The Living Consequences

One of the main themes of Traces of the Trade is the historical amnesia affecting memories of slavery and the slave trade in the United States, especially in the North.

It’s not just that far too many Americans do not know the basic history of slavery in our country, and therefore the extent of its legacy today. All too often, Americans are secure and confident in their knowledge of a version of history which is demonstrably false: that slavery was primarily a southern, agricultural phenomenon; that slavery was not economically important in the North; that an abolitionist North fought to end slavery; and that slavery’s economic impact died out after the Civil War.

There is an article in tomorrow’s edition of the New York Times which reports on lingering amnesia about another historical atrocity: the Turkish genocide in Armenia during World War I.

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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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On Friday, the State Department announced that the U.S. does not intend to participate in the U.N. conference on racism in April unless there are significant changes to the working draft of the conference document, including toning down references to reparations for slavery.

This development appears to be the inevitable result of the Obama administration’s original position on the conference, coupled with the inability of the U.S. delegation to secure changes to the draft last week in Geneva.

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The reason it’s been quiet here for the last couple of days is that I’ve been in Albuquerque, N.M. to speak at an interdisciplinary conference on cultural studies in the humanities and social sciences.

The conference featured two evening screenings of Traces of the Trade for attendees, and I spoke at two panel sessions about the use of film as a popular medium and as a pedagogical tool for exploring under-appreciated history and contemporary social issues.

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The Standard-Times of New Bedford has graciously printed a letter to the editor, “Liberals harm individualism,” in response to their article covering my lectures in New Bedford and Fall River two weeks ago.

This letter, by Stephen Grossman of Fairhaven, Mass., was obviously written by someone who had not attended any of my talks. While I sympathize with his concerns, he exhibits a number of mistaken assumptions about my attitudes and beliefs, as well as my goals in presenting information about the legacy of slavery and racial discrimination to the general public.

I’m en route to a conference in New Mexico right now, but my quick response to the letter is below:

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This post is about single-parent families and the role of welfare. Like the last post, it was inspired by a comment on an earlier entry, and aims to debunk a few common myths.

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Inspired by a recent exchange of views on another post on this blog, I’d like to offer a few statistics about race and criminal behavior in the U.S.

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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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The United Nations has issued a comprehensive new report on global human trafficking, focused on efforts at enforcement.

Highlights include the fact that reported cases of human trafficking, including forced labor and sexual exploitation, have been on the rise, and that women play a significant role in perpetrating human trafficking.

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President Barack Obama has taken a key step to reverse the Bush administration’s long-standing boycott of the United Nations Conference Against Racism.

This move is an early result of the Obama administration’s determination to engage more fully with the U.N. and other multilateral organizations. It is also a sign that the new U.S. administration has changed, but not entirely different, attitudes on such issues as human rights, Israel, and the Muslim world.

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