Our Neighborhood is too Small to Play those Kind of Games

Early on in Parable of the Sower, Lauren Oya Olamina describes her community out on a practice shooting trip: "The Garfields and the Balters are white, and the rest of us are black. That can be dangerous these days. On the street, people are expected to fear and hate everyone but their own kind, but with all of us armed and watchful, people stared, but they let us alone. Our neighborhood is too small for us to play those kinds of games" (Butler 36). This passage is remarkable as a moment of definition. Although Butler describes Olamina's community previously, this is the first instance where the racial identity of the group is described. It is extremely notable that this distinction is made when the group is most vulnerable, on its journey from its walled neighborhood through the city.
If one interprets science fiction as Frederic Jameson urges, it is not a prediction of the future, but a reflection of the present. And, its prophecy is "to serve as unwitting and even unwilling vehicles for a mediation..." (153). After all, each version of the future is inextricably tied to the reality of its creator.
Thus, we should be warned by the racial tension Butler forsees. President Donner's creation of effective legal chattel slavery as a solution to economic woes, especially when combined in the absence of political power in most communities, should act as a warning to those not concerned about the plight of undocumented workers. Combined with the corporate ownership of Olivar and its quid pro quo segregation (the description of Olivar as "upper middle class, white, literate" is not unintentional), it underscores the level of racial stratification in modern society.
It is extremely notable that multiracial characters, couples, and relationships factor strongly in Parable, particularly in relation to the identification of the sharers. Butler suggests that their roles in more than one culture both make them more vulnerable and more sympathetic to pain. In a society which functions on divisions, the sharers are in constant struggle against pain. Yet, in a society which emphasizes camradarie, like Olamina's Earthseed, they are the pillars. Their diversity becomes their strength.
Children of Men offers an image which appears similar on its surface, but is in fact quite different. In the midst of a global sterility crisis, Kee, a young woman of African descent and a refugee in England, becomes pregnant. Her body quickly becomes a pawn for power in the struggle for control of the human species. As Jayna Brown notes in "The Human Project," "By natural inclination Kee is the biological force to counteract the sterilizing effect of a contaminated world. She is, by tired cliché, ‘Africa, mother of civilization' " (7). In thus, it is notable that she is completely lacking agency; things are done to her and for her, not, save with few exceptions, by her. One can not entirely pass over the symbolic impact, though, that a Black girl is the first child born in the new age, to a mother that bears some symbolic resemblance to the Virgin Mary.
Considering Thompson's comment that some sort of fences are necessary, that a group is defined by what it does not include, and in light of initial quote, how do we define our own kind? What sort of loyalties can and should we hold? Or are borders, both physical and psychological, the real problem?