{"id":10442,"date":"2021-10-25T07:51:01","date_gmt":"2021-10-25T07:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/media-archive.blackartinamerica.com\/?p=10442"},"modified":"2021-12-30T14:04:23","modified_gmt":"2021-12-30T14:04:23","slug":"more-black-folk-need-to-be-anthropologists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earthexhibitions.org\/media-archive\/?p=10442","title":{"rendered":"More Black Folk Need to Be Anthropologists"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

More Black Folk Need to Be Anthropologists<\/h2>\r\n
By Trelani Michelle<\/pre>\r\n

I like learning about how black people live around the world. I like to traveling to go see it for myself. Like eating the different foods and listening to the different music. I LOVE seeing how much we have common. That\u2019s why I ask so many questions\u2014to old black folks, especially.<\/p>\r\n

In the last couple years, I\u2019ve been sharing the conversations I have. Krak Teet<\/a> is an example of that. I also share audio and video sometimes. I call that work \u201cstory gathering.\u201d For myself specifically, I call it \u201cZora Neale Hurstoning,\u201d because our styles of gathering and telling stories are a lot alike.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

Textbooks call us \u201canthropologists\u201d and \u201cethnographers.\u201d I use those terms when I need to, but I don\u2019t care for them personally. I feel like they create distance between me and my people. They\u2019re also intimidating, and the work is far too important for us to shoo it away.<\/p>\r\n

We need more black folk who want to be anthropologists. I\u2019m realizing that more and more. Oral history tells the story of what actually happened and what also happened. These are the stories that are usually left out of the newspapers, because they\u2019re told by folk who ain\u2019t gon\u2019 talk to the news people. We still need their stories though.<\/p>\r\n

Their stories teach us:<\/p>\r\n