WEBVTT - Session 438: Black Memory Work & Healing 0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:14.520 Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:19.320 conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:22.520 decisions we can make to become the best possible versions 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:26.640 of ourselves. I'm your host, doctor Joy hard and Bradford, 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:32.080 a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:35.600 to find a therapist in your area, visit our website 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:39.440 at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:43.479 love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:46.440 not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:57.480 a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much 0:00:57.520 --> 0:00:59.680 for joining us for session four thirty eight of the 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:02.760 Therapy for Black Girls Podcast. We'll get right into our 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:14.840 conversation after word from our sponsors. As we head into 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:17.760 the holidays, many of us will encounter old memories and 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:21.119 create new ones. You may spend time recounting stories from 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:24.480 your childhood, learning a new line dance, or even taking 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:27.679 orders in the kitchen on how to make a family recipe. 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:30.600 Memory keeping has long been a practice for humans across 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:34.120 the globe, but for Black people, though, traditions look different, 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:38.360 and in the age of technology, the way memories are created, stored, 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:41.560 and used introduce a new set of questions around who 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:44.800 gets to call them their own. Today, I'm excited to 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:48.160 be joined by doctor Tanya Sutherland, currently a professor and 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:51.800 dean at UCLA. She has dedicated her research to unpacking 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:54.960 the uniqueness of black memory work, and in her book 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:59.280 Resurrecting the Black Body Race and the Digital Afterlife, she 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:03.280 digs into how technology, history and data longevity affect how 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:08.320 we practice arkavism and how those practices impact our digital afterlives. 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:12.320 If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation, please 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:15.280 share with us on social media using the hashtag TVG 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:18.760 in session, or join us over in our patreons to 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:21.320 talk more about the episode. You can join us at 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:25.200 community dot therapy for Blackgirls dot com. Here's our conversation. 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:31.120 Thank you so much for joining us today, doctor Sutherland. 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:34.959 It is an absolute pleasure to be here, and it's Tanya. Please. 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:37.920 Oh, Tanya, got it? Got it? So I wonder if 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:40.480 you can start by just giving us a definition of 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:43.000 your work. So what do you mean when you talk 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:48.000 about black memory work in black digital afterlives? Wow? 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:51.440 Thank you? What an important question and a perfect place 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:55.639 to begin when we talk about digital afterlives. We're really 0:02:55.760 --> 0:03:01.119 talking about the data that's collected by us for us 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:07.440 about us. That includes anything from our social media, to 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:13.880 our email, to our communications such as text messages, instant messages, right, 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:17.399 all of this content that we're producing in our own 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:21.880 personal lives, and then actual data bits and bytes. When 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:26.200 you take a photograph, the metadata from that gets collected 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:28.600 on your phone, So if you have an iPhone, right, 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:32.359 that information then goes to Apple. They're collecting that data 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:35.960 and that metadata. They're collecting the time of the photograph, 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:40.520 the location of the photograph, some information, some other information 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:45.240 about the image itself, and increasingly with the use of AI, 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:51.680 that includes some maybe sort of description about what might 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:54.240 appear in the image. This is sort of a new 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:58.280 added layer of what is being collected and noted. And 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:01.760 then when you pass away, the question becomes what is 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:05.400 done with all of this data? And so in many 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:10.200 ways we have what I have termed digital afterlife, where 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:13.960 all of this data and our digital detritis lives on 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:17.600 after we do, and we have very little say in 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:20.599 terms of what is done with that data, how it's used, 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:23.960 how it might be manipulated. There are, as we know 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:28.880 now digital resurrection, and other kinds of digital immortality practices. 