What is history? How do I frame this idea of history? On the beginning of this black history month, I wanted to put the framework of history into context.
I love history. At one point, I really loved history. But I didn't understand history, history was this thing that existed in books and stories and tales. You saw in it classrooms. You saw on film, cinema. It was a body of information, facts, and knowledge. We use these words really loosely right now, which I think over the course of this conversation, I intend to shore up. But why black history begins with asking the question of why history. It begins with the question of what is history? And the first question when entering into the space of history is, "according to whom?"
According to Whom?
Now, this question is tremendously important, because history requires context to be fully understood. By saying the question history according to who implies that there are versions of this same history that people feel in view as equally valid. Along the way, we start understanding the power of information to shape narrative, perspective, views, responses, emotion, reaction and legislation. The idea of the shapers of information having the capacity to wield a social power, we have to be careful in how we tell the stories, who we allow to tell the story. From a very pragmatic perspective, very serial accounting perspective, history is merely a receipt. No different than when you go into the store, and you're in the checkout line and a print out of the itemized account of what you purchased is printed on a sheet. History is what happened. It is how did behavior impact the ledger of time? And so these are facts. This is information. This is not judgment. This is an observational account from a diversity of perspectives who had some proximity to the events. No different than an archaeologist. An archaeologists cannot give an editorial synopsis of what was unearthed. It is a dispassionate accounting of findings. Are all historians like that? Are people carrying the mantle of history and yet doing with it their own means, sewing their own perspectives, opinions and propaganda within the margins of what is commonly accepted as history? Yes and sometimes no.
Black history is a unique subject
I am African American, and across my consumption of information and education to all levels of institutional formal training the idea of African Americans in history was told through a very myopic lens. When the story was told of black people in America, the story began in the middle that at the beginning. It was told through a perspective that tried its best to paint itself in its favorable light. It was an incomplete story. It was a fragment being passed on as the whole. As an African American who was living their own black experience, this created some inner angst. This created a delta in my mind between the heroes I had come to love and my own self image. We were getting our dosing of history. It was always about people who were fighting on the side, for justice for truth. There was a little bit of Harriet Tubman. It was a little bit of Martin Luther King. It was was a little bit of things till ameliorate and to just appease enough, the corresponding effect of such kinds of education are a lack of self image. It created aninability to put yourself in the role of hero modeling a past passage from point A to point B.
History, or the discovery of the events in history can really shape one's confidence and self image and it can alter the course of the narrative that is told by an individual community, a culture. And so in college, I graciously went about balancing that scale in my mind. I fell in love with it. I was learning, it felt like one big mystery was being uncovered. I'd be in the library reading voraciously consuming information. I was doing the best that I could with what I had. I was not a trained researcher. I did not have the capacity to observe the influx of information and put it in neat buckets. I did not have the emotional capacity to dispassionately observe and accounting of previous events in a way that did not render me useless emotionally.
When I saw pictures in the 60s of the water hoses, or the dogs or the police or the lynchings, you know, my heart broke over and over again. When I heard about the conditions on the slave ships, my heart broke over and over again. When I started logically realizing that a portion of this history in the fight of civil rights were things that my parents live through, my heart broke over and over again. At this point 20 years old asked myself why at that young age. Especially given the framework for which we analyze history, we look at good people, we look at bad, we look at virtuous, we look at evil. And in my mind, it was hard to reconcile what had been done to black people without beginning to formulate the conclusion that those who had perpetrated this crime were evil. And I knew it couldn't be the case. Because in my life, I had a lot of white friends, I went to a white university, I grew up around a very diverse perspective, but I couldn't reconcile the history. And that began its own quest of understanding why the human behavior could act this way. Is it genetic? Is it cultural? Is it built in? Is it just this lack of compassion? And I realize history can't answer those questions, because the same egregious behavior was done upon themselves. And then you look at other cultures, you had the Mongolians who were about it about it, too. And so this is a question of the capacity and any human potential that exists. And I realized that these questions existed, and philosophy and spirituality and I set aside my passion for history and advanced up the field.
Along the way, I fell in love with the profiles of confidence and courage, these individuals who could transform the world despite the world. One of my favorite people in history is Frederick Douglass. What I love about Frederick Douglass is who he became despite his beginnings. These beginnings that were hoisted on him at birth, his mind, this heart, this courage, this daring, unrelenting spirit that just bubbled out of what would be a young man named Frederick Douglass. To put it in historical context, it was illegal for him to read, to garner education and yet despite that, where the consequences for such action are brutally violent, and even deadly, Frederick dared to learn to read. The deep convictions that he held in his heart and his mind about this very dehumanizing institution of slavery, he became a voice of change - an abolitionists. As he spoke so eloquently, he began to garner the company of individuals of influence. Not only did he transform the hearts and minds of these people of power, but he contributed to the end of that dark institution. Despite his beginnings, despite the conditions that were hoisted on him upon birth of no making of his own, he made himself in his own image. Transformed America, transform the black experience in America and invariably transform the world. Humble beginnings and this is what I view as the the true power and reach of history without editorializing things, just telling the story in the proper context.
Tupac Shakur - The Rose that Grew from the Concrete
One of the poems that really resonates with me was a Tupac poem. It was about the Rose who grew in a concrete. He was talking about how everybody wants to judge the rose for it's, it's damaged pedals, but like, look at this feat. Look at this accomplishment. This rose grew, bloom, flowered despite the concrete. This is a one of one. This is a one of a million. Never before has a rose grown out of concrete. Sometimes you have to sit back and appreciate beyond the appearance of things. Despite the resources, despite the fertile ground, despite the harshness of the environment, it still rose out of concrete. When I share history with previous generations, I'm very careful how I shaped how I mold it, how I love it, and how I offer it.
As we progress, as we evolve, as we dream and partake on the adventure towards the fulfillment of those dreams. History has models and other cultures was mythology. Mythology was passed down. And these myths heroes, the mythology itself, had heroes. Heroes embody principles. They embody leadership. They embodied morality. They embody virtue. They embodied integrity.They embodied strength. They embody character. We can look at these mythological figures, these gods these archetypes and pattern ourselves around their greatness, avoiding their foibles, and yet leaning into the strengths and opportunities. And so as we look into history, we can do the same. We can fall in love with the Horatio Alger story of Malcolm X despite the world he was born into, and the conditions that were hoisted upon that child who he became - the thorny years, the flowering years, and a relentless pursuit of progress. It not only shaped his life, his family's life, the black experience, the American experience as well as the global experience, despite the conditions he was born into. This is history.
We need our heroes, not from a whole perspective - needing to take every aspect of their life, but we can take the best of it and discard the rest. It goes back to an Egyptian story with its symbolism. If you look at the Pharaoh and across his chest are the crook and the flail. And these are the two aspects of leadership. The shepherd of men is the crook, the gather the shepherd. The flail is the discernment and discernment is this idea of the flail. It's capable of striking the wheat and separating the wheat from the chaff, the relevant and non relevant and being able to discern to refinement, criteria, contrast and evaluation. So as we process history, if we're using it to divide, if we're using it to segregate, if we're using it as weaponry in debate, if we're using it in these disintegrative terms, are we fully being present to the majesty and brilliance that is embedded in the stories. As we approach crossroads, as we sit at the epicenter of what appears to be the great storms in our lives we're looking for answers acknowledge that we are not the first person to approach this crossroad to try to navigate the circumstances.
At the darkest moment, or the brightest moment, how have others negotiate with this? What were others thinkings? What was the attitude? What was their mindset, despite the prevailing conditions, how did they manage to proceed? What was their purpose? What was their vision? What was their commitment?What was their why? These are the things that you can assess through history, and they can be a valuable resource in the pursuit of your worthy ambitions. They can be the wind in your confidence. They can allow you to recognize it acknowledge your privilege, your resource, what you have, history can be what you make of it. And I'll end this with how I began it. Why? What is history? And then I say again, according to who, and according to you. You make it the best. You sharpen the sword. You refined your mind. And it can be the resource that awakens within you not only an appreciation, but a deep sense of gratitude for the roads that lead to this intersection, and they can inform you in some of the greatest personal ways, how to go forward.
