Traces of the Trade Breaks the Silence

I have seen many documentaries about slavery. They have all touched me, saddened me and angered me, but I can't say that I have ever been able to relate to any of them. How could I? And then I saw Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North. While this film reveals a largely unknown aspect of the slave trade, its focus is less the slaves than the slave owners, the legacy of the trade, and the silence that is so frequently inherent in the world of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. And that last part is something I can definitely understand. When filmmaker Katrina Browne and nine other members of the DeWolf family tree set out to squarely face their family's slave-trading history, the tension that results is palpable. Although my own family heritage, made up mostly of solidly middle-class teachers and watchmakers and the like, bears little resemblance to the East Coast affluence of the DeWolf lineage, I immediately recognized the polite reticence that hovers like fog around their family. They are good at being nice. At keeping secrets. Families like theirs (and mine) don't make scenes. We just keep quiet. Which is why stories like this one have taken so long to come to light. This is not to say that every member of the WASP community is sitting by complacently. As this film clearly demonstrates, the Episcopal Church and many other churches have opened their eyes, ears, mouths and hearts to gain an understanding of the past and begin a dialogue about the future. But they are working against a legacy of courteous silence, and for many of us it is this deep-seated fear of confrontation that zips our lips when race becomes an issue. I applaud Katrina Browne and her relatives for confronting an ugly family truth and having the courage to not only get upset about it, but also to use it as a catalyst for further action in their communities. Katrina and her fellow descendants do not all come to the same conclusions about where we go from here, but they have started the conversation, and that is the first step. This family's journey was not about blaming themselves for the choices of their ancestors, but about acknowledging the privilege that those choices have afforded them, even 200 years after the fact. It is about having the nerve to come together to break the silence, stop being so polite, and start talking, even at the risk of angering other members of your family. I wish we were all so brave.