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:31.960 All of these things get tied up in what we 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:35.760 mean when we say a digital afterlife. When I talk 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:38.560 about Black Memory Work, I'm looking at all of the 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:43.280 potential harms that can be served up by a digital afterlife, 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:47.280 and I'm looking to Black memory work, which really describes 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:53.640 a long history, robust history of practices within black communities, 0:04:54.120 --> 0:05:00.920 diasporic communities across the globe that are about preserved memory 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:07.919 in ways that make sense to us, and in some ways, 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:11.960 I think about Black Memory Work as a corrective or 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:18.040 as an alternative path to a digital after life, something 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:21.440 more intentional, right, something that we craft for ourselves. 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:24.599 Can you talk about like what inspired you and like 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:27.280 what interested you in this work and how it inspired 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:28.360 the writing of your book. 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:31.080 I had been thinking about this in some way, shape 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:34.599 or form since my childhood. I was distressed as a 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:38.520 child to see the Save the Children campaign. Do you 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:45.120 remember this? On television commercials for Evening TV. There would 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:49.760 be pictures of ostensibly starving children, and they would show 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:54.200 it was always black children. They always had very distended bellies. 0:05:54.600 --> 0:06:00.800 What we would now probably refer to colloquially as poverty, porn. Right, 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:04.560 we were looking at black babies in distress, and as 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:07.640 a child, I remember being struck by how it only 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:10.840 ever was kids who looked like me, and it didn't 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:12.760 make sense to me. As a child, I didn't have 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:17.520 a language or reference points really to understand what I 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:19.839 was seeing, or to make sense of it, or even 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:24.400 to sort of contend with it. And then when Hurricane 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:28.960 Katrina happened, I was immediately taken back to those pictures, 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:32.960 to those commercials, to those ads, to that entire ad campaign, 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:38.600 and I thought, we are seeing dead people who look 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:43.640 like me on television once again, now on the internet 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:48.040 as well, in the overflowing waters of Lake pontchitran Right, 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:51.400 we are once again looking at images of black people's 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:55.240 bodies and distress, deceased, and it's being presented to us 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:59.520 as something that we should taken again any real context. 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:04.040 We aren't given tools with which to process what we're seeing. 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:08.479 And I thought, there's got to be a reason that 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:12.240 it's always people who look like me, and that reason 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:15.520 can't just be racism. What else is at play here? 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:17.920 And so that sort of became the center of the 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:21.320 inquiry for my book Resurrecting Black Body, which is about 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:25.920 race and the digital afterlife and really explores these questions 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:26.400 in depth. 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:28.960 And what are some of the most common practices of 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:31.040 black memory work that we may not even realize that 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:31.840 we're practicing. 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:36.840 Oh my gosh, I love this question. So we are 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:40.000 very creative when I say we right now, I'm talking 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:44.000 about the Black Memory Collective, which is a small community 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:48.040 based organization that I'm the founder and director of. And 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:51.080 when we talk about black memory work, the kinds of 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:54.640 practices that we first started talking about and seeing, we're 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:59.440 things like quilts, right it was we understand memory to 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:03.040 be braid in someone's hair as a root to freedom. 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:07.240 We understand black memory work to be quilting. We understand 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:10.280 black memory work in a way that other people might 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:15.040 not recognize it. Other people might call someone a hoarder, 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:17.679 for example. And that's not to say that there aren't 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:20.680 issues around hoarding, but it is to say that when 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:26.600 you have been dispossessed of your physical belongings repeatedly over generations, 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:31.800 there's something to that holding on to things. Right, that 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:37.600 is about a memory process, a memory ritual, a memory practice. Right, 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:43.720 If you're not out here hoarding or braiding hair or quilting. 