When I heard Governor Abigail Spanberger begin her State of the Union response with, “Good evening and welcome to historic Williamsburg. We are gathered here in the chambers of the House of Burgesses,” I did what I often do when something doesn’t sit right with me. I go looking for what isn’t being said.
The chambers of the House of Burgesses, from which Spanberger spoke, were not the original meeting place of the Burgesses, who first met on July 30, 1619. Just three days later (on August 2, 1619), the “20 and odd” Africans arrived at Fort Monroe, Virginia, near what is now Hampton, the beginning of roughly 246 years of chattel slavery in the same colony that Spanberger celebrated for its tradition of self-government.
At this first meeting were Governor Yeardley and 22 burgesses representing 11 plantations (or settlements). Burgesses were elected representatives, but only white men who owned a specific amount of property were eligible to vote for them. Because she has campaigned on protecting “the rights of all Virginians” and has framed Virginia’s strength as depending on embracing the full diversity of its people, I expected Governor Spanberger to tell a fuller story about who was allowed to “govern themselves” in Williamsburg—and who was not.
Reckoning, not distancing
My frustration also stems from questions I was asked to ponder for the 38th Annual Sadie T. M. Alexander Conference, hosted by the Black Law Students Association at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. For me, there were two central themes:
- Reckoning vs. distancing in our stories: Are we willing to tell a complete, disaggregated history of American democracy—a history that names who built places like the chambers of the House of Burgesses and who was excluded from “self‑government”—or do we keep choosing smooth, aggregated narratives that distance us from slavery and its consequences?
- Reckoning vs. distancing in our data and law: Will we design our data systems, algorithms, and anti-discrimination rules to see and correct the specific harms to historically racialized and marginalized groups, or continue to rely on colorblind aggregated measures (while using proxies for race and marginalization) that make inequality look like generic progress while leaving structures unchanged?
This panel required me to expand my thinking about disaggregated data. Generally, I think of data disaggregation as a methodological tool necessary for using an intersectional lens of analysis—a technical choice. This panel asked me to think about disaggregating data as a framework for justice.
While I am not a lawyer, I play one in every argument. 🙂 So, my “inner lawyer” was excited to think about how disaggregated data promotes justice, yet disappointed that I had not recognized that by advocating against using aggregate measures, I had been advancing a justice framework all along. DOH! By advocating that data be disaggregated by characteristics believed to influence an outcome, I have been promoting the idea that those characteristics are the mechanisms that produce outcomes which identify patterns of inequality—the underlying structures, not moral judgments about groups. When I say that disaggregated data identifies nuances that can help inform better policies, I have been arguing for fixes, not blame.
This panel was an opportunity to explicitly articulate how disaggregated data advances not only justice but also the promises in the “Pledge of Allegiance” – liberty and justice for all.
Who is counting
There are 128 days until America celebrates its 250th anniversary. I’ll be thinking, maybe writing, about this question:
Is an aggregated 250th‑anniversary celebration that invokes “ordinary people governing themselves” – a smoothed narrative that refuses to disaggregate and acknowledge (better yet, name) the enslaved people whose labor and bodies made that building, that colony, and that wealth, and that never asks who counted as “the people” and who were counted as property – truly complete?
And I’ll be thinking about other questions that challenge the lack of inclusion and transparency around America’s 250th anniversary. The “isms” — racism, sexism, nativism, homophobia — are threads in the American fabric, woven in from the start. Slavery did not interrupt American prosperity; it produced it. The exclusion of women from civic life was not an oversight; it was policy. The deportation, detention, and erasure of immigrants was not an accident; it was a choice. To leave out these flaws is to erase the enslaved whose bodies were collateral for loans that built this economy, to erase the women told their sex made them unfit to vote, own property, or control their own bodies, to erase the people beaten on bridges, jailed at lunch counters, and turned away at borders — people whose suffering and resistance forced this country to live closer to its promises.
We honor that history best not by smoothing it over, but by using it as a mandate to build a more honest, more equal America.