My Grandfather’s Face: A Black Contemplative Educator’s Discovery of Unknown Relatives through DNA

Abstract

This narrative essay offers an exploration of the power and importance of family origin stories as a grounding aspect of collective and individual identity for Black people. The author, drawing on his experience as a Black queer contemplative scholar and college professor, gives attention to the question of whether the truth is necessary or beneficial in the creation of family narratives and what each successive generation is allowed to know. This question is explored through the story of the unintended positive and negative consequences the author experienced as a result of submitting DNA to Ancestry.com.

Keywords

• pedagogy
• Black family
• contemplative
• race
• ancestry