Day 6: Family History as Folklore скачать в хорошем качестве

Day 6: Family History as Folklore

This recording weaves personal family history, Black American folklore, and critical reflection on labor, race, and industrialization in the United States. Moving between my father’s lived experiences as the child of sharecroppers and the enduring Ballad of John Henry, I reflect through creative autoethnography, folklore, and theology on how Black bodies, labor, and childhood have been shaped, mythologized, and erased. By situating family lore alongside archival histories and cultural myths, this reading questions Disneyfied representations of Black folklore and asks what is lost when depth, suffering, and structural violence are smoothed into heroism. Thank you for listening, for holding space with care, and for engaging with these histories. 00:00 – Finding ancestral selves & paternal folklore 00:17 – Daddy’s childhood, sharecropping, and rural life 01:46 – Poverty, food security, and “feeling rich” 02:15 – Orphanhood and loss of education 03:26 – The Ballad of John Henry 05:33 – Creative autoethnography & family lore 06:35 – John Henry, industrialization, and racial capitalism 07:50 – Folklore, theology, and the burdening of Black bodies 08:30 – Chain gangs, railroads, and lived labor history 09:56 – Black childhood, post-slavery, and Disneyization 10:49 – Revising folklore and missing historical truths 11:47 – Questioning heroism and glorified suffering 12:33 – Family survival after the Great Depression 13:06 – Closing, practice, and gratitude