have to hold them accountable since the show is absolutely feminist judging from its themes and message. Another quote from the Handler piece I this that I really thought was important was: "Words matter, whether you're living in a dystopia or your basic plutocracy, and in Gilead, language has been bent into both a weapon and an unsolicited shield. The Republic subjects its people to unspeakable horrors by coating them in euphemism, in inaccurate language that obscures the true nature of what's being done to them. Terrified silence and linguistic obfuscation are the twin pillars that bolster the patriarchal dystopia." I couldn't agree more with that sentiment.