Borne of the ledger book, slavery’s data, I know, will always be bedeviled code. And yet. Scrawled in the lines of inventories, tallied in plantation journals, numbered on “manifests of slaves.” Here we find millions of ancestors. Generations of loved ones. Here, in an archive of death, is life. Surely we must feel for its pulse. 

By refusing to remove my work, you are violating widely accepted norms related to data consent and scholarly collaboration. Far more importantly, to me at least, you are refusing to heed the clear calls emanating from this data to acknowledge and engage kin and community. I call upon you to listen instead.