{"id":10364,"date":"2021-10-07T18:11:22","date_gmt":"2021-10-07T18:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/media-archive.blackartinamerica.com\/?p=10364"},"modified":"2022-06-21T15:05:37","modified_gmt":"2022-06-21T15:05:37","slug":"the-history-and-future-of-black-folks-opinion-on-their-children-being-artists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earthexhibitions.org\/media-archive\/?p=10364","title":{"rendered":"The History (and Future) of Black Folks\u2019 Opinion on Their Children Being Artists"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

The History (and Future) of Black Folks\u2019 Opinion on Their Children Being Artists<\/strong>\u00a0<\/h2>\r\n
By Trelani Michelle<\/pre>\r\n
Maybe less these days, but, more often than not, black parents didn\u2019t care for their children going off to college to take up art. Art to them was a hobby, not a career. Some defied their parents\u2019 wishes and obtained BFAs and MFAs anyway. Others went the route that their guardians chose then swung back around later in life to do as they wished to begin with. Then there are those who unfortunately never got back to their love of painting, sculpting, photographing, dancing, designing, writing, etc.<\/p>\r\n
Black people, all over the African diaspora, have an unbreakable grip around their belief in higher education. That\u2019s not to say that art ain\u2019t included in that, because it is. I\u2019m alluding to the perspective of those holding these values. It reminds me of the time my own father asked me, after I\u2019d published my second novel, \u201cWhen you gon\u2019 write a real <\/em>book?\u201d<\/p>\r\n
Although my novel with its 200-something pages, front and back cover, and ISBN number was unquestionably a real book, I knew exactly what he meant. When was I was going to write something taking place in the real world versus my imagined one? I could argue all day long that my novels were real, consisting of real-life struggles, despite their made-up characters, but I wouldn\u2019t change his mind. The same for Deborah Roberts<\/a><\/span>, I\u2019m sure, who said that \u201cThe idea of anybody being an artist didn\u2019t make sense to [my parents]. And it wasn\u2019t because they were ignorant. They just didn\u2019t understand.\u201d Their lack of understanding, I\u2019m sure, aligned with Della Wells\u2019 childhood belief<\/a><\/span> that \u201cartists didn\u2019t make any money.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
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Seteria Dorsey, “JR’s Shop” – 16 x 20 inches, acrylic painting on canvas — unframed – ShopBAIA.com<\/p><\/div>\r\n
One of a parent\u2019s duties is to raise their children to be able to take care of themselves\u2014and to hopefully do so with more ease and resources than they managed to. To do that, you need money. To get the money, you need the degree(s) and a job. A good job. A real<\/em> job. Their intentions, of course, are good. They\u2019re historically good. In addition to writing about worlds that I make up, I\u2019m also an oral historian. I sit with elders and ask them beaucoup questions about back-in-the-day. I also research those back-then happenings for further context. And I\u2019ve realized that, for black people in the Americas and the Caribbean especially, education is like religion. It\u2019s seen as a key, a direct path to freedom.<\/p>\r\n
As we know, it was illegal for us to be literate during slavery. Human traffickers (aka slave owners) feared that their hostages (aka slaves) would realize their position in life and rebel or escape by way of forged freedom papers. Meanwhile, plantation owners were sending their children off to college and those children were coming back home and adding more streams of revenue to the family\u2019s portfolio. Even after slavery ended, gaining an education still proved to be difficult for many black folk. This was especially the case for sharecroppers, because the family needed as many hands as possible to help out in the fields. Meanwhile, the grandchildren of former plantation owners are coming home from college and adding more streams of revenue to the family\u2019s portfolio.<\/p>\r\n
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Elizabeth Catlett “Sharecropper” 13 1\/2″ x 11″ image size, offset lithograph, unsigned and unframed – ShopBAIA.com<\/p><\/div>\r\n
