Reclaiming.Transforming! Sustaining→

Reclaiming.Transforming! Sustaining→
The Presentation of a Dilemma

The question is twofold in defining a space for "reclaiming" in cultural sustainability.

Are there elements of culture that we need to reclaim? And, in reclaiming them, do they have a place in modernity for sustainability?

I hope to receive your feedback on the questions above, and the more specific questions about African-American young women following the story, toward the end of the post.

Three weeks ago, a young lady beeped and pulled me over to the side of the road. She first asked, “do you still do storytelling?’ ‘Do you remember me?” She then stated, “We were at a car detailing business about four years ago. You spoke to me and you changed my life, and I will never forget you.” The capacity in which I had spoken those years prior came from the discipline of "jaliya (the art of storytelling). It is the disposition of a jalimuso to tell others their role in society through the art of storytelling. At that moment of delivery, my words were not so much of sustaining her culture as it was of reclaiming it. The storyteller’s labor is not one of designation for stage presentations alone, but more aptly to relay history and transform our communities.

William Westerman writes in Wild and New Arks: Transformative Potential in Applied and Public Folklore, "Whereas folklorists are interested in the transformation of materials, I also want to look at how human beings are transformed through the creative or artistic process.".....First among these is the transformation of the artist/and/or the individual audience member. Each person can be changed by the experience of creating a work of art or witnessing one.....One of the profound psychological effects of being an audience member is that, in addition to being emotionally moved by the work of art, there is always the potential to be permanently changed intellectually or spiritually by the experience.".....I recognize that this is an individualistic outlook resulting from American upbringing, but perhaps this is a contribution we can make to social change.”

When Tangie, pulled me to the side of the road, I did not at the instant, remember the young lady or the words that I spoke. But the excitement in her recall reassured me that I was laboring in jaliya and manifesting nommo. “Nommo, is water and the glow of fire and seed and word in one. Nommo, the life force, is the fluid as such, a unity of spiritual-physical fluidity, giving life to everything, penetrating everything, causing everything….And since man has power over the word, it is he who directs the life force. Through the word he receives it, shares it with other beings, and so fulfils the meaning of life.” Janheinz Jahn, Muntu.

Tangie revealed that the agency of  my words engendering her transformation,  were urgings of reclaiming the greatness of her culture, and empowering the gifts of her womanhood. Having been bombarded with media images of beauty not reflected in self, music and videos hyped in gangster treatment of women, she had succumbed to that energy and belittled expectations of herself. In hearing her story of engaging with young men of wayward character, I spoke to the center of self from an Afrocentric perspective. “Afrocentricity demands commitment to greatness based upon the true historical character of the people. Knowing full well that the only road to happiness and harmony is excellence in everything. Our path to that road is set out for each of us by the ancestors.” Molefi Asante, Afrocentricity.

My soul work projected the need for Tangie to reclaim the inheritance and essence of her beauty. It ventured inward to raise her confidence and self-esteem. It laid claim to a purposeful journey. Her exclamations of, “I will never, never forget you,” and “You changed my life,” brought me to tears, and do at this moment. For, it was an understanding, “that the gifts we give at times of transformation are meant to make visible the giving up we do invisibly.” Lewis, Hyde, The Gift. In a happen stance from four years prior, a circle appeared. I came to know the gift passed through someone, and came back to visit me.

As we parted, we exchanged hugs and cell numbers. Warmed by our reunion, Tangie drove away in her Lexus, a celebration gift for extending her nursing career into anesthesiology. I drove away immersed in blessings, with her heavy urging upon my heart. “You have to talk to girls. “You have to keep working with young sisters.”

So, I question, what do young African-American women need to reclaim? What is the intent of transformation? And, how do we engage in such a way as to make the work relevant to their aesthetics and world view?  


It is 2010, but the words of my grandson’s Great, Great, Great, Great Aunt, Anna Julian Cooper still ring true. “With all the wrongs and neglects of her past, with all the weakness, the debasement, the moral thralldom of her present, the black woman of to-day stands mute and wondering at the Herculean task devolving upon her. But the cycles wait for her. No other hand can move the lever. She must be loosed from her bands and set to work.” Shirley Wilson Logan, We are Coming: The Persuasive Discourse of Nineteenth Century Women.


I invite you to the conversation, and look forward to your comments and answers.