Black Girl Magic Is a Glorious Gift

• In Event: Strong Black Girls: Reclaiming Schools in Their Own Image

Abstract

Objectives/Purposes
I am informed by my work with Seen-and-Heard < http://www.seen-and-heard.org/about>, a curated art collection of child artists. Founded by Dr. Rachel L. S. Harper, it has the aim of accumulating a solid platform for the importance of cultural works of children. My Mango art piece (watercolor on paper) was in the 2016 Treats Chicago exhibition, and I donated my art to this important collection when I was 7-years old. Likewise, the educator practices and research at AERA are driven by meaningful collaborations in their teaching with thousands of children. And yet, the works of children themselves are rarely treated as serious contributions to the research canon. I believe that children’s knowledge is as important as adult knowledge.

Perspectives/Theoretical Framework
This chapter establishes a platform that reveals the wisdom of children’s self-motivated work. My intention is to advocate for the inclusion of child voices by amplifying proof that children have as many rights to cultural and research validity as any non-child enjoys without question.

Methods, Techniques/Modes of Inquiry
Denzin (as cited in Finley, 2005) calls for a new movement in qualitative inquiry in which researchers take up their pens, their bodies, and their voices so that we might “conduct our own ground level guerrilla warfare against the oppressive structures of our everyday lives” (p. 689). I am also informed by autoethnography where the story of one’s life – autobiography - is coupled with the study of a particular social group – ethnography (Watson, 2009, p. 526).

Data Sources, Evidence, Objects, or Materials
I interviewed all of the Black womyn in my life and asked them the question, “What do you think I need to know about being a Black girl in school?” I collected what they said and pulled out key phrases. I also collected phrases of important Black scholars and activists who I have heard speak (Angela Davis, Adama Iwu, Nina Shaw, Bettina Love, Elizabeth Nyamayaro, and Lecia Brooks) and included important phrases from them. Last of all, I reached back to history and included the voices of Black women that I have read about (Ruby Bridges and Linda Brown). I turned these phases into a phrase poem. A phrase poem is where you collect important phrases from people and then arrange them to make a poem that sounds really nice to you.

Results/Conclusions
Art can inform research as well as any other type of writing. A simple poem confronts the idea that research should be “objective,” and, in this context, it is transgressive because it rejects the notion that the “I” must be removed from research (Ellis & Bochner, 2000).

Scholarly Significance of the Work
A book titled Strong Black Girls should have the voice of a little girl inside its pages. It is important that we embrace children as scholarly contributors who are the subject of their own work and not only the object of adults’ work.

Author

• Helena Donato-Sapp