Excerpts from the Exoteric Book Club Discussion of the "Parable of the Sower" by Octavia B

The Exoteric Book Club discusses Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, a realistic dystopian novel about chaos and despair in American society in 2024. Although, the book was written over 20 years ago, it touches so many things relevant in today’s society. Octavia Butler is forward thinking in her writings about the many things that are similar to things that are happening in our world in 2017. Communities are surrounded by walls with armed guards, economic collapse, drug epidemic, oil and water scarcity, distrust for everyone who are unlike you, a president elect who vows to dismantle government programs.

In Parable of the Sower, the President Elect, Christopher Donner, promises to dismantle the wasteful moon and Mars Program, space programs dealing with experimentation would be privatized or sold off, put people back to work, change the laws, suspend overly restrictive minimum wages, suspend environmental and worker protection laws for those employers willing to take on homeless employees, and provide them with training and room and board, the equivalent of debt slavery.

In our world in 2017, while we are focusing on Russia, according to the Washington Post, our new President is planning to disband the Labor Department division that has policed discrimination among Federal contractors according to the Washington Post. He plans to eliminate the environmental justice program which addresses pollution that poses health threats concentrated in minority communities.

The Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights would set new standards for how colleges should respond to allegations of sexual assault and harassment, as well as significant staffing cuts. Our President vows to break with the civil rights policies of his predecessor.

Cut or eliminate 62 agencies such as Community Development Block Grants, Weatherization Assistance Program, Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, National Endowment for the Arts, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and many other programs that serve underprivileged communities. (Article: Trump Administration Plans to Minimize Civil Rights efforts in Agencies; Washington Post, 5/29/2017, Juliet Eilpein, Emma Brown, Darryl Fears)