BEKI SCHMOOZE
Jan. 13, 2021
Discussion of the Film: �“Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North”
Facilitated by Jennifer Klein and Jim Berger
KEYKEY WORDS: MEANINGS AND LEGACIES
Complicity and Responsibility
Guilt/ Assuaging Guilt
“Apologies” (apologies in word; apologies in deed)
Social Legacies
Accountability
Human Liberation; Social Liberation
Redemption (what is redemption?)
Reconciliation
Repair
Brokenness and Wholeness
Anger/Forgiveness
LIVING AMONG PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE
*The “It’s not me, it’s not us today” question.
Indeed, as we see, some of the DeWolf family members started off with the same position.
If that is the question that impels you, it necessitates some follow ups.
Ask, “why not?”
*“Why is that a comfortable answer for me? Why is it sufficient? Whom does it serve?”
*Is this an answer that is analogous to the “wicked child” or the “child who believes he knows it all” in the Pesach seder?
*What about our relationship to the national body politic and "community"? Where do we stand in relation to the present and near future?
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Not just a question of what we owe the past. It’s really what do we owe the future?
How do we talk about who profited or “benefited” from slavery?
Discussion of “privilege.” How did the DeWolf’s talk about and struggle with the notion of “privilege”? What understandings did they arrive at?
Where do we stand in relation to “privilege”?
K
Katrina and her cousins spoke about brokenness and wholeness. “Things are broken and must be made whole and healed.” Where can that come from? How are we part of it?
In her sermon at the pulpit after their trip, Katrina spoke of “wanting to make things right: not out of guilt but out of grief.” Discuss the meanings or possibilities of that.
Katrina and her cousins spoke about brokenness and wholeness. “Things are broken and must be made whole and healed.” Where can that come from? How are we part of it?
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
What, then, is the reality we need to see to generate a new national identity in which we need each other--across race, class, and micro-communities?
Several weeks ago, we heard Corey Stone talk about debt relief and jubilee, and the possibilities for personal and communal “re-set” within Jewish law.
What’s the “re-set” that would enable us to move forward with decency, well-being, security, and opportunity for all those who live within our polity?
What activities, institutions, etc., that we have today and accept as normal will later be considered obscene, as we now consider slavery?
The First Real Moral Revelation: “It was an evil thing and they knew it was an evil thing and they did it anyway.” Let go of the fiction of historical relativism.
How do we have a real conversation--about race, about family and history?
“The two races must cry together.” Does this make “redemption” or forgiveness possible?
What about the real and legitimate anger felt by African Americans, as we hear from Juanita in the film?
Coming back to Katrina’s sermong: “How can we act not out of guilt but out of grief?” What should be the motivation for right action with regard to slavery? What is the mitzvah? What is the obligation?
Repair, reparations: Should Jews have a coherent position?? (As the Episcopalians tried to do)