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Anemona hartocollis schizophrenia9/11/2023 Although we do love our environment and agree that we would not be able to advance in society if we burned our forests to the ground, we disagree with the solution to many longstanding problems. The opinion of millions of Americans is that the human race does have an effect on our climate, we are the leading cause of climate change, and we should watch our carbon emissions. Do we on the political right deny science, or does the political left merely use the term “science” as a selective cudgel only when it benefits them?Īs an individual who believes that it is common sense that the human race does have an effect on the climate of the planet, it dumbfounds me to hear that I am a science denier. But it was Carissa Chen, a Harvard student, who underlined. Wolff-Platt first learned of her connection to enslaved people from James Shea, a former curator at Longfellow House, a national historic site in Cambridge, when they were both doing research on in about 2016. Wolff-Platt, the new information has meant reconsidering her past, and the forces that have subtly shaped her life. “Who were these people, what happened to them?”įor Ms. Wolff-Platt and her family could get a fuller picture of how their ancestors’ involuntary labor played an unsung role in establishing the university’s prestige and riches. Both the university and the descendants are debating, What is justice now, not only for the families of the enslaved, but for society?īut beyond the money, the project offers the possibility that Ms. If the experience of other universities is any guide, it is likely to be a contentious process. Harvard has pledged $100 million, largely as an endowment, to its project. Harvard joins universities like Georgetown, Brown and the University of Virginia in trying to atone for their links to slavery by erecting monuments, renaming buildings and, in Georgetown’s case, offering the children of descendants the equivalent of legacy status for admission. As part of that effort, Harvard plans to trace the lineage of enslaved people at the college to the present day, saying that direct acknowledgment of lineage “is a vital step in its quest for truth, reconciliation and repair.” Now she has been swept up in Harvard’s campaign, announced in April, to make amends for its collusion in the slave trade. “It shouldn’t be that way, but the older people, they never spoke of it.” To talk about the possibility that her ancestors were enslaved was a family taboo, Ms. Thanks to a student research project on the university’s ties to slavery, she and her extended family have become the first to be publicly identified as descendants of enslaved men and women who served Harvard’s presidents, professors and - in their case - benefactors. That revelation led to an even more surprising connection to Harvard University - a place she had lived near much of her life but where she had never imagined she belonged. Wolff-Platt, who is 80, learned just a few years ago that she was related to the Vassalls. Standing at the edge of a crypt in the church basement, she marveled that her ancestor Darby Vassall, born enslaved, had been buried here, improbably sharing a grave with the couple who owned his parents. On a cloudy day this summer, Roberta Wolff-Platt paid a visit to Christ Church, a short walk from Harvard Yard.
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