Tim Wise has a very thoughtful statement on his web site proposing principles for being accountable to others while working on issues of race and racial justice. It’s obviously the product of considerable reflection over time, as well as engagement with many other people, and it’s well worth reading by anyone working in this field—or who simply wants to make personal progress in this area.

A handful of key passages, and a link to Tim’s full statement on his web site, are below.

(more…)

James DeWolf Perry is a regular contributor. He appears in the film Traces of the Trade and is the Tracing Center’s interim managing director and director of research. This entry is cross-posted from James’ own blog, The Living Consequences, and the opinions expressed are his own.

The White House announced late yesterday that President Obama has re-nominated Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Professor Liu’s nomination became controversial when it was discovered that he had addressed the subject of reparations for slavery on a panel following a special screening of our documentary, Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North, in Washington, D.C. in 2008. Liu’s scholarship has also drawn considerable attention for its intellectual heft and for what conservative senators have declared to be a left-leaning philosophical approach to the law.

Professor Liu was originally nominated to the appellate judgeship in February, and passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on a 12-7 vote. His nomination expired, however, when the Senate recessed in August without having held a full vote.

Professor Liu’s nomination, along with several others who were re-nominated yesterday, must now pass the Senate Judiciary Committee again. A committee meeting has been scheduled for Thursday at which these nominations will be discussed.

James DeWolf Perry is a regular contributor. He appears in the film Traces of the Trade and is the Tracing Center’s director of research. This entry is cross-posted from James’ own blog, The Living Consequences, and the opinions expressed are his own.

President Obama’s nomination of controversial law professor Goodwin Liu to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has been blocked by Senate Republicans and returned to the White House.

Professor Liu became the subject of controversy in late March, in part due to remarks he made on a panel convened to discuss our documentary, Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North. That evening, in response to the topic of reparations for slavery, Liu observed that any effort to  compensate for our nation’s history of slavery and racial discrimination would inevitably require trade-offs which would diminish the privileges enjoyed by people who benefit from that history today.

(more…)

Christie Gibson is a staff member at the Tracing Center and regularly posts material intended to raise awareness and stimulate discussion related to the history of slavery and anti-racism. This content reflects the views of the respective authors and not necessarily those of the Tracing Center or its staff.

The National Park Service at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia is working with the City of Philadelphia and community partners to improve the interpretation of the slave quarters at the President’s House, home to George Washington and John Adams in the 1790s.  For more information, check out their site.

Christie Gibson is a staff member at the Tracing Center and regularly posts material intended to raise awareness and stimulate discussion related to the history of slavery and anti-racism. This content reflects the views of the respective authors and not necessarily those of the Tracing Center or its staff.

Yesterday’s top story on CNN.com and its most emailed article of the day was about Betty and Phoebe Kilby, two Coming to the Table participants, and their commitment to healing from the legacy of slavery.

Christie Gibson is a staff member at the Tracing Center and regularly posts material intended to raise awareness and stimulate discussion related to the history of slavery and anti-racism. This content reflects the views of the respective authors and not necessarily those of the Tracing Center or its staff.

Ron Bailey, one of the professors interviewed in Traces of the Trade, responds on H-Net to Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s op-ed.

James DeWolf Perry is a regular contributor. He appears in the film Traces of the Trade and is the Tracing Center’s director of research. This entry is cross-posted from James’ own blog, The Living Consequences, and the opinions expressed are his own.

Professor Henry Louis (“Skip”) Gates, Jr. has an op-ed in this morning’s New York Times in which he takes on the issue of reparations for slavery.

Gates will, no doubt, attract enough controversy for his general approach to the issue. He is convinced that our society must address the issue of reparations, and that we must reach a “just and lasting agreement,” which he believes will have to be “a judicious (if symbolic) gesture to match such a sustained, heinous crime.”

Remarks like these will land any public intellectual in the U.S. in hot water these days. Just consider the case of Goodwin Liu, whose mild remarks related to reparations at one of our events in 2008 became a central issue in his nomination by President Obama for a seat on the Ninth Circuit.

However, this essay is most notable for telling difficult truths about the central role of Africans in the transatlantic slave trade, and thus about the shared culpability of people of different races in the resulting history of slavery.

(more…)