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:46.760 Don't think you're not doing black memory work. Certainly for 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:49.880 our photographs and the things that we might find in 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:53.520 the boxes under our beds, that's black memory work. And 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:57.880 then in an even more expansive way, we are finding 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:00.720 that the way that folks show up for one another 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:04.840 in community is also about a memory practice or a 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:08.520 memory ritual. It's about building memory and that memory then 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:13.080 gets held in community. And I think that's a lot 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:15.120 of it right, just the ways that we are showing 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:18.439 up in community and asking one another to hold things 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:21.840 for ourselves, for our communities, all of that, all of 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:23.360 that counts as block memory. 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:26.000 You know, as you're talking to me, I'm thinking about 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:30.120 this large black leather purse that my grandmother had that 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:32.600 had all of these photos, and every time I would 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:35.360 go home for like holidays, like I'm going straight to 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:38.000 this purse to like ask my aunts and uncles like 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:41.000 tell me about this picture? Who was this? And really 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:44.320 wanting to like understand like why there were these collection 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:48.280 of photos. It also makes me think about how important 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:51.240 it was to my grandmother that anytime she went to 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:54.000 a funeral, she had to have a program, right. And 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:56.120 then would come back from the funeral and like put 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:57.680 it in the back of her bible. Right, And so 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:00.400 it feels like as a culture, like as a community, 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:02.800 it feels like we have been doing this black memory 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:04.240 where even if we weren't calling it it. 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:07.520 That's exactly right, that's exactly right. It's in our art. 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:11.760 It's literally woven into the fabrics of our culture. Yeah, 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:14.000 So what are some of the I love it. I 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:16.400 just yeah, like you have to go on a big 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:19.160 black bag full of black memory. 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:21.480 Yeah, I need to figure out where that person is 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:23.720 so that that doesn't get like displaced, and like you know, 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:25.640 we always kind of have an eye on where that 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:27.240 is and who has ownership with it. 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:28.559 So what are some of. 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:32.160 The differences between black memory practices and maybe more widespread 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:34.280 like western archival practices. 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:37.240 Thank you so much for asking us question. So, in 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:40.040 a brick and mortar archives, what you will find is 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:44.600 that there are papers, and those papers go in boxes, 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:48.800 and those boxes go on shelves, and there are processes 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:52.679 through which things may cross the arkable threshold or enter 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:58.280 the archives. There are high level descriptive practices, high level 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:03.600 discovery practices, high level access practices that really are about 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:07.800 ensuring the longevity of those materials and the condition of 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:13.079 them in that very specific way. And for the most part, 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:16.199 the brick and mortar archives that exist in the United 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:22.640 States were created to document the dominant culture. Right the 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:25.760 ways that we tend to show up in those archives 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:32.679 is in newspapers, in databases of runaway slave ads. The 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:38.440 institutions that hold those archives have not traditionally made it 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:45.040 their agenda, their goal, or their policy to document black life. 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:48.960 And if they do, what they're documenting is the same 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:53.320 the children campaign and the bodies in like Pontitrain, they're 0:11:53.360 --> 0:12:00.640 documenting trauma, death, and disposition. Black memory worked the exact 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:03.199 opposite of that. It starts with us, It starts from 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.920 the bottom. It holds us. It is generative, It shifts, 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:11.400 It doesn't have to stay static. There's no demand that 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:17.560 it be accessible broadly, widely accessible. In so many ways, 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:22.360 they are side by side practices that almost have nothing 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:26.360 to do with one another. Right because the goals aren't 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:29.360 the same, the practices and the policies aren't the same, 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:33.520 they can speak to one another, they could influence one another, certainly. 