Ever since the mid 1970s, [Butler's] books have opened up new territory by imagining a future specifically informed by the historical experience of black American females...The themes of kidnapping, forced impregnation, and involuntary genetic transformation that suffuse Lilith's Brood clearly parallel the experience of American blacks during slavery, and these are the racial memories Butler draws upon to describe how truly wise, heroic, difficult, and ultimately successful accommodationist politics can be.