PelhamToday received the following reader letter regarding a recent opinion piece by columnist James Culic:
I just finished reading the interesting article about the plaques. The one section I wanted to communicate about was the section about using ‘freedom seeker’ rather than ‘slave’.
To help with understanding: ‘slave’ implies that it is who they are and as they were meant to be. Changing phrasing to ‘enslaved person’ or ‘freedom seeker’ is used to show that slavery was something forced upon them. It puts the onus on those who owned or abused enslaved people, rather than on the enslaved person. It’s not about making it more palatable and it has been a shift that has come out of black communities and from black leaders.
It’s been a shift for me as I teach middle school students but I think an important one.
Lindsay C.
Vineland
