Preserve Our New History
Despite what the historians say, America likes to throw rocks then hide its hand. American history has been rewritten, revised & redefined to paint colonizers as heroes despite the way they loot & pillaged in the name of Christianity. Our history & heritage was purposely burned & hidden & the caveat is they attempt to pacify us with crumbs from a stolen cake. Sites like Ancestry.com will find your hidden information but for a nominal fee yet having a clause about entertainment purposes in its terms of service. It’s near impossible for a man to arrive at his destination without even knowing where his point of origin.
As a photographer I know the vitality of preserving our current memories, events & history. I’ve had a few friends & a few customers literally cry after informing them that I still have copies of photos that they no longer have access to. We all have really good cameras on our phones but where do our photogenic memories end up after we close the camera app? Do they end up lost when we misplace our device? Or are they forever gone like the history of our ancestors when the hard drive to our computer crashes? Some are even sent to the cloud & lost forever because we forget the password to our account. We have become so careless with our precious memories and it’s up to us to preserve and protect our new history. I promise you will shed 1 tear for each memory that’s been put to death by a power surge that fries the circuit of your computer.
The digital age is so quick & convenient but so much can go wrong. When was the last time you got physical prints made for a photo album? When you get photos printed, you can store them in a scrapbook & leave notes and documentations so the next generation will know what we do not know about now ancestors. There’s a forgotten beauty in holding a physical image. So much meaning and quality is lost admiring a picture on a backlit screen. I challenge the I.L.L community to start a small photo album & notate the event date & people featured. Your family will appreciate the effortless motions of opening up an album opposed to trying to figure out the password to your phone.
We may not have much from our forefathers but let’s start safeguarding our new memories so that the next generation will have a better starting point in the race of life. The point of history is to read about past mistakes & accomplishments. We must learn from our mistakes & mistakes of the ones that came before us. Also, look at their achievements & celebrate in their memories in hopes that one day soon our new school of Kings & Queens can celebrate our positive deeds.