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:38.439 Black memory workers who call themselves such often are trained 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:43.240 as archivists. So they come with the knowledge of how 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:47.040 to preserve materials. What they're doing with that knowledge isn't 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:49.360 just preserving materials putting them in a box on a 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:51.840 shelf and saying, hey, come and visit my brick and 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:55.360 mortar archives, to visit your stuff. They're saying, I know 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:58.640 how to preserve this. Let me show you, let me 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:01.240 teach you, let me help you. And so it's also 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:05.960 a knowledge practice in a way, and a generational one 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:10.520 in a different way than institutional brick and mortar archives 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:13.360 like the National Archives or even the Library of Congress, 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:17.920 or I mean even your local repository or university archives 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:20.440 may hold. They are set about to do sort of 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:21.160 different things. 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:23.720 And what do you feel like is the goal of 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:26.560 a black memory work? Then it's a different goal, like 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:27.880 you said, than archiving. 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:33.480 Yeah, I think what I've observed, what I've heard people say, 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:38.680 is that we need to preserve our memory. No one 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:41.080 else is doing that for us, and we're going to 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:44.480 do it in a way that is intentionally black, and 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:48.360 so that shows up differently, right, We show up differently 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:52.199 in intentionally black spaces. The work is done differently in 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:55.840 intentionally black spaces, and I want to be really clear 0:13:55.880 --> 0:14:00.160 that not everyone who is a black memory worker, right, yea, 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:03.679 and your grandmother is a black memory worker, that bag 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:06.960 that's black memory work. So it doesn't matter that she 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:09.560 didn't have a master's degree in library and information studies 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.760 or science, right. I assume she did bond anyway, though 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:17.400 neither of my grandmothers did either, and I would absolutely 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:19.440 call both of them black memory workers. I think the 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:23.400 purpose and the goal for us is about preservation of memory. 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:27.480 It's also about preservation of cultural heritage, and there's a 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:31.359 certain protective layer I want to say for future generations 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:32.920 that's very intentional. There too. 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:46.600 More from our conversation after the break And so is it, Tanya, 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:48.800 a more personal kind of like, Okay, it is for 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:52.680 my family to preserve the history of our family, not 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:55.880 necessarily for me to learn about your family, because that's 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:58.360 kind of what it feels like. It's like, oh, with archiving, 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:00.680 like you can go visit like a library, a museum 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:03.360 and like learn more. This feels like it is a 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:07.120 more personal thing maybe for your community. Well definitely your 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:09.800 direct family, but maybe also your community that is still 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:11.000 like close to the family. 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:14.440 Absolutely, I would say that's true. And I would also 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:18.520 say that in terms of concentric circles or community and 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:21.400 how we build and how we live and work with 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:26.080 one another, there are many sort of points of possible 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:31.400 or potential interaction with other people's historical memories. Right. I 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:35.200 know that ancestry has become a very popular site. I 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:37.800 have my own issues with it, but part of what 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:41.600 it's done is to help people who otherwise couldn't even 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:44.960 make those family connections be able to make those family connections. 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:47.880 So I think Black memory work serves a similar function 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:52.240 as well, inasmuch as you know, you're telling a story 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:55.160 and you mentioned a name, and the next thing you know, 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:58.600 it's oh, I have a picture of him, and it's 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:02.200 through its storytelling is also a really key element of 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:06.080 Black memory work. As we are telling each other one 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:09.040 another's stories, as we're telling our own family stories, as 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:11.800 we all of those things that we hold in collective, 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:16.200 I think makes it more communal, more community based and 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:21.960 community oriented. And also, if there is a desire to 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:27.240 do long term preservation work that requires resources, and it's 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:31.960 generally going to be easier to do that in community. Right, So, if, 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:34.120 for example, one of the things that the Black memory 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:38.640 collective in Los Angeles is talking about doing is building 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:44.800 a repository of sorts, perhaps a digital repository to hold photographs, 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:49.960 to hold recipes. We're still talking with the broader community 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:53.920 about who would want to participate, who should hold and 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:57.120 steward it, what an ingest process would look like. And 0:16:57.160 --> 0:16:59.360 then it starts to really feel like we're having the 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:03.960 conversation about a brick and mortar archives. Right it shifts. 