The Living Consequences

The Connecticut House of Representatives voted unanimously today in favor of a resolution declaring “profound contrition” for the state legislature’s historic role in slavery and racial discrimination.

Connecticut would become the second northern state, after New Jersey, and the first state in New England, to apologize for its role in slavery and discrimination.

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I’ve previously blogged about the grassroots effort in Rhode Island to change the state’s name. In short, this movement seeks to remove the words “Providence Plantations” on the ground that the word “plantation” is now too intertwined with slavery.

There is a letter to the editor in today’s edition of the Newport (R.I.) Daily News arguing the case for this name change. The letter is co-authored by my uncle, Dain Perry, and Nick Figueroa of ULMAC:

Dain is, like me, a direct descendant of James DeWolf, the leading slave-trader in U.S. history, and appears in the documentary Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North. Nick is a leading figure in ULMAC, an organization which advocates on behalf of racial minorities in Rhode Island, and which has been pushing for the name change.

As I’ve reported previously, there is a joint resolution pending this year before the R.I. legislature on the name-change issue. The resolution has been the subject of hearings in both chambers this spring; it has passed out of committee in the House, and is awaiting action by the full House.

The letter is well-written and makes a strong case for changing the state’s name. My only quibble would be that the letter suggests that the word “plantation” has gone from being an innocent word to one which is dominated by a “malignant” image, much as the swastika became unavoidably linked to the atrocities of the Nazi era.

As someone who encounters the word “plantation” frequently in contexts unrelated to slavery, I’m unconvinced that this has become nothing less than the “true meaning” of the word today. As many dictionaries, encyclopedias, or the work of many historians would illustrate, “plantation” is still often used in ways entirely unconnected to slavery. Instead, I would have focused on an argument closely related to that offered in the letter and on the blog run by Nick and his group, We Are Not a Plantation: that the historical connection of the word “plantation” to slavery in this country naturally makes its use in the state’s official name deeply offensive to many of our citizens, particularly those with a deeply personal connection our history as a slave society.

To read the letter, you may click on the image above, or read the text of the letter below the jump:

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Today is the United Nation’s International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

In commemoration of the event this year, the U.N. has organized a series of programs this week, in New York and around the world.

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On Monday, the State of Connecticut will begin debating an apology for its role in slavery and and racial discrimination.

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The state of Maryland is currently considering a slavery-era disclosure law, similar to the one now pending in Massachusetts and previously adopted in several other states.

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Congressman John Conyers (D-Mich.) has re-introduced H.R. 40, the “Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act,” for the 111th Congress.

This legislation is enthusiastically supported by several DeWolf family members who appear in Traces of the Trade, and Rep. Conyers prominently mentioned our documentary when he introduced the bill. He is also a long-time supporter of our work, having flown to Park City, Utah last year to appear at the film’s world premiere on Martin Luther King Day at the Sundance Film Festival.

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There is an active movement within Rhode Island to amend the state constitution to change the official name of the state, “The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.”

This change would remove “Providence Plantations” from the name of the state, on the grounds that the word “plantations” now has an historic association with chattel slavery and has become offensive to many people.

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Massachusetts state representative Byron Rushing has re-introduced his slavery-era disclosure law, “An Act Relative to the History of Slavery in the Commonwealth.”

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The latest animal-rights campaign by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) involves PETA members dressed as the Ku Klux Klan to dramatize the abuse of animals through breeding for profit.

PETA was demonstrating outside the Westminster Kennel Club’s dog show in Madison Square Garden, in a protest against the American Kennel Club (AKC), which PETA accuses of promoting the pure-breeding of dogs to the detriment of their health.

PETA has a long history of sensational and controversial publicity campaigns to draw attention to the plight of animals, which frequently bring charges of sexism, racism, or poor taste. In a 2005 campaign, for instance, PETA contrasted images of lynched black men with pictures of dead cows and asked, “Are Animals the New Slaves?”

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I’m writing to highlight a book by Ron Peden, entitled Notes on the State of America: Black to the Future, or White from the Past? (Cambridge, Mass.: OAU Publishing, 2008).

Ron is a writer and activist here in the Boston area, and he has graciously taken the time to comment on this blog regarding his concerns over the DeWolf family and Traces of the Trade.

In Notes on the State of America, Ron writes powerfully and eloquently about the impact of our history of slavery and discrimination on racial inequality today.

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