PowerPoint Presentation

[Audio] The fabric of humanity lies in the histories that are told and taught to each passing generation. Through a series of traditions surrounding the act of storytelling, namely folklore, a society, its' people, and their ideas survive as a source of wisdom and truth meant to advise and instruct a new era of thinkers. By capturing these narratives, one cannot ignore the isomorphic analogy between the role of the speaker and the responsibilities of the listener. By acknowledging these reciprocal entities, there becomes a mutual understanding of obligation bestowed on both participants engaged in the implicit production of protecting the narrative—either for the sake of self-preservation or historical conservation..

[Audio] Especially when analyzing the adjacency between discontinuity and modernity through the forced memory recall and the trauma associated with the invocation of these recollections, from African folklore to Afrofuturism, where the institutional symbolization connecting these two realms of narrative can be examined through the following texts; Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison, and The Deep, by Rivers Solomon..

[Audio] These accounts become an intrinsic measure used to provide a personal forum, which allows these speakers to use a chain of narratives—that offer an explanation—that helps each listener chronologize the culture; and artifacts of a group in order to prevent the metaphysical annihilation of its people. Through the use of folklore as a method of storytelling, humanity has mapped out the histories of several existing and nonexistent civilizations, whose stories survive to serve as a reminder of the world of antiquity and the lessons they provide..

[Audio] When first examining the role of the speaker, one must recognize the ideological reasons a narrative is being produced, and how it comes to occupy a historical space in society. Then there must be a conscious effort by the speaker to categorize the value of the story and its relevance. Theorist Frantz Fanon, in his text, " The Wretched of the Earth," argues that the only form of knowledge stems from memory. By committing to memory, the chronicles of a society lost, or disenfranchised the collective is represented and a declaration of deliberate consciousness is brought forth, despite an attempt to erase or mythologize those entities..

[Audio] This is best philosophized in Morrison's, Song of Solomon, when she intentionally describes the unofficial naming of " Doctor Street", by black patients of the only black doctor in Pennsylvania. The naming of that street is meant as an active form of memory formation for the black community that took pride in knowing a black doctor lived and worked on that street. In the text, Morrison points out that "the name acquired quasi-official status", during WWII when black men were being drafted for the war, and used the name Doctor Street for their address, which was then acknowledged by the postal workers. Despite attempts, and reminders by white city leaders, who took to calling the street, " Mains Avenue", members of the black community resisted the institutional naming and continued to honor the doctor by calling it "Doctor Street", reminding the black community of the progress he made, thus advancing and uplifting the collective despite attempts by the institution to erase his identity. This concept of consciousness serves a larger purpose in Morrison's text, who relies on the notion of memory recall to establish an ontological framework that implicitly calls upon the reader to recognize the rhetorical absence of self-identity as a result of neglected or ignored memories imbued in the text. By presenting this critique to an audience she calls upon the reader to act as part of the collective, thus invoking them into the thematic protest tucked into the words of the text. Thus, the metaphorical phenomena of memory is used as a service marker that becomes synonymous with freedom. Thereby developing a connection and bond between the narrator and the history. Therefore, the orator's use of storytelling is meant to convince or rectify ancestral accounts of African folklore that attempt to recall this information, becoming a moral consolation aimed at recovering the remains of the individual and the collective..

[Audio] This is arguably why Morrison launches Song of Solomon, in the middle of an identity crisis that starts and ends with the Flying African myth, also referred to as the Igbo Landing story. The Flying African is a piece of African American lore, that dives into the African diaspora as it tells the tale of eighteen Africans that are tricked into going to St. Simon's Island in Georgia for work. Once they reach the island, they learn they will be slaves. Rather than succumb to the life of chattel slavery, they walk into the riverbank and drown to death. While this myth has evolved over the years, it continues to be the source of imagination that depicts freedom, new futures, and returning to Africa. From the initial introduction to the text, Morrison places her audience in the middle of this folklore when she invokes the character of Robert Smith, who is about to jump off the roof of a Mercy Hospital. The imagery and metaphorical syllogistic examples surrounding the event turn what would have been considered a haphazard suicide into a deliberate act of freedom aimed at disrupting the consciousness of the reader..

[Audio] Arguably, Morrison does this to demonstrate the links between the cautionary theoretical elements of folklore, and the tangible artifacts of injustice that encumber the African American collective. By tethering the past and present she develops a framing mechanism that could provide social progress and justice for the collective. While Morrison looks to implore her reader to think critically about the future of the collective, she leans on folklore elements to criticize the black community and points out the disunity within their society, which serves as a detrimental riff spurred by an absence of knowledge and an omission of history..

[Audio] Morrison's Association with folklore elements in Song of Solomon lends itself to modern Afrofuturism texts like The Deep, by Rivers Solomon, which explores the concept of forgetting to serve as a mixed metaphor for the erasure of African culture and identity, as well as the loss of autonomy as a result of post-traumatic stress disorder. In Solomon's text, she picks up where Morrison leaves off by explaining the world beneath the water's surface and takes on the task of explaining the Wajinru world of African merfolk that adapts to life underwater after being tossed off slaves ships into the ocean. Solomon uses her protagonist, Yetu, a Wajinru historian, who is tasked with collecting and remembering the traumatic history of her people, to explain the cathartic desire to absolve one from their history and the traumas associated with it. Through Yetu the permutation between the individual and the institution highlights Solomon's attempt to unite the ontological and the empirical realms of knowledge under the universality of society. By invoking both the "historical rememberings" and Yetu, Solomon implores readers of the text to become a source of change and progress for future generations to come. Since Yetu, is required to remember her people, their history, and their suffering, she becomes a symbolic artifact used as a method of change that can disrupt the cycle of conquering. By learning the history of her people, and deriving from its message for the future, she relays the responsibilities of the listener to the audience. Teaching all who read the text that understanding it is one thing, and applying it to present actions is the most important function and purpose of the text, in order for society to evince itself..

[Audio] Like Morrison, Solomon also uses this textual form of advocacy to engage her audience in order to effectively change the conditions of the African American collective. Both authors seek to remind future generations about "finding your people" and knowing one's roots, because without those connections, history will inevitably repeat itself, and if future generations lose the links that bond them to their ancestral knowledge, then there will never be progress for the African American collective as a whole. From folklore to Afrofuturism the concept of memory recall and storytelling is highlighted to deconstruct the world of oppression by actively rejecting the role of the oppressor, and utilizing the systems of power that they use—history—to actively beat back against the network of disenfranchisement..