Who is Ken Faris?
Ken is originally from the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Area of Southeast Michigan. He and his family now live in Battle Creek. He is a management consultant for a digital transformation company.
Excerpt from interview with Ken Faris by Whitney Dow, 2017
Faris: [05:37:27:23] Yeah, sure. Being able to trace the history back to individual people that my ancestors owned and oppressed as slaves, what do I do about that? That’s the question. What do I do about that today? To track those individual people down, I don’t feel compelled to do that. What I do feel compelled to do is to take political action even to the extent of supporting legislation for restitution because I’m comfortable with the fact that the economic conditions that we live under today were impossible without slavery and that hundreds of generations of people were denied a place at that table. But yet others benefited from it. So I’m okay with that. I would support that legislation. Also, just everyday local votes, voting for minority candidates, women candidates, getting representative government actually in place will help, I think.
Yeah, I think that’s probably one of the most powerful and pervasive things that we can do. But, I feel like that would be helping change the institutional conditions and not just maybe making me feel a little bit better by having a conversation with somebody and having them say, “Oh, it’s okay. It’s not your fault,” or just even getting to know them. That’s fine. That would be fine. But, it’s a bigger issue. And they haven’t sought me out. And so, I don’t know if I feel okay imposing myself on them as individuals. But if there’s something I can do to try to change the general institutional fabric, yes, let’s continue to do that.
Interview Transcript