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:07.120 It doesn't stop being black memory work, but it takes 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:10.679 on sort of the patna of traditional artical space. 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:14.320 So in your work you also talk about Black memory 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:19.000 work being restorative and healing. Can you talk about what ways, like, 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:20.960 what does that look like for black memory work to 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:21.680 actually heal. 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:25.920 There's a member of our collective who is very interested 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:29.520 in birth stories and part of the so when I 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:33.200 said storytelling, narrative is a really important part of Black 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:36.520 memory work because it isn't in part about telling our stories, 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:39.480 preserving those stories for the future and for our children, 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:47.000 our grandchildren, our descendants are communities more broadly, and so Dominique, 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:49.119 I don't think she would mind me naming her is 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:53.720 doing really beautiful work around talking with people who have 0:17:53.880 --> 0:18:00.000 difficult birth stories and recording those stories for that person 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:04.360 so that they can have something to hold. Right So 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:07.399 in some instances, they may not have a child to hold, 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:10.240 but they now have a story that they can hold 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:13.439 that has been told to someone who is holding it 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:16.480 in care and in community with them. And I think 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:20.960 there's something very healing and restorative about that kind of practice. 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:24.880 And we think about all of that as Black Memory work. 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:27.720 You know, telling you you started off by given some 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:30.639 very powerfil examples of like things in your personal experience 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:33.600 that have shaped your interest in doing this work. So 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:35.440 you talked about the State of the Children campaign as 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:38.560 well as Hurricane Katrina, And I'm wondering, you know, you're 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:41.520 talking about that as like as told to us, right 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:44.080 like these messages and stories that we saw, But what 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:46.439 you're talking about with Black Memory work is us owning 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:49.159 this process. I wonder what does it look like for 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:52.679 something like Hurricane Katrina, or even I'm thinking about the pandemic, 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:55.720 right like, how traumatic that was for so many of us, 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:58.000 and how many of us lost loved ones and lost 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:00.880 experiences and all kinds of things. What does it look 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:03.399 like in Black Memory works a whole space for both 0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:07.280 the joy of black life, but also the more people 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:08.520 parts of it. 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:11.560 That's something that I think about a lot. I taught 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:16.080 a course in the fall of twenty twenty four, yes, 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:18.880 in the fall of twenty twenty four on black memory work, 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:23.399 and there's not much written about it in the professional literature, 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:27.480 certainly not in information studies, and so I'm casting about 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:30.520 a little bit looking for materials for my students to read, 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:35.520 and about halfway through the quarter they came to me 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:38.880 and they said, Professor Sutherland, this is beautiful and we're 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:41.359 really enjoying this class. But if we had one note 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:45.199 for you, more joy, Please more joy, because it was 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:50.520 a lot easier to find representations or examples of how 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:54.040 we are actually holding space for one another in tragedy 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:57.520 and in trauma than it was to find things written 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:00.119 about how we are holding one another in joy. So 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:04.240 I'm really glad that you asked that question, because with 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:10.280 COVID so much loss, there are a lot of community based, 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:17.720 grassroots level projects to document people's experiences with COVID. I 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:20.600 can't say the same thing was true with Katrina in 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:24.280 the same way, but it certainly is true now with COVID. 