Queerness Beyond Trauma: Where is our History? | Ira McIntosh | TEDxAUP
Storytelling is fundamentally human, but modern reliance on social media risks co-opting our collective history into curated, potentially damaging self-narratives. The speaker highlights Bella Barok's ethnomusicological work as a model for collecting external knowledge, later proposing "memory grafting" to repair the gaps in understanding the queer community's history after trauma. This necessity requires a deliberate effort by current generations to curate their online presence and safeguard stories from legislation that would erase them. ## Speakers & Context - Unnamed speaker, addressing an audience. - Discussion centers on satisfying the human need for stories, particularly in the context of modern social media and cultural history. ## Theses & Positions - Humans have an innate need for stories, comparing the romantic appeal of fairy tales to the necessity of understanding personal history. - Social media allows us to "create history books on ourselves" for the future, providing a record of our own narratives. - Ethnograhy—joining communities to record their stories—is a vital historical data collection