I wanted this to go without saying, but I need to say it: I am not writing the Evolution of Control series to argue that mixed people are better than everyone else or that they are less responsible for their social conduct than anyone else. Mixed people across time have had complicated relationships with their heritage communities. Often, they were shunned. Sometimes, as in the shameful case of some biracial children of slave overseers during the transatlantic slave trade, they operated––at least temporarily––as a new social class. This was wrong, and I believe that it is to blame for much of how mixed people are viewed (especially in the Black American community) today. Additionally, with the range of phenotypes in the community, colorism became pervasive, even among those who did not identify as mixed. An equally shameful development across racial groups has been the (often violent) sexualization of mixed women by their heritage communities. This is perpetuated today by harmful images in movies, music videos, and other types of art. Many of the activities of mixed women in their heritage communities, regardless of intention, are viewed through a sexualized lens. These things, too, are wrong, and they contribute to a rather vicious cycle of hatred and hierarchy.

In the narrative world of Evolution of Control, I am making the case that the hatred and harmful treatment of mixed people, even by racial minorities, has its roots in white supremacy––at least in the United States. Moreover, the strong policing of racial boundaries, as they currently stand, tears apart our country through the perpetuation of racial hierarchy. The fact that mixed people end up muddling the hierarchy doesn’t make them more valuable than anyone else. So, no, mixed people aren’t the best. No one is the best because claiming that someone is the best implies hierarchy. And we all know that if there is any hierarchy to be considered in the United States, it is defined by white supremacy. Perhaps this also should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: white supremacy is bad.

When you read any of the books in the Evolution of Control series, my love of being mixed-race will undoubtedly shine through the text. However, I want to clarify that my expressing that love does not mean that I believe that mixed people are better than “non-mixed” people. My love of my mixedness is hard-earned and more costly than most people will ever know, which is why I take such pride in my heritages. That said, I reject the idea that loving my heritages––and particularly loving the fact that I have more than one––means that I must hate or disdain everyone else. Readers who believe otherwise ought to examine their own racial wounds and insecurities rather than imposing that perspective on my writing.

In Bivalent, I critique Black and Asian American communities’ treatment of mixed people particularly because that is where my experience as a proximate other has occurred. Readers may think that I am tougher on the Black community than I am on the Asian community in this book. On the one hand, I am certainly more detailed in my critique because I only experienced hatred in the Black community from my teenage years onward, when I was able to think more critically. And frankly, I’m a little fired up because the belief that Black Americans aren’t mixed is one that warrants challenging. I make that assertion with no malice because I don’t think that being mixed is a bad thing. On the other hand, hatred from Asians has been a part of my life from further back than I can remember, and the pain that it causes is not easily expressed in words. That’s not to say that I let the Asian community off the hook in Bivalent. One look at my opening notes on the literary world will confirm that. In the narrative, I simply address in different ways how each of my heritage communities can sometimes deal with mixed people in unhelpful and harmful ways.

While it would be really nice if “non-mixed” people would treat mixed people more kindly, I am writing not just for the sake of mixed people. It is faulty to believe that each racial community is self-contained––or should be––and that any of us will thrive that way. In Bivalent, my challenges to current racial dynamics are out of love and the hope that, if people root out the white supremacy inherent in our current system, we will all be on a track toward flourishing. No one can help who their ancestors are, and that should enable communities to welcome the solidarity of well-meaning others, even proximate others. This doesn’t generally happen in the Evolution of Control series, but I submit it now as an ideal to which we may aspire.

I wrote this post to offer you a lens through which to better understand Bivalent. So, in the remaining paragraphs, I’ll just list a few more things that may help with that process.

I tried to stay more within genre on this book. However, as with my racial identification, it was near impossible to stay within the predetermined boundaries. /Bivalent/ is a literary novel of speculative spy fiction with elements of psychological fiction and lots of social commentary. There is also a lengthy beginning section containing my notes on the literary world of Evolution of Control. Readers had been making requests, so I finally gave in and included them. These notes are an account of how the world came to be the way that it is in the late twenty-first and early twenty-second centuries as well as an anthropological description of American society during that time period.

One of the greatest challenges of writing Bivalent was to figure out how to stay within genre while introducing some correctives about mixed identity into the narrative. With Amphibious, I believed that I could just put the art out into the world and people would be able to interpret it, but readers expressed some pretty strange interpretations that were the exact opposite of what I had intended. For instance, the Agent’s passing as a Class 3 when she is subclass was meant to be a product of the narrative world since she’s a spy and a human weapon. In real life, most mixed people don’t think of themselves as rootless, racially ambiguous people in search of opportunities to purposely impersonate folks of other races for personal gain––and other things like that. In Bivalent, I introduce a plot line in which the Agent’s survival/spy mentality is interrupted by thoughts of family and ethnic identity to try to clarify some of these points. I capitalize on the Agent’s state of extreme dissociation to accomplish this, and I’ll let the reader judge how well I pull it off. The fact is that, in this kind of story, it is difficult to convey how a mixed person who is very much in touch with her family would act and think in the real world. That is lamentable for this series, but I’m still young as a writer and have many stories left in me. 😉

In Bivalent, I highlight some of the pressures that mixed people encounter in their heritage communities. I try to do it as gently as possible, and the gentlest way I could think to introduce these topics was through romance, since there is often some kind of interest or positive feeling involved in such relationships. I also use humor to create levity in some of the tough moments because the reality of how nasty these interactions can get is a little overwhelming. I’d like to ease my readers into the discussion, and I’ve got a whole series to do it.

Lastly, Bivalent is the sequel to Amphibious. As such, I hope it will answer some of the questions that Amphibious raised plot-wise. It certainly will fill in details of the Agent’s past, but there will, of course, be new questions that arise. It’s all a part of the adventure.

I gave this book everything I had, and I hope you enjoy the read!