{"id":823,"date":"2016-02-28T19:21:05","date_gmt":"2016-02-29T00:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/newdean\/?p=823"},"modified":"2016-02-28T19:21:55","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T00:21:55","slug":"stories-through-the-lens-of-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/dean\/2016\/02\/28\/stories-through-the-lens-of-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Stories Through the Lens of Place"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blackasotan<\/a> is a soon-to-be launched website about the experiences of Black Minnesotans. From its “Share Your Story!” section:<\/p>\n

Every creative venture has an origin story. Ours? A lot of shared meals and amazing conversations about our individual and collective experiences of blackness in the frozen tundra, AKA Minnesota.<\/p>\n

At some point, we became determined to make this idea a reality. We aren\u2019t the first to try to capture stories through the lens of a place: shout-out to sites like 1839<\/a> and Stuck in DC<\/a>. We also know for sure that we didn\u2019t invent the idea of featuring stories of Minnesotans from communities of color \/ with underrepresented identities (hello, Opine Season<\/a>).<\/p>\n

But, we\u2019re doing it anyway. An idea doesn\u2019t have to be new to be impactful. And we know these stories that we tell to each other, our friends, families, and co-workers at happy hours and house parties and in the hallways are powerful.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed! Sharing our stories can be useful in so many ways. I\u00a0came up with a possible story, and sent a note to the editors:<\/p>\n

I have an idea for a short non-fiction submission: “30 years a Minnesotan.” I first visited Minnesota in the summer of 1986 after graduating from an all-Black Atlanta high school. Today in 2016 I’m the Dean of the College of Social Sciences at San Jos\u00e9 State University, but in between I spent four summers in Minnesota as an engineering intern at 3M, lived there for 14 years as a professor (including five years as Chair of African American & African Studies at the University of Minnesota), and visited at least once a year in the other 12 years. I now consider myself a Minnesotan: I pined for home during my first two years away while at the U of Wisconsin-Parkside, and recently changed my hometown listing on Facebook from Atlanta to Minneapolis. I’d talk about how many think that an existence in a state with a relatively small number of Blacks is extremely limiting, but I found it full of possibilities for Black identity after living in a more regulated all-Black environment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Blackasotan<\/a> will launch in April, so they’ll need stories by the end of March. On one hand I hope that I’m not selected to develop the idea into a submission, as I have several deadlines and tasks due in March. On the other hand, it will be fun to write this piece!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blackasotan is a soon-to-be launched website about the experiences of Black Minnesotans. From its “Share Your Story!” section: Every creative venture has an origin story. Ours? A lot of shared meals and amazing conversations about our individual and collective experiences of blackness in the frozen tundra, AKA Minnesota. At some point, we became determined to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1927,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[347,22242,2051],"class_list":["post-823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-identity","tag-racial-consciousness","tag-socialization"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/dean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/dean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/dean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/dean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/dean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/dean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":825,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/dean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions\/825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/dean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/dean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/dean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}