Traces of the Trade
This is the translated title of an impressive documentary called “Traces of the Trade.” Film director Katrina Browne follows the traces of her ancestors, the DeWolf family, the largest slave traders in American history. Together with nine family members, she travels the route of the slave trade that made her ancestor James DeWolf the second richest man in America. The same route, as Katrina herself states, laid the foundation for the fortune that has made her descendants not only a prominent but also a very privileged family.
Starting from Bristol, an exemplary city in the American state of Rhode Island where the first DeWolf settled, the group visits a slave fort in Ghana, a ruined plantation in Cuba, and then returns to America. It is not an easy trip. There is no blueprint for confronting such a violent past, and emotions run high.
I was dumbfounded when I realized that the emotions I observed from this privileged white American family were hardly different from those among us Black families from Suriname, precisely when it came to the history of slavery.
Keti Koti
Until I decided to go natural, I had barely given much thought to the consequences of slavery. Growing up in Suriname, I never lacked anything. Without wanting to be immodest, I can say that I come from a good family of five, with more than enough opportunities to develop myself in any chosen field. Conscious of my blessings, I cannot possibly consider myself a victim of slavery.
July 1st was a free day for us to commemorate how much we as a people have overcome. In hindsight, I think such a holiday contributes to processing, forgiving, and moving on.
Even when I went to study in Amsterdam, it never really occurred to me to think about what slavery meant for the Netherlands. Besides a handful of Surinamese people, the traces of the trade were almost negligible. It was clear that Suriname was not a topic in Dutch schools. Dutch people still know so little about Suriname that they are surprised that we “speak Dutch so well.” If Suriname came up, you invariably heard that the colonies only cost prosperous the Netherlands money.
The sporadic times slavery unexpectedly came up, I was told that Dutch people of today have nothing to do with crimes committed by ancestors centuries ago. Or, that the Africans who sold their captives are (partly?) guilty.
The discussion after the premiere in New York
Kinky Hair
Kinky hair literally led me to unearth my slave roots. Hair relaxing is so common in the Afro-Surinamese community that I never realized how harmful these chemicals are, nor that a large majority of our women suffer from hair breakage and hair loss as a result of using these products.
What was truly incomprehensible to me was that the vast majority of Black women accept the serious consequences, and that these visible drawbacks are hardly considered a problem. What everyone with kinky hair should be warned about is even downplayed.
In search of an explanation, it dawned on me that hair is a remarkably sensitive topic in the Black community. Although it is difficult to pinpoint, deep emotions undeniably surface. These inexplicable intense feelings led me to investigate further.
Soon I realized that Black people belong to the only race on this globe that must obtain permission through the courts to wear their God-given hair naturally. What is a birthright for every other creature on earth is not self-evident for a Black person with kinky hair. Then it dawned on me that even in this new Millennium, there are still injustices directly related to our slave past. No wonder the emotions during a kinky hair gathering often run so high.
The deep emotions that surface are, in my opinion, directly related to an unprocessed slave past. Why else would someone wince painfully at a simple remark like “why is your hair so kinky?” Why else do Black women still not dare to apply for jobs with kinky hair?
Apparently, there is still a stigma attached to kinky hair, the pain, sorrow, and even shame of which are camouflaged in every possible way. "Bad hair" is clearly one of the traces of the trade.
The discussions we have are therefore comparable to the discussions seen in Traces of the Trade. During reasoning, incomprehensibly intense emotions surface. Overwhelmed by feelings that are difficult to place, we try to explain our choices and put the past into perspective. Now I realized that the pain, sorrow, and shame that we do not immediately understand, but clearly experience, can be traced back to an unprocessed slave past.
Besides showing the consequences of slavery from a different perspective for once, this film gives me hope. Hope for new openings in a discussion that is all too often stalled. This is often dismissed by arguments such as "you shouldn't live in the past, and slavery is too long ago to discuss its consequences."
With this new documentary, Katrina shows that the traces of the slave trade, no matter how long ago, affect everyone in a society. More importantly, everyone can contribute in their own way to the discussion that should lead to more understanding racial relations. As she puts it, not from a sense of guilt but from a sincere feeling of suffering and sorrow.
Register for the lecture on June 29: Bad Hair Unrooted