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:27.679 There are oral history projects all kinds of things that 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:31.919 are sort of attuned to that kind of pain. I 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:34.639 think where we are maybe not doing as good a 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:38.800 job is and finding those moments of celebration and lifting 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:41.800 those up. Part of black memory work is teaching the 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:44.639 kids how to play spades, right, Like, we got to 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:47.159 know how to play dominoes. If we don't know, then 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:50.680 we're only bringing the bad stuff with us through the generations. 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:54.280 So I know y'all want a gate keep, but teach 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:57.200 the kids, keep them maybies how to play spades and dominoes. 0:20:57.320 --> 0:20:59.879 Okay, So what I do you're seeing, Tanya, is that 0:20:59.920 --> 0:21:02.200 I got to break out my hula hoop and teach 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:05.040 the babies how to do the hula hoop. 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:11.120 Need double dutch? Yeah, I want to see there waiting, Okay, 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:15.400 you want to see that's right? Yeah. You know, many 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:18.600 years ago, there was a project in Trinidad that was 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:21.720 now I'm not going to remember exactly what it was called, 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:23.840 but it was something. It was a cultural memory project, 0:21:23.840 --> 0:21:27.120 and the idea was sort of sort of this living museum. 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:31.840 What a beautiful notion. They had a storyteller who was 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:34.920 there to tell the stories of Afro Trinidadians and the Caribbean, 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:39.960 there was hopscotch and they would teach anybody who didn't 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:42.480 know how to play how to play. And I thought that, 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:45.240 right this, we need more of this, We need more 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:48.960 living museums, so to speak, more of that energy anyway, 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:51.760 if not formulation. 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:54.040 Yeah, yeah, I love that. I love it. So I 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:56.800 think lots of people who are enjoying our conversation, will 0:21:56.960 --> 0:21:59.000 you know hear this and like feel like it's beautiful 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:01.560 and be very inspired and then feel like, oh my gosh, 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:03.240 where do I start? Right? Like what does it look 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:06.280 like for me to have my own personal family kind 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:08.639 of black memory work? So what would you suggest to 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:10.160 them for how to get started? 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:15.840 I would say, look to your people, right, what are 0:22:15.880 --> 0:22:18.520 you collecting? Because we're all collecting something, even if we're 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:20.800 not really aware of it. So stop and take a 0:22:20.840 --> 0:22:23.480 beat and are what is it your collect Is it shoes? Honey, 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:26.480 I'm not mad at you. Just ask yourself what is it? Right? 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:31.320 Because the shoes are important. All God's children need traveling shoes. Right, 0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:34.480 ask yourself what you're collecting, and then look and see 0:22:34.600 --> 0:22:37.640 talk to your people what are they collecting. My mother 0:22:38.280 --> 0:22:44.240 is a tremendously hard working person. And a really brilliant cook. 0:22:45.000 --> 0:22:47.879 I don't know that she would tell you that she 0:22:48.040 --> 0:22:51.200 is a collector of recipes or that she is the 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:56.119 keeper of our family culinary traditions. I don't know that 0:22:56.160 --> 0:22:58.560 she would see that in herself, but I see it 0:22:58.800 --> 0:23:05.360 very clearly something I want to make sure gets preserved, respected, held, Right, 0:23:05.560 --> 0:23:08.200 those are the kinds of things I would practice. My dad, 0:23:08.560 --> 0:23:11.479 for example, is a lover of music and has a 0:23:11.520 --> 0:23:15.600 tremendous record and other music collection. I don't think if 0:23:15.600 --> 0:23:18.560 you asked my dad you know what he collects, that 0:23:18.600 --> 0:23:21.479 he would say music. And he probably wouldn't even consider 0:23:21.560 --> 0:23:26.840 himself the music officionado. He just likes music. But those 0:23:26.840 --> 0:23:31.119 are the family stories, right. He comes from a line 0:23:31.160 --> 0:23:34.639 of musicians, and he's probably not thinking about the history 0:23:34.680 --> 0:23:37.880 of his own family as being important to his love 0:23:37.920 --> 0:23:41.480 of music, right. I think we start there. We really 0:23:41.520 --> 0:23:46.879 start by looking inward and looking outward and having conversations 0:23:46.960 --> 0:23:48.840 with the people closest to us, and then we go 0:23:48.920 --> 0:23:51.879 a little bit further out talk to my cousins, I 0:23:51.920 --> 0:23:56.600 talk to my aunties, and then at the same time, right, 0:23:56.760 --> 0:23:59.040 once you feel like you have the capacity for it, 0:23:59.400 --> 0:24:02.280 start talking to other people in your community, start talking 0:24:02.359 --> 0:24:05.400 to people at church, or you know, trying to think 0:24:05.440 --> 0:24:09.240 of where else people gather. These days, we've become so dispersed. 0:24:09.640 --> 0:24:13.359 Ask people when you're playing cards, ask people at wherever 0:24:13.359 --> 0:24:15.840 it is at the cookout. The cookout is actually the 0:24:15.840 --> 0:24:18.760 perfect place to have this conversation, to start this conversation. 0:24:18.960 --> 0:24:21.520 Yeah, as we are kind of moving quickly into the 0:24:21.520 --> 0:24:23.680 holiday season, it feels like a good time to think 0:24:23.720 --> 0:24:26.399 about you know, so for example, and the things you've shared, right, Like, 0:24:26.600 --> 0:24:29.080 would it be an opportunity maybe for you to record 0:24:29.119 --> 0:24:31.800 your dad talking about a couple of his favorite albums, 0:24:31.880 --> 0:24:35.440 or to record mom as she's preparing for the holiday 0:24:35.520 --> 0:24:37.600 dishes as a way of kind of getting started with 0:24:37.920 --> 0:24:39.240 some of these conversations. 0:24:40.000 --> 0:24:43.760