Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

SITBB Vault: A Never-Past History

I was listening to the U's own Douglas Hartmann the other day on MPR talking about "What we mean when we talk about diversity" and recalled this post from last fall. One of the points that is made during the call-in show is that for many people, diversity-talk becomes a way to avoid difficult conversations about race. (I have said something similar myself here on this blog.) If present day race is hard for us to talk about, it should be no surprise that race in the context of slavery is even harder. For example, look at this from a Discovery Channel educational site called "Understanding Slavery" (click on North America on the map for quote): ...White European-Americans created the institution of slavery that we are familiar with. Many people from northern states profited from the slave trade by shipping thousands of Africans to the Americas as slaves... Why Africans? Europeans began enslaving Africans in the 1400s. For nearly a century, African slaves and European indentured servants lived similar lives of drudgery. But servants earned their freedom in exchange for several years of work. Slaves were forced into a lifetime of servitude. Gradually, slaves lost their rights until they became mere property. The law gave masters total power over slaves, including the right to kill their slaves. Also, white slave owners thought they were superior to black people, which increased the gap between slave and free. Do you see the answer to the question, "Why Africans"? The only hint of an answer comes seven sentences after the question--and this is not much of an attempt at a clear, unambiguous statement. Not to mention that the entire burden for the institution is placed on "white slave owners." (Non-slave owning Whites did not think themselves superior?) Not to mention that the "answer" begs all sorts of other questions... Clearly, much more work to be done to get us to a place of true understanding. And simply loving "diversity" because it allows us to try all sorts of new exciting cuisine is probably not going to be the path to lead us there.

I have blogged in the past about Brown University's attempts to confront its connections to slavery. These efforts and plans for the future have been documented by a report, Slavery and Justice, issued a couple weeks ago. (See the committee's web site here and IHE story, "Corpses in the Quad" here.)

In her letter introducing the report, President Ruth Simmons expresses her belief that the history the report documents "gives us a window onto our own time and the opportunity to see how we might respond to current human rights issues." I share this as a hope, but I wonder if many in higher education and elsewhere will take anything resembling a committment from this document?

Well, already there are stirrings, wonderings, at what similar historical and moral acheological digs this report may prompt at other universities. Alfred Brophy over on Black.prof predicts that up north, Yale, Harvard and Princeton may follow in Brown's footsteps in exploring their ties to and benefits from the American institution of slavery, while down south UVA and William and Mary College may join the conversation.

I will be very interested in following what goes on during any possible subsequent reports, commissions, conferences and the like. But again, I wonder what types of concrete action will flow from them. I would like to think that such things spur folks to action. But my experience tells me this is usually not the case. People these days seem tired of talking about such things as slavery--not that many folks have ever been real keen on discussing such topics in the first place. How do you even begin the conversation?

Well, the Brown report begins the discussion with a detective story:

Let us begin with a clock. In 2003, Brown University President Ruth J. Simmons appointed a Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice to investigate and issue a public report on the University’s historical relationship to slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. Since that time, the committee, which includes faculty, students, and administrators, has met periodically in an office on the second floor of University Hall, the oldest building on the Brown campus. In the corner of the office stands an antique clock. A silver plaque on the cabinet identifies it as “The Family Clock of Admiral Esek Hopkins.” Built in the 1750s by a local craftsman, Samuel Rockwell, the clock was donated to Brown in the 1850s by Hopkins’s granddaughter. Such artifacts and heirlooms abound on the campus, and it took several months for committee members to notice the clock or to recognize its significance.

This significance involved a ship outfitted for the transport of human cargo, called the Sally, that was owned by four brothers who were prominent Providence R.I merchants and Brown college benefactors, and commanded by Admiral Esek Hopkins:

There was nothing unusual about a slave ship departing from Rhode Island. Rhode Islanders dominated the North American share of the African slave trade, mounting over a thousand slaving voyages in the century before the abolition of the trade in 1807 (and scores more illegal voyages thereafter). The Sally’s voyage was deadlier than most. At least 109 of the 196 Africans that Hopkins purchased on behalf of the Browns perished, some in a failed insurrection, the balance through disease, suicide, and starvation.

Thus, the product of the work of this committee is framed as a dilemma made concrete by the presence of this clock:

What should the University do with it, now that we know more about its origins? Is it appropriate to display it? Should we remove the plaque honoring Esek Hopkins? Attach another plaque? We are obviously speaking metaphorically here, but the underlying questions could not be more direct. How are we, as members of the Brown community, as Rhode Islanders, and as citizens and residents of the United States, to make sense of our complex history? How do we reconcile those elements of our past that are gracious and honorable with those that provoke grief and horror? What responsibilities, if any, rest upon us in the present as inheritors of this mixed legacy?

You must read the report--all hundred-plus pages of it--to find the resolution to the mystery of the clock, the Sally, and how this particular committee chose to confront history. My own take is that this history is not all that "complex." That is just something we tell ourselves to get over the pain (in some of our cases) and the guilt (in others' cases). It's really a simple story, but one that has not ended yet. And actually, that is what I think we are loathe to reconcile.

(Image credit: "Slavery" Fay Venegas)

Posted by perry032 at July 9, 2007 01:02 PM | TrackBack
| Printer-friendly version