The Living Consequences

Colin Powell, in his endorsement of Barack Obama moments ago on NBC’s Meet the Press, offered a bit of welcome honesty on the subject of our nation’s attitude towards those of other races and religions.

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There has finally been a preliminary settlement in the case of the Mexican braceros denied wages earned as guest workers in the U.S. in World War II. Surviving workers, and heirs of the deceased, living in the U.S. will now be eligible to collect $3,500 each.

The braceros case has served for many years as a prominent example of the struggle to obtain justice for old wrongs, and there are strong parallels to the fight for reparations for slavery.

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Jerry Large of the Seattle Times has an insightful column today about the annual Seattle Race Conference held on Saturday. This year’s conference, marking the 20th anniversary of reparations to Japanese-Americans held in U.S. concentration camps in World War II, was devoted to reparations and other forms of redress and racial healing.

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Long before being implemented, the $700 billion financial bailout package agreed to by Congress and President Bush late last month has already had dramatic effects on world markets and the global economy, not to mention the U.S. presidential campaign.

(This was true even before the bailout package morphed from a scheme to purchase distressed mortgage-backed securities into a plan centered on pumping money directly into banks by investing $250 billion in ownership interests, which is what many economists have been recommending, often since the start of the crisis. All of this, however, has raised the potential cost of the bailout to taxpayers to $2.25 trillion.)

One interesting result of all this has been complaints from bloggers and others that Congress appears to be willing to offer Wall Street a $700 billion handout, while politicians insist that there would be no money available to pay reparations for slavery.

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As we’re all aware, the momentum of the presidential campaign has shifted significantly towards Obama in recent weeks. As of today, for example, Obama leads McCain in the national polls by as much as fourteen percentage points (53% to 39%), compared with gaps of four or five points as recently as a week earlier.

This is, of course, exactly what political scientists have been predicting, based on such large, external factors as the economic situation and the party currently in power.

The big questions now are whether Obama’s current lead in the polls will hold up over the next three weeks, and whether or not this lead is likely to translate into victory on Election Day.

This post won’t address the first question, which boils down to whether, and how, voter sentiment might change dramatically between now and November 4. Instead, I want to address the second question: how has Obama’s recent surge in the polls affected the map of the Electoral College?

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This fall, the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities will sponsor a series of screenings of Traces of the Trade around the state.

The discussion series, “Traces of the Trade: Massachusetts and the Economy of Slavery,” commemorates the bicentennial of the abolition of the slave trade. Each event will feature a screening of the new, 55-minute discussion version of the documentary, along with historical materials and discussion of the film’s themes as well as the significance of slavery to the Massachusetts economy and to our society today. The series is sponsored in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The screenings will take place as follows:

• Sat., Oct. 4, 2008 – Sheffield Historical Society, Sheffield, Mass.
• Tues., Oct. 7, 2008 – Old South Meeting House, Boston, Mass.
• Sat., Oct. 18, 2008 – Alternatives Unlimited, Inc., Whitinsville, Mass.
• Sat., Nov. 8, 2008 – The House of the Seven Gables, Salem, Mass.
• Thurs., Feb. 12, 2009 – New Bedford Whaling Museum, New Bedford, Mass.

Traces of the Trade has won the New England Emerging Filmmaker award in the documentary category at the 17th annual Woods Hole Film Festival.

Politico.com is reporting this morning that the U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to consider an apology for slavery and discrimination next week.

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This morning’s interview on The Early Show on CBS is now available to watch online.

The interview was conducted by anchor Harry Smith with Tom DeWolf, Katrina Browne and Juanita Brown, on the occasion of the release of Traces of the Trade on DVD.

Harry Smith had previously blogged about the book and the film, and he ends the interview by saying, “I cannot recommend [the book and the film] highly enough.”

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The Early Show on CBS is scheduled to air a live interview in New York with Tom DeWolf, Katrina Browne, and Juanita Brown on Monday, July 14.

The interview is to be conducted by anchor Harry Smith, who wrote about the film when it first aired on PBS:

… the journey is painful, tearful and revealing. … the film displays the difficult road toward reconciliation. See it or get it or pick up the book by Katrina’s cousin Tom DeWolf.

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