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Over the past few years, numerous products and places with the word 'plantation' in their names have rebranded. As for the word 'plantation' itself, architect and writer Kennedy Whiters of unredacthefacts.com advocates for replacing it with a more truthful term. She also watches out for use of the grammatical passive voice, because "It hides who did what to whom."
Content note: this episode contains discussions of anti-Black racism, violence and sexual violence.
This is an instalment of the Telling Other Stories series, about renaming.
EXTRA MATERIALS:
This month, play Kennedy’s Redacted Bingo at unredacthefacts.com/redacted-bingo.
June Jordan: “Our language devolves from a culture that abhors all abstraction, or anything tending to obscure or delete the fact of the human being who is here and now/the truth of the person who is speaking or listening. Consequently, there is no passive voice construction possible in Black English. For example, you cannot say, “Black English is being eliminated.” You must say, instead, “White people eliminating Black English.””
Clint Smith on lessons the USA could take from Germany in reckoning with its past: “I wrote a book, How the Word Is Passed, about how different historical sites across the United States reckon with or fail to reckon with their relationship to slavery. As I traveled across the country visiting these places, I found lapses and distortions that would have been shocking if they weren’t so depressingly familiar.”
Also Clint Smith, touring a plantation in Louisiana: “It is not that enslaved people weren’t mentioned at all — [tour guide] Sheila discussed how they managed the kitchen and were charged with the upkeep of the home — but the discussion about them and their lives were so peripheral to the larger presentation that it made them seem like an afterthought rather than the force central to the place’s existence.”
Sienna, Texas removed ‘Plantation’ from its name in 2019 and managed to be pretty no-nonsense about it; other places contemplating a name change, take note.
“One commenter mockingly suggested renaming Haile Plantation to Haile Revisionist, echoing other replies stating that changing the name changes history. While I admit that without the “plantation” in Haile Plantation, I may have overlooked its history when I moved here, I can understand that not everyone wants a reminder of slavery every time they drive home.”
“You find some venues who say they're educating, but they're really not. They’re teaching history about the owners and their beautiful houses and gardens, but very little about the people who cooked for them, the people who cleaned their houses, the people who took care of their kids.”
Plantation Rum has been having name change difficulties.
The Sporkful podcast did an episode in 2019 and a follow-up in 2020 about Plantation Rum (the transcripts are available for free via those links, the audio is obtainable via Stitcher Premium).
In 2020 Alumsionist Nancy Friedman wrote about plantation-named products rebranding.
“An aristocratic British family is to make history by travelling to the Caribbean and publicly apologising for its ownership of more than 1,000 enslaved Africans…Dower would also like to see King Charles III apologise for the royal family’s involvement in the slave trade.”
Human Resources podcast explores Britain’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade.
Otherlusionists to listen to: Ghostwriter for the etymology of ‘bulldozer’ (say ‘earth movers’ or something instead!), and Blood Is Not Water.
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YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
embrave, verb transitive: to make showy, to decorate (Spenser); to inspire with bravery.
CREDITS:
Kennedy Whiters is an architect; her boutique architecture firm in NYC wrkSHäp | kiloWatt specializes in historic preservation, owner’s representation/construction management, and racially-equitable communications. She also runs the project unRedact the Facts, researching the use of redacted grammar and language in historical narratives, follow on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. The original Allusionist music is by Martin Austwick. Download his songs at palebirdmusic.com and listen to his podcasts Song By Song and Neutrino Watch.
Find the Allusionist at youtube.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/helenzaltzman and instagram.com/allusionistshow.
