Thank you so much for reading! It’s so need, in a world where things are moving so fast and they are trying to change the narrative, the truth becomes sacred.
I think as Black journalists, Black artists, & everyday Black citizens we need to move from the premise that there will never be any institution we can trust -- even ones run by Black folks, since their funding/infrastructure is often coming from entities run by White folk. The Black keys to the BET kingdom were handed over to outsiders a long time ago -- (making Robert & Shelia Johnson billionaires). This is just the latest dissection & decimation, at the hands of David Ellison's Skydance Corporation. Look him up & do a deep dive -- he's a problem for a multitude of reasons. The erasure is intentional.
We should all be printing out physical copies of our works & gifting them to family, friends, & community members. We should all be backing up our work to multiple hard drives. And if we're thinking about storage facilities to house our archives, we need to be researching climate/temperature controlled rooms for proper preservation. We need investment & funding where we can get it, but it must come with no strings attached & the control must stay in our hands.
I think we can all begin with printing physical copies of photos, physical copies of articles & research, & backing up videos to dvds or other hardware mediums. We've always been innovative & had to think outside of institutions. Now is no exception. My mom takes her phone to Walgreens every month & prints out physical copies of photos & even snail mails them to family & friends. She's got around 150 photo albums. My mama don't play about the archive & neither should we. Thanks again for writing about & getting us thinking about this.
Your mom is on it! I need to do the same after trips, take all them pics and don’t do much with them after that IG post. Yeah it’s important we keep our legacy sacred and don’t let only commercial representations of us stay at our only story.
Ugh yes I love this conversation thank you. We are ALL worthy of being documented and preserved. I like to think of my home as a museum of the people who live there and the life they live traveling, with friends and family etc. i also have many videos of family interactions and phone calls you just prompted me to get them transferred to a disk or something bc you’re right we don’t own any of these things.
Thank you for reading! That’s facts, it’s hard to be mindful of what to keep and what to toss at home but just gotta be intentional on storage and archiving in real ways. I still have the photo album my mom made of my for my high school graduation.
I have moved around so much during and post college. I’ve lost many a legitimate archive worthy writings, scribbles dreams etc. but I have so much as well.
Love this article, and this is exactly how I feel! They don’t want real journalists who have degrees, experience, and real ethics.
They want a bunch of young, upcoming folks who are trying to break into the industry so they can pay them so little, ensuring no in-depth reporting will happen.
Thank you for this piece, Ishmael! I was born in Springfield, Ohio, where both my maternal grandparents still live. I’m going to call them today—something I don’t do enough—ask them questions about their life and about our family.
BET’s decision makes me think of the impermanence of life. But our African ancestors, through the oral literature of griots, made sure our history and stories and folklore and accomplishments and our unique sounds and rhythms and textures were not lost. They were intentional in passing the knowledge of who we were down to the next generation.
The word I found most striking in this piece was: intentional. I think our reliance on technology has reduced our intentionality regarding the preserving of our history. I’ve been considering getting physical photo albums for the longest!
I’m right down the road in Dayton. Learned a lot from my friends here about the history of Dayton and Springfield so I’m sure they’ll have some gems for you!
new to substack and this was my first read on here. 10/10 archival work is needed now more than ever!!
Thank you so much for reading! It’s so need, in a world where things are moving so fast and they are trying to change the narrative, the truth becomes sacred.
Thank u for writing about this!
I think as Black journalists, Black artists, & everyday Black citizens we need to move from the premise that there will never be any institution we can trust -- even ones run by Black folks, since their funding/infrastructure is often coming from entities run by White folk. The Black keys to the BET kingdom were handed over to outsiders a long time ago -- (making Robert & Shelia Johnson billionaires). This is just the latest dissection & decimation, at the hands of David Ellison's Skydance Corporation. Look him up & do a deep dive -- he's a problem for a multitude of reasons. The erasure is intentional.
We should all be printing out physical copies of our works & gifting them to family, friends, & community members. We should all be backing up our work to multiple hard drives. And if we're thinking about storage facilities to house our archives, we need to be researching climate/temperature controlled rooms for proper preservation. We need investment & funding where we can get it, but it must come with no strings attached & the control must stay in our hands.
I think we can all begin with printing physical copies of photos, physical copies of articles & research, & backing up videos to dvds or other hardware mediums. We've always been innovative & had to think outside of institutions. Now is no exception. My mom takes her phone to Walgreens every month & prints out physical copies of photos & even snail mails them to family & friends. She's got around 150 photo albums. My mama don't play about the archive & neither should we. Thanks again for writing about & getting us thinking about this.
Your mom is on it! I need to do the same after trips, take all them pics and don’t do much with them after that IG post. Yeah it’s important we keep our legacy sacred and don’t let only commercial representations of us stay at our only story.
Ugh yes I love this conversation thank you. We are ALL worthy of being documented and preserved. I like to think of my home as a museum of the people who live there and the life they live traveling, with friends and family etc. i also have many videos of family interactions and phone calls you just prompted me to get them transferred to a disk or something bc you’re right we don’t own any of these things.
Thank you for reading! That’s facts, it’s hard to be mindful of what to keep and what to toss at home but just gotta be intentional on storage and archiving in real ways. I still have the photo album my mom made of my for my high school graduation.
I have moved around so much during and post college. I’ve lost many a legitimate archive worthy writings, scribbles dreams etc. but I have so much as well.
I have a great things that have survived the multiple moves but plenty of things I def will always mindful of keeping track of
Love this article, and this is exactly how I feel! They don’t want real journalists who have degrees, experience, and real ethics.
They want a bunch of young, upcoming folks who are trying to break into the industry so they can pay them so little, ensuring no in-depth reporting will happen.
There def needs to be a conversation between both generations, our content is so much more than these platforms allow us to realize
Thank you for this piece, Ishmael! I was born in Springfield, Ohio, where both my maternal grandparents still live. I’m going to call them today—something I don’t do enough—ask them questions about their life and about our family.
BET’s decision makes me think of the impermanence of life. But our African ancestors, through the oral literature of griots, made sure our history and stories and folklore and accomplishments and our unique sounds and rhythms and textures were not lost. They were intentional in passing the knowledge of who we were down to the next generation.
The word I found most striking in this piece was: intentional. I think our reliance on technology has reduced our intentionality regarding the preserving of our history. I’ve been considering getting physical photo albums for the longest!
Thank you for this piece!
I’m right down the road in Dayton. Learned a lot from my friends here about the history of Dayton and Springfield so I’m sure they’ll have some gems for you!
Appreciate you reading 🫡