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Figure 1: William Clark artist QS:P170,Q21464475 William Clark,
Slaves cutting the sugar cane - Ten Views in the Island of Antigua (1823), plate IV - BL, CC0 1.0.
PART 5: Moving Forward.
Can We Approach a Forensic Accounting for Wrong?
In short, no. The wrongs done are utterly massive and truly incalculable. There is a tendency to want to know exact dollar amounts of culpability, to understand the scope. The reality is that this is not possible. Yes, many White people in the American colonies and in the United States have benefitted financially from slavery and racism. Their wealth is a result of theft. And, yes, the Anglican and Episcopal churches have benefitted financially from slavery and racism. But determining what percentage of the gifts given, or the endowments have links to slavery (as in the recent Church Pension Group audit), and what percentage of those funds is encumbered by connection to slavery, involves a gross inaccuracy. It assumes that those who benefitted from slavery and racism reaped the whole value of what was lost by those harmed, an assumption that is entirely inaccurate.
The accumulation of wealth through enslavement required the murder of millions to reap the labor value of many fewer. It required the loss of full freedom to create and produce and live and flourish for millions, the limitation of their skilled contribution to humanity, in order to reap the (comparatively lesser) and inhumane value of the (often) menial labor of those millions of souls. The dramatically smaller monetary value reaped by those who enslaved and who benefitted from slavery required the decimation of peoples and the decimation those peoples’ full ability to live and produce to the best of their ability and creativity. Such stolen wealth is not encumbered at its face value. It is supersaturated with encumbrance. Its face value represents only a tiny fraction of the value of what was destroyed in order to steal it. Slavery was a massive wealth destruction event, even as it served to transfer a small portion of the wealth it destroyed to those who benefitted from it. The wealth that remains is a tiny fraction of what was lost. Even that wealth derived from the operation of racist systems of oppression (but not slavery) has a similar supersaturated encumbrance due to the Black wealth destruction and preclusion that occurred in order to produce it.
This supersaturated encumbrance attached to wealth derived from slavery has a further dimension. The question regularly arises about whether philanthropy (such as to churches) from enslavers should not be considered only partially encumbered by problematic associations with slavery because only part of their wealth was the result of the enslavement they engaged in. This is, again, based on a confused understanding.
In general, slave labor was often used in situations where the farming or mining being conducted would have been at a subsistence level had it been conducted by free laborers. The profit gleaned from the endeavor was often the exclusive result of stolen labor value from enslaved peoples. Because the enterprise was typically only profitable as a result of the use of enslaved labor, any ability of the enslaver to donate out of their wealth, was only possible due to profit above the subsistence level through the use of slavery. That means that their charity, regardless of how great their wealth or how diversified their portfolio, was coming from that portion of their enterprise profit above the subsistence level (i.e. directly from their profit from slavery). Not only does this mean that there would be no portion of their giving that was not encumbered, but the giving, due to its connection to slavery is, as previously mentioned, supersaturated with encumbrance.
Research and Moving Forward
The unfortunate conclusion to be drawn from the reality of supersaturated encumbrance of White (and White church) wealth is that the true scope of the debt can never really be repaid. However, that does not mean that important and necessary steps cannot be taken to address current race-based wealth inequities.[1] Nor does it mean that detailed research into the wrongs committed by Anglicans and Episcopalians against Black people is moot. In fact, such research is necessary to determine with detail the scope and nature of the wrongs in order to enable repentance and to build awareness of the need for critical reparative action. Every church has a responsibility to reckon with both its past and present in this regard. Likewise, every Christian is obliged, by their corporate participation in the systems that have perpetrated the harms of slavery and racism, to reckon with their own responsibility for repair. This responsibility starts with cultivating an awareness of both “the evils we have done, and the evil done on our behalf.”[2] We have not always been aware of all the ways we and the institutions we participate in, have established, perpetuated, or benefitted from slavery and racism. But once we begin to know, we must acknowledge that as Christians we have an inexorable obligation to address this unfortunate history, to recognize its persistent influence in our present, and to do what we can to make it right. “Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”[3]
Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.
Reparations Commission Research Historian
Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey
[1] Such ongoing remediation will be necessary until there is no longer a racial wealth gap in the United States.
[2] “Confession,” from Enriching Our Worship 1, page 19: https://www.churchpublishing.org/siteassets/pdf/enriching-our-worship-1/enrichingourworship1.pdf.
[3] This is a popular rendering of a few verses appearing in Pirkei Avot, commenting on that great justice text Micah 6:8. Quoted here from https://reformjudaism.org/beliefs-practices/spirituality/3-jewish-reminders-when-world-seems-overwhelming.
