How do we talk about slavery?
Historians—people who devote their careers to uncovering “data” about the past—don’t like to admit it, but...
Facilitating productive, impactful, and non-harmful conversations about race and slavery requires more than the recitation of facts. It requires thoughtful consideration of positionality, identity, and intersectionality.
Positionality refers to a person’s location in relation to the various processes which produce and have produced power, now and in the past. Positionality, in other words, is where people are “positioned” — by law, force, policy, and other constructed (man-made) historical processes. This means positionality can be stable, shifting, or both at the same time!
Identity refers to a set of characteristics. Race, gender and sexual orientation are all aspects of identity.
Intersectionality (a term coined by law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw) is a framework that allows us to consider how multiple social and biological identities (race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, etc.) interact with each other and with systems of oppression and discrimination.
Holding a conversation about race and slavery while being attentive to both the facts of history and the various relationships individuals and communities have in relation to those facts is not easy. It takes education, practice, and compassion—for others and for yourself.
