Seriously, why?
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who actually liked Kevin. True, he had his faults, but who doesn't? I just felt like everybody was focusing far too much on his negative qualities and weren't looking at Kevin at a whole.
For instance, everbody kept insinuating that deep down Kevin was a racist, that he and Dana had a bad (possibly abusive) relationship, and that that all surfaced when he and Dana traveled to the past. I don't deny that Kevin said some rude things that could be taken as racist, buthe only really said those after living in the past for quite some time. His environment definitely had some sort of an impact on him. I mean, when you hang around a white man's plantation for a while, some things are bound to pass on and stick. I'm not saying that Kevin shouldn't take responsibility for some of his words and actions, but I don't think we should slander him as an inherently bad person and a racist. I mean, even when the guy was trapped back in the 1800's, he still managed to cling on to his 20th-century values, and was able to help lead slaves to freedom. I think that the changes we see in Kevin came about through his interactions with the historical environment and not from some deeply repressed self.
As for his relationship with Dana, I'm sorry, but no. Just no. Their relationship is anything but abusive and I don't really see anything wrong with it. They're a normal couple, and a normal couple has fights, like the one that surrounded Dana typing Kevin's manuscripts. It's little things like that that people just went nitpicky crazy on, trying to use what little evidence they had to insinuate that Dana and Kevin's relationship had never been a good one. But think about it. Think about what Dana and Kevin go through in Kindred. We're not exactly seeing the couple in a normal situation. True, we got a glimpse or two of their normal lives, but for the most part, they're trying to live and cope in an unimaginable scenario. What would you do if your loved one suddenly dissapeared, then reappeared in a different area seconds later, possibly beaten? The travels are certainly a stressor on their relationship, but as I said before with the racism accusations, I thinnk it comes about more from the environment and the situation rather than from some underlying factor. I mean, we never see the couple voluntarily split. True, Dana pushes Kevin away from her, but that's more for his own safety. Neither Dana nor Kevin simply walk away from each other, thinking that this whole thing and the other person is too much to handle. Indeed, even when they are split up, they do everything they can to try and find one another again. Dana and Kevin are clearly devoted to each other, and we see them rushing to each other's side and trying to do anything they can to help the other in times of trouble. I'll concede and say their relationship isn't perfect, but really, whose is?
To make a long blog post short, LEAVE KEVIN ALONE.
I don't see any evidence to call Kevin "racist," but I think that the question of how Dana's perception of him and his whiteness might change (regardless of what a mensch he might be) as a result of her experiences in the past is a necessary and compelling one. She insists that he does NOT really resemble to patroller, and she shrugs off all the subtle ways that the Weylins remind her of him. Race seems less the issue here than gender, though--when Rufus makes Dana his "secretary," writing his letters for him, it does suggest a kind of parallel to Kevin asking Dana to do his typing. This seems unconnected to race in any obvious way, but it seem entirely connected to gender.
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