“What then, is the responsible course of action? For me, the answer now lies in refusal, the withdrawal of participation from systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging. My resignation represents such a refusal, not a surrender of responsibility but an assertion of it.”

“To remain on advisory boards that have been stripped of meaningful advisory function is to become that shopkeeper, to lend legitimacy to a process that has been systematically delegitimized."

"Like the shopkeeper in an authoritarian society described by Vaclav Havel in his essay “The Power of the Powerless,” who participates in his own oppression through small daily acts of complicity, like placing a party slogan in his window not out of conviction but out of habit."

“To watch these changes unfold without naming them for what they are is to participate in a collective amnesia about how knowledge infrastructures shape power relations."

The symposium is open to the public throughout the day. If you would like to also join us for the reception and keynote dialogue, please register using this link:

Originally we planned to hold the symposium solely focused on the issue of reparations, but these new dangers prompted us to pivot *in medias res*, without sacrificing the original focus.

The past is under threat from a variety of forces, including the commodification of data, the privatization of knowledge, and more recently, a concerted effort to erase or rewrite history in ways that serve the interests of those in power.

Now the past is facing new dangers, and the question of ownership and control over the Black historical and cultural record is more urgent than ever.

In our second installment we continue our efforts to gather a distinguished group of scholars, librarians, and archivists from the Americas and Africa to discuss, elucidate, and provide public answers to the question: Who owns and controls the Black historical and cultural record?

Potential insider trading is a completely across the political spectrum thing btw, knows no bounds of party

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...