Then there were the literacy tests for voting, which were administered at the discretion of those in charge of the voter registration. The tests often consisted of more than 30 questions and had to be taken in 10 minutes, and you couldn\u2019t get any questions wrong. If you failed, which most of our ancestors did, you couldn\u2019t vote. And you\u2019re hearing through the grapevine about how so and so down the road got their land taken from them because they signed a contract that they couldn\u2019t read. Meanwhile\u2026you get the point.<\/em><\/p>\r\n
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Garden Art – “Educated Black Woman” – gardenartforthesoul.com<\/p><\/div>\r\n
When one of my elders\u2014Ms. Madie Underwood from both Savannah and Philly\u2014shared how her parents were relegated to working jobs that didn\u2019t pay enough to consistently cover their daily expenses, I understood even more why my parents and grandparents stressed my getting an education. I understood why they hesitated when I explained that I was taking my son out of school to homeschool him. Ms. Madie\u2019s story reminded me of my mother wishing that her mother, who didn\u2019t go past elementary school because she was too busy sharecropping down in the delta, could\u2019ve seen her graduate from college. I remember her saying how proud my grandmother would\u2019ve been to see me walk across two university stages. That\u2019s because education for black folk ain\u2019t a shrugging matter. Historically, it determined where on the ladder our livelihoods rested.<\/p>\r\n
Yet, times have been and still are changing. I saw a post on Facebook a few days ago asking readers to share a scam they fell for. Most people, of all races, replied \u201ccollege.\u201d It\u2019s become so expensive that many folk couldn\u2019t work and pay for it themselves if they wanted to. Many of us get loans to get a degree to get a job that can (hopefully) afford to cover living expenses and repay the school loan. A friend recently shared that after analyzing her budget spreadsheet from 2014 until today, she realized that she\u2019s put over $20,000 towards student loans and the balance is up $30,000 since 2014.<\/p>\r\n
That\u2019s exactly what my sharecropping ancestors went through. Quoting Ms. Madie, \u201cWhatever the sharecroppers needed through the year, they\u2019d go [to the land owner\u2019s general store] and get it and the white man kept a tab on whatever they needed and bought. At harvest time, when the white man have sold all of his goods and everybody settled for the winter, they always came out owing the white man money. There was never a profit. You always was in debt, so that debt would ride over into the next year. And naturally it\u2019s another debt to grow on top of that debt, so, little by little, they owning you again like slaves.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
College debt is feeling very much like sharecropping these days. As another elder of mine, Mr. Curt Williams\u2014from Vidalia and Savannah, Georgia\u2014said, \u201cIt ain\u2019t getting no betta. They just getting mo slicka.\u201d Might as well love your degree, if you going into debt for it.<\/p>\r\n
Besides the money aspect, though, some of us just have different values. We\u2019d rather risk being the struggling artist than being the chief clerk down at the railroad, struggling to get out of bed on a cold, Monday morning (word to Annie Lee<\/a><\/span>). That\u2019s not a diss to careers that ain\u2019t in the arts, by the way. It\u2019s just an example. Though there may be less black parents discouraging their children from an education\/career in the arts these days, I\u2019m hoping to turn that less<\/em> into no\u00a0<\/em>black parents doing so. \u00a0<\/p>\r\n
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Trelani Michelle at The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture<\/p><\/div>\r\n
Trelani Michelle<\/strong>\u00a0is today\u2019s Zora Neale Hurston, outchea recording history and culture by gathering the people\u2019s stories.\u00a0She earned a Bachelor\u2019s of Political Science from SSU, a Master\u2019s of Fine Arts in Writing from SCAD, and interned with the Library of Congress\u2019s American Folklife Center. She specializes in ghostwriting memoirs and autobiographies.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
Crowned Savannah\u2019s best local author, Trelani has written several bestselling titles, including Krak Teet<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>an oral history of Savannah\u2019s Gullah Geechee elders,\u00a0and Women Who Ain\u2019t Afraid to Curse When Communicating with God<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
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