Presenter:
john a. powell, JD, Executive Director, Institute on Race and Poverty, Minneapolis, Minnesota

john a. powell:
I would like to thank Atum for this historic conference. Her vision, more than anything else, brings us here today. I'd also like to thank Dr. Miles and Randall Robinson's daughter for helping us to be here. I'd like to thank the various co-sponsors. But mostly I'd like to thank you the audience for coming to this historic day, and tell you about my role and how we will proceed.

I've been to many conferences, but I have never been to a conference where there was a meditation room. That speaks to the care and attention of the Wellness Center, and the depth of how they approach this issue. We are in good hands, and I would like to, before we even start, acknowledge the work of the Wellness Center and ask you to join me in thanking Atum for her incredible work.

Atum suggested that this is not just an academic conference and by that she means that it's more than an academic conference, not less than an academic conference. This issue is much too important to be left to the scientists. So my job, your job, and our job is to have a dialogue. I was talking to one of my teachers last night, who is sitting up front here, and he was saying, "What are you doing at this conference?" I said, "well, in some ways, I'm a translator." I will try to learn from all of you and help to translate because I straddle many worlds. I will try to make sure that the scholars and researchers understand the community and speak in a way that the community can understand. I will ll also try to help make sure that the wisdom that comes from the community informs the scholars and researchers. I will constantly try to go back and forth.

On the first day, we are going to look at some of the scientific implications of doing genealogy and trying to trace African-American roots, and some of the implications of that. The second day, will be much more looking at the ethical issues, and these are complex and profound issues.

I was glad to see a story in the Star/Tribune today. It struck me when I read the story that, in some ways, the fact that it was placed on the Metro page indicates that the media does not quite understand the historical nature of this conference. We are standing at the precipice of an incredible new world.

Many scholars have said that slavery is a kind of social death. It takes from people their culture, their history; their language, their identity, and they become socially dead. If we try to reconstruct an identity, because we all need an identity, often times we are left with the tools, the symbols, the language, the religion, the customs and the culture of the very society and people who have caused that death in the first place. So it creates an incredible tension.

We know that identity is not a simple thing. It's not simply blood, It's not simply genes. It's not simply language. Nor is it ever fixed: it's always open and open to new possibilities. So we are constantly co-creating with ourselves and others, our identity. An African-American voyage to create identity, to resurrect, if you will, from the social death exposed to African-Americans by European society, has been a long one. But. I also think it has been a rich one. In some ways, we've had a tremendous hole because we cannot trace identity to a particular tribe or a particular ethnic group. But, I would like to think that, in many ways, we have partially filled that hole. I think there's an emptiness in life that's never completely filled, and if it is, it is a travesty. But we have, explored that hole and in doing so created a certain richness.

On the one hand, we are talking about and will be talking about, the pain of that social death, of being ripped from our land, ripped from our language, ripped from our homes, our mothers and fathers. It is important to talk about that in the context of what has happened in the three to four hundred years since it happened. Our charge is a profound charge. It is not simply to rediscover who we are by looking backwards, as the Sankofa symbol suggests. It is also looking forward, not just for us, but for all humanity. This process of constructing and reconstructing an identity is not something that is peculiar to African-Americans, although the African-American story is in many ways unique. We know, for example, that white identity has been constructed out of African identity and that as we explore and deepen our own understanding, we necessarily implicate the way that whites and people all over the world must think about themselves. It seems to me that in an effort to reconstruct and think about ourselves, we are also reconstructing and thinking about humanity at large. We have a wonderful group of people today, you included, to help us in that process.

We are at a precipice. We are at an incredible place with an incredible opportunity but there are also dangers. We know there are tremendous findings and tremendous hope, and those things are tied together. We know that there is tremendous abuse that can be had. We know there is tremendous pain that can be had. We are at what one writer calls a "dangerous opportunity," and we have to proceed with a great deal of care and caution.

We are going to start with Dr. Duster to help us to understand the complexities of this opportunity. Dr. Duster is a friend of mine. He is now at NYU and Berkeley. He is one of the leading scholars and thinkers on this issue and many others. He has followed issues about race and science for a long time. Dr. Duster will suggest some of the limits of what science can tell us and what it cannot tell us. I think we all are aware of science's role in misconstruing race and misunderstanding genetics.

Then, Dr. Kittles will talk about some of his work and how he brought us to this place of being on a precipice of having this dangerous opportunity of tracing our genetic roots back to Africa, and back to particular tribes and particular populations.