Bernard Kinsey on Kinsey Art Collection MLK Day ‘Myth of Absence’ conversation

The spry, match octogenarian Bernard Kinsey will readily inform anybody in earshot that the world-famous Kinsey African American Artwork and Historical past Assortment is a household affair.

The award-winning exhibit began in 2006 with a present in Los Angeles on the California African American Museum and has been featured in 39 museums world wide, was birthed from Bernard and his spouse Shirley’s penchant for journey and artwork. The duo that met on the campus of Florida A&M College as undergrads and who’ve been married for 57 years, started touring and accumulating artwork within the Nineteen Seventies and by no means stopped, accumulating roughly 700 items.

Because the Kinseys began sharing their assortment with the world, over 16 million individuals have seen it at locations just like the Smithsonian Establishment’s Nationwide Museum of American Historical past, EPCOT Walt Disney World, the College of Hong Kong Museum and Gallery, and California’s SoFi Stadium, amongst others.

The couple’s son, Khalil, is the Assortment’s basic supervisor and chief curator, including to the household facet. The Kinseys additionally need Assortment guests to really feel as if they’re strolling into the Kinseys’ front room for an intimate expertise of Black creative and historic excellence.

This concentrate on Black excellence displays one of many Assortment’s most foundational rules – the “Fable of Absence.” The precept is so large to the Kinsey’s that on MLK Day, Monday, Jan. 15, they are going to host a “Dialog” on the subject at Antioch Missionary Baptist Church (500 Clay St., Houston, 77002) from 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.

The Defender spoke with Bernard Kinsey in regards to the upcoming MLK Day dialog to be taught extra in regards to the significance of the “Fable of Absence.”

Defender: Are you able to clarify the idea of “The Fable of Absence”?

Kinsey: We started to be taught after we had this primary exhibition in 2006 that it resonated with individuals – Black, white, Latino, Asian – as a result of no one is aware of this story of African American accomplishment and achievement. So, one of many ideas that we now have actually embraced is the idea of the “Fable of Absence.” You’ll see the parable of absence throughout this exhibit. And the parable of absence says that we, Black individuals, are the invisible presence in america. It says merely that we now have simply been omitted from the general public document about our accomplishments.

We begin with not having a final identify. We begin with individuals not recognizing our craft, being furnishings makers, ceramics, silversmiths, ironsmiths, architects. We did the whole lot from 1501 to now, the whole lot that might occur within the Americas. And I don’t imply simply america. I’m speaking about from Patagonia (the southernmost tip of South America) to Canada. And all of that happened due to Black genius. So we now have a bit that you simply’ll see right here. It’s referred to as “Early Genius.” What’s early genius? Early genius is Black painters. We have now 5 of the highest six Black painters from the nineteenth century. We have now a saying: “There are the tales that made America, and there are the tales that America made up.” And basically the whole lot you learn in your historical past books in highschool and faculty was made up as a result of we aren’t in it. So, once you come and see the Kinsey Assortment for the primary time, in need of going to the Smithsonian, you will see Black people in each facet of life and doing extraordinary issues.

Defender: How does this “Fable of Absence” communicate to Black individuals’s previous, current, and future?

Kinsey: There are two phrases that our ancestors wakened with each day: resistance and expectancy. They wakened saying, “We’ve bought to withstand this slavery, this Jim Crow, this segregation, and this voter suppression. Have you learnt 400 legal guidelines have been handed to maintain Black individuals from voting in 2024? So, this battle ain’t over. After which the opposite one is expectancy. If the one factor you do is resist, you’ll be able to’t have a great life. In some unspecified time in the future, you’ve bought to place a few of that love and concentrate on your loved ones so you’ll be able to present for them correctly. If you happen to’re all the time preventing and pushing and all that, you’ll be able to’t have the sort of life you need to have.

And that’s what’s so onerous for Black males, notably, to have the ability to function on this nation since you are engaged on either side of this coin. You’re preventing on one facet, then you definately’ve bought to behave and do all these issues, being a father and a brother and a husband and all these sorts of issues. And it’s sophisticated. A number of our brothers, notably, go someway. So, what we’re saying is that if you realize who you might be and the place you got here from, that modifications. As a result of for the primary time, you’re filling that gap in your coronary heart. We all know that Black individuals have an enormous gap of their hearts. And the outlet is, “I don’t know who I’m” and “I don’t know the place I got here from.”

Defender: Are you able to share a bit extra in regards to the upcoming MLK Day dialog, “The Fable of Absence”?

Kinsey: That dialog is gonna be highly effective as a result of it’s gonna be the three of us speaking about it – Shirley, Khalil, and myself. We begin in 1595 with this African American lady named Esteban and principally blow up the parable that we got here right here in 1619 solely as enslaved individuals. And the one method you realize this, we now have a 1598 doc of a wedding certificates of two Black individuals in St. Augustine (Florida). 1598! I imply, it’s simply exceptional. So, you’ve bought to ask your self, 9 years earlier than Jamestown was even based, there have been Black individuals getting married in St. Augustine and no one is aware of about it? There are the tales that made America and there are the tales that America made up. And the “made-up” half is that we didn’t do something.

Black individuals have swallowed the tablet and white individuals have swallowed the tablet. And until we modify that, we aren’t gonna be capable to stroll outdoors and get a cab late at evening as a result of they suppose each Black individual is a prison. And that’s what makes it so bifurcated on this nation. Significantly people who find themselves striving for good lives to already be ascribed a special sort of individual solely due to pores and skin shade. Your pores and skin speaks earlier than you do. That’s one of many different predicates; that information matter. We consider on this easy precept: be taught, use, train. Whenever you come right here, you be taught one thing new. You begin utilizing it. How do you utilize it? Cease utilizing the phrase “slave.” Say “enslaved.” Cease utilizing the phrase “plantation.” A plantation was a jail. Cease utilizing “mercantilism.” Mercantilism is kidnapping. Cease saying that there was one thing that was found. How will you uncover one thing that’s already occupied? So, the vocabulary that the Kinsey household provides you provides you a special predicate to have the ability to begin considering otherwise and articulating who we’re and the place we got here from and filling that gap we now have within the coronary heart.

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