Harvard used Renty’s image despite Lanier’s live ownership claim

Evidence

By the time we found our seats in that overcrowded room, I felt beat up. Why did Harvard insist on using his image? Knowing full well that I claimed him as my ancestor? They knew that I was coming—and they were billing this conference as a discussion about reparations and slavery and the exploitation of enslaved people—only to continue actively exploiting Papa Renty. The program was a slap in the face, followed by this gut punch of the looming image. — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 592

Categorization

• XREF: The spectacle of Harvard’s reparations conference literally projecting the contested image parallels the ADDENDUM theme from the complaints-about-immodesty essay about institutions performing disarmament while continuing practice.