Reparations reflections: reading into the silence

Maksym Sirman on Unsplash ” src=”https://neojimcrow.art/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/W1siZiIsIjIwMjQvMDUvMzAvMDkvNTIvNTUvYmM4ZmEzYTctM2RjMi00NDE4LWI2NDctMDVkY2Q3NDQ4NzliL1JhY2tNdWx0aXBhcnQyMDI0MDUzMC03LTFyMHNnaS5qcGciXSxbInAiLCJ0aHVtYiIsIjgyMHgxMjAwIl1d”>How can we swim in unfamiliar waters? Photo: Maksym Sirman on Unsplash In this series of posts, we share the readings, and reflections, from the opening worship of regular meetings of the Reparations Working Group. This group of British Quakers has been appointed to take forward the commitment minuted by Britain Yearly Meeting in 2022 to consider financial and other reparations for the role of Quakers in the transatlantic chattel slave trade. You can find out more about this decision, and the actions which have flowed from it, on our reparations page. From the 2022 Swarthmore Lecture by Helen Minnis: Perceiving the temperature of the water “I know that many of us here just want to know what to do next. We want a call to action. But I can’t give you that. It has taken us 500 years, and a myriad of mistakes, to get into this mess so there will have to be a myriad of solutions. As a middle-class British professor, I also spend most of my time bobbing around in the warm baby pool of privilege. The answers that we need are out there in the chillier places, probably blindingly obvious...