Academic evidentiary standards can dismiss descendants’ ancestral oral accounts

Evidence

Overall, she said that I had to prove the connection between my great-grandfather Renty Taylor Thompson and the man known as Congo Renty in the daguerreotypes. While I knew that I had my work cut out for me, I was also struck by what felt like academic arrogance. It felt so dismissive, suggesting that scholarly research could annul ancestral accounts. This would become a theme, but then I was reminded of a popular slogan that the NAACP embraces, “There can be nothing about us without us.” — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 266

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Indigenous oral records can span centuries beyond Western scientific statistics — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 1615; Criticism and archives must be judged by universal evidentiary standards, not authorial identity — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 1046