Celebrating 100 Years of Black History Month: Reflecting on Storytelling

I apologize for being behind in my writing, but it took me a while to find my voice. However, I want to tell you what I was kicking around. I was thinking deeply about storytelling. 

As a librarian, storytelling is an essential skill for my career choice. I have cultivated this skill for the last 22 years since I got my master's degree and my first job as a librarian. From reading books at Storytime when I was a children's librarian to making a case for why certain programs matter to why libraries are essential to our communities. Telling stories has been part of my life for a very long time. However, there are other elements of storytelling that are important, and what was bouncing around stuck in my head for a few days. So, let me lay out the focus for the next few blogs. 

 I was able to attend our "Writing While Black" and while I had already been thinking about storytelling in a general sense. The conversation sparked inside me a desire to think through the larger conversations around storytelling. Nevertheless, let me back up a bit and discuss what I call the five elements of the “act” of storytelling.

Before I consume any form of media be it music, books, art, film, the news or social media I take a few things into consideration. Now first off before I get into the elements it is always best to reflect on the audience – in this case myself. When I engage with any media, I always remember that I bring my own lived experience and bias into encounter. I also remind myself of something equally, if not more important that everything isn’t for me, isn’t for me to understand but I need to respect that for someone else out there that may be essential or a truth for them.

 Now the five elements:

1. What are we talking about?

We take in a lot of content these days constantly and sadly that means that we are exposed to a good deal of propaganda and misinformation. This at times can confuse the message and what dialogue the creator is trying to inspire. Let’s dig into this example shall we.

The last two Super Bowl halftime shows on lead by Kendrick Lamar and this year’s show by Bad Bunny. Now I am not going to debate should they have happened, what kind of music, or even what language should be primarily used. What I want to focus on is what their shows were trying to say to those both within and outside of their respective cultures.

 ************Ok now hold on before you say “But they were just performing” ***********

It wasn’t just performance of the respective music catalogs. Now I won’t break down the symbolism for both as greater analysis than I could ever do has already been done. What I will say is it was there, and it was very loudly expressed in the choices of imagery, arrangement and dancing incorporated into both shows. If you followed current events, culture and history the messaging was very clear.  Both shows showcased the realities of their experiences and their respective cultural touchpoints. From Kendrick’s Serena cameo C-walking to remind viewers of the controversy she was subjected to Bad Bunny’s powerlines that were meant to remind viewers of the issues Puerto Rico faced with infrastructure and the hurricanes they face such as Maria in 2017 during the first President Trump term.  Even if you couldn’t understand Spanish it was hard to miss the message of Latine/Hispanic pride.

This leads me to points 2 and 3.      

2. Why did some create this?
3. Why did the creator think this story was important to share? Ie why does this story matter.

In the blogs following this one and at the end of this post I plan to share stories from the African diaspora- African mythology and excerpts from the Federal Writers Project Slave Narratives that can be read on the Library Congress site (well at least for the moment) . In the case of the Slave Narratives these were recorded in the 1930s in an effort to quickly record the last first hand accounts of what life in bondage was like before those voices were silenced by death and time. This is similar to the project the Shoah Foundation did between 1994 and 2002 in collecting the surviving Jewish voices that survived the Holocaust. These stories were both collected for those us in future generations to ensure we could never dismiss the truth of the atrocities and oppression that both bondmen/women and Jewish people suffered at the hands of their government and to be a reminder to never allow such carnages to happen again.

This leads me to point 4 which is the one that matters the most to me personally.

4. Who is telling this story?

First let me address the big argument that comes up when we begin talking about authenticity in any medium.

So here is where I will do something I don’t always do publicly in a professional setting. I am going to tell you where I stand on the issue by using an example. I love the author Anne Rice have read all of her books (even the Christian ones). Anne Rice is a New Orleans native and her writing often reflected her love of her native Louisiana soil. One of my favorite novels of hers is The Feast of All Saints which tells a story of a young man and his family who navigate the complexities of the existence of being “gens de couleur libre" /free people of color before the Civil War in Louisiana.

Now as a child I admit I devoured this book. As it was a story that focused on a part of my own heritage. Now as much as I loved this book and respect the fact that Rice would even take on the subject matter in 1979 no less. This book allowed me an opportunity to get a glimpse into a period of Blackness that deeply mattered to me and the representation mattered.  I sadly don’t hold it as high of esteem as I do Cane River by Lalita Tademy which recounts 4 generations of Black women from her own family navigating life from bondage to freedom in rural Louisiana.

The reason why is not because Rice didn’t do a good job doing her research. It is because even though she was a New Orleans native, expresses the pain of living a duality of being above bondage but still being Black in the antebellum south I always wonder what would have come out if she also had a connection to Blackness. Would the book have moved more like Charles Chestnut’s “The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line” which the title story tells the story of a man who is fair of complexion and his former dark skinned enslaved wife he left behind. A choice that my own fair skinned grandfather chose to not make that resulted in his death. It was Chestnut’s story that helped me better understand the rift in my father’s family regarding “the colorline”.

You see for me authenticity matters. Listening to my 100+ aunt born 60 years after slavery when I was 13, my own 100+ year old granny tell about the 1937 flood, or my father’s stories of growing up in the 1920s encountering the Klan cannot compare to anyone’s scholarship or imagined view of the past of Black America. Who tells the story matters because sometimes when others tell the story of a group of people in which they don’t belong even if they have the best intentions they may inadvertently bring in bias, center their own experiences, or highlight elements that alienate the very group they are trying to uplift in story.

Example Sojourner Truth’s famous speech that appeared in the Anti-Slavery Bugle. There are two very different versions of the same speech. One written by an abolitionist Frances Dana Baker Gage in which she changes the language to be reflective of southern bondwomen/men and another written by Marius Robinson who was a friend of Truth and the editor of The Anti-Slavery Bugle. It is said that Truth and Robinson went over the speech together before it was published. I am sure Gage only wanted to appeal to readers who would be bias in believing that a Black woman gave a speech without such linguistic touchpoints that the non-Black public attributed to those who were enslaved.

This authenticity feedback is still given today. When Black creatives develop stories, art, music, films or any media that falls outside what is “approved” for Blackness.  In truth the Black experience is NOT monolithic. Example using my own life. I grew up in an urban area and by church going Black folks. However, I am African Catholic (like some Black folks in Louisiana are), not Protestant which was more common for Christian Black Americans. While I also had a Jheri curl in the ‘80s. I also did ballet (and tap- my father’s opinion on tap dance- well catch me in the streets and I will tell you) from age 2, which is/was uncommon. I don’t fit all of the stereotypes of Blackness for a Black girl born in the early ‘80s. So, if I was to write about one of my lived experiences of being a Black teenage girl leading her lost tour group back to their hotel using the Paris metro in the early ‘90s (true story) a publisher may tell me the story doesn’t sound realistic as I still lived in my “urban neighborhood”, wasn’t on a scholarship program (my mother paid outright for me to go) and is deeply entrenched in privilege that many of my neighborhood friends never experienced.  That or they could take issues with the words I would use for my internal voice (I used very little slang in my youth) because it doesn’t “sound Black enough”.  That’s why who is telling the story and how much they fought for their authentic voice matters to me.

OK I KNOW I WROTE A LOT!

Let’s recap the points I have outlined.

1. What are we talking about?
2. Why did some create this?
3. Why did the creator think this story was important to share? Ie why does this story matters.
4. Who is telling this story? Is it authentic?

Now the last point is also significant, but this focuses more on the motivations of the creator and us as consumers of media.

5. Why are we talking about this right now? How did we talk about it before now? 

There are times when the world isn’t ready for a story or truth. You may hear that when someone says a work was before someone’s time or they are trailblazers for those who will come after them. An example of this is when you look at the coverage of Ilia Malinin's backflip and Surya Bonaly's decades before. Bonaly, a Black woman, did a flip on the ice landing on one foot in 1998. I actually remember this as I was in high school studying for the SAT and ACT later in the Spring and used watching her skate as an excuse to not study. To me it was an impressive mix of artistry and athleticism. Even as a dancer and a cheerleader back then, to say it like my granny "ain't no way" I was going to ever land any jump or flip on one leg. However, I watched as she was robbed in my 17-year-old opinion of glory for the most superficial of reasons. Nevertheless, when I recall the coverage then and compare it to today, I can see the difference and what is and isn't being said. I can see the difference in the way both skaters were presented to the public and while time may have changed the rules. What I also notice is how the initial coverage did not include was the recognition of the similar achievement done by Bonaly over 20 years ago. 

Then there are times when a story is needed right then, right now and nothing short of the most authentic version will do. Some may call it being on the pulse or trending. It's like this blog. I am writing it right now because it is Black History Month, I’m Black, and it is my authentic perspective of Blackness as a Black person. In these days of breaking news, op-eds and social media it is important that we always think about bias, acknowledgement, timing, history and accuracy in the things we consume. 

Now Black authenticity matters to me. I may compromise on many things, but this is a line I will not cross. Nor if it is within my power, I will not others that do not have a lived Black experience do so. As they say in “the culture” “ I stand on business ten toes down” on this issue. That said I do not limit this thought process to Blackness only (I am just a tad more protective for Blackness).

When I cooked my first holiday meal with my in-laws, I asked my sister-in-law if she kept a kosher diet. I was ready to cook in two different locations and carefully source my ingredients if she needs that. Why because her story and that of her family mattered to me, just as much as mine being the descendant of a hog farmer.

************Now I know you probably all just went huh? I thought we were talking about media************

We have been but that’s the thing our stories, art, music, film, tiktoks are pulled from our families, our convictions, our dreams, our beliefs, our fears, and our lived experiences. It is not only important to question and appreciate the things we consume. It is important that we also respect the people who created it, live it and eventually die leaving it behind. Remember those five elements to storytelling when you go out into the world and even as you read this blog.

1. What are we talking about?
2. Why did some create this?
3. Why did the creator think this story was important to share? Ie why does this story matters.
4. Who is telling this story? Is it authentic?
5. Why are we talking about this right now?

Whew you made it to the end! I know you’re tired and want that story I promised you.  Ok story time: