The Importance of Black Storytellers (Essay)

The Importance of Black Storytellers

by Mikhayla Robinson

Photo by Steven Jones

As a black storyteller, or a modern-day griot, it has taken me a lot to realize the importance and the value of my own voice. Marginalization has a way of making you feel like you don’t belong in any space. For the majority of my life, I have second-guessed everything I have ever written. I thought that my words were too loud; and that they weren’t palatable enough to be accepted by anyone. As black storytellers, we have a way of making people uncomfortable with our realities. We carry the glorious burden of having to tell things how they are, honor those before us, and hold a mirror to ourselves and society at the same time.

Being a black writer is not a feat for the meek-hearted; it gets lonely always telling the truth. By placing my words out there, I am deliberately pressuring those who want to mute me and speak in subdued tones, to hear me.

I allow them to see the world from a different point of view, my own. People will  always try to make you feel unimportant, especially in a world that has hated us for so long. I am a second-year college student and a black woman who has been diagnosed with Depression. I always had doubts that anyone would see that I had something to say about the world around me, or that I was even a reliable mouthpiece. My life seemed like an echo-chamber of complaints about my point of view and the thought  that I wasn’t worthy enough to have my opinions heard.

I always had this feeling that I was the only one with my problems, that there would be no one who could share the exact pains I felt... that was until I started to share my writing. There are so many other black men and women who feel the same ways that I do. There are so many people waiting to hear what you have to say.

You deserve to be heard. You have to tell yourself that you want to be heard, too. As people of the African American Diaspora, our culture is filled with emerging arts, literature, music, dance, etc. There is a space for you if you want to take it. Your words matter.

Author’s words: It is important that we remind Black story tellers that they have a purpose, and that their words matter. Often times, as writers, we are asked to pick and choose which parts of our realities we recant to the world, told that we are too loud, and forced to retreat into silence. I needed to hear this when I was growing up, and I still need to hear it now, so I wrote it. I believe that if I need to hear it, someone else needs to hear it.