Representation, Identity and Diversity
Henry Louis Gates Jr., well-known African American literary scholar, professor, historian, and host of the popular show Finding Your Roots, brought the notion of one’s genealogy and exploring one’s family tree into the living rooms of American households. Of course, Gates Jr. was not the first. Alex Haley revolutionized the notion of genealogy in the African American community with his 1976 historical novel Roots.
The tree has long been equated with the metaphor of the family, much like the forest as well as the woods. This year’s Black History month theme, outlined by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), is “The Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity”. It is safe to say the image of the Black Family has changed drastically over the past century. In recent American memory, “black love” demonstrated in cultural icons such as the Jeffersons, the Huxtables, and the Johnsons, lent itself to the narrative of the American Family and the American Dream.
Black Family Studies have been largely popular throughout various disciplines. From E. Franklin Frazier to Daniel Moynihan, narratives of perpetual poverty and gender crises plagued the Black community for failing to live up to a tradition that was not of their own creation. In recent decades, the divorce rate has skyrocketed as well the rise and nominalization of single parent households. Furthermore, qualitative perspectives suggest that younger generations of Americans are delaying marriage and children or perhaps abandoning the notion altogether.
Like history, families have their chapters of trial and their chapters of triumph. Families have their historic firsts and their fatal lasts. But the notion of family has the ability to tell one about their own history better than any textbook. As Gates and Haley has demonstrated, much can be illuminated from a simple task of asking where one comes from.
Where does the African American fit in the larger American family? Is there even a place for the African American in the larger American family? Success, land, wealth, and material things have long been the fruits of the labor that family tree grows on. The common misconception is these things are depicted to be monolithic despite the historical and present stains of racism, sexism, xenophobia, classism, and homophobia.
In the 21st century, success looks different. Wealth is defined differently. Material things are being redefined. Happiness, hope, and joy can take the place of the former. Redemption and renewal are beginning to replace notions of conformity. What Gates Jr. and Haley have taught time and time again is the notion of one’s past does not impact one’s future, especially in an American context. Family is the fruit of its own labor.
