“I’m writing my story so that others might see fragments of themselves.”—Lena Waithe
YOU SHOULD BE A GRIOT
When comedian Dave Chappelle received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in late 2019, he joined a select group of African-American comedians to win comedy’s highest honor. In a touching moment during his acceptance speech, he reminisced about his mother encouraging him to be a storyteller during his childhood:
“We had a real oral tradition in our house. I knew the word ‘griot’ when I was a little boy. A griot was a person in Africa who was charged with keeping the stories of the village. Everyone would tell the griot their stories and they would remember them all so they could tell future generations. When they got old, they’d tell them to someone else. And they say in Africa, when a griot dies it’s like a library was burned down. My mother used to tell me, before I ever thought about doing comedy, she said, ‘You should be a griot.’”
In West African communities, the griot holds…