The Living Consequences

Laura Flanders, who hosts “RadioNation” on Air America Radio, has a video interview with Katrina Browne, the producer/director of Traces of the Trade, at Fire Dog Lake this afternoon.

The interview includes clips from the documentary and thoughtful discussion about various issues involved in making the film.

Katrina notes, for instance, that she believes she’s evolved from feeling “personally guilty … almost as if I had done it” to taking a more “rational” approach to the issue of guilt. Instead of focusing on the horrors that her ancestors (and mine) perpetrated, she now focuses on the social and other privileges which she’s inherited as a white person and a descendant of an old, established family.

Katrina also discusses the high degree of empathy she has with those black Americans whose dominant response to issues of race is anger, saying that she can no longer imagine not being “angry all the time” if she were black. This often dramatic degree of empathy is, I believe, a major reason why Katrina was able to make this particular film, with its focus on psychology and catharsis, as effectively as she did.