A marvelous community of historians waded into the mess @HFranceWebsite to challenge the misrepresentation of Haiti, deflections abt slavery in Africa... As a literary scholar I want to pause on 9 damning words: “This voice is not the voice of a historian.” Thread 1/

I am interested in how power uses language to code its messages. In this case the message is clear “you do not belong.” It is one thing to disagree with “this argument” or “this analysis.” It is another thing entirely to say “this voice”. 2/

“This voice is not the voice of a historian” is a negation that aims to delegitimize. This voice is not. Sit with that for a moment 3/

What follows, “surely a trained historian should know” addresses an imagined “we.” It doesn’t speak to @FictionsofHaiti but rather about her from an insider location that she supposedly does not have the training to enter. It evokes history as discipline to, well, discipline 4/

So Vivian Gruder and her ilk appear to be objecting to the removal of Jefferson’s statue but they are also (or really) objecting to @fictionsofhaiti’s very place and presence in “their” discipline 5/

I have said over @africasacountry that we throw the word “silencing” about so much that we sometimes take for granted the deliberate workings of the process by which it comes about. Power tries to silence by delegitimizing, excluding. https://africasacountry.com/2020/06/transnational-african-feminisms 6/

Historians brought to that conversation a wealth of resources, lifetimes of research. Vivian and her ilk brought to the table shockingly basic arguments that wouldn’t pass muster in a freshman class 7/

The derisive deflections, the rancid thought, the petulant insistence that we offer up those lifetimes of research again and again on a silver platter to be consumed passively...this too is that distracting work of racism that Morrison talks about 8/

Where do we go from here? As an editor @PublicBooks, managing editor at Palimpsest and production editor @WomenInFrench Studies, I spend a lot of time thinking about editorial practice 9/

Once the damage was done @HFranceWebsite shutting down the discussion was a missed opportunity to think more creatively abt editorial practice that refuses the workings of silencing and that is not complicit in both-sidesing what for some of us are matters of life and death 10/

Solidarity @fictionsofhaiti and thank you for your important work and much needed voice...the voice of a historian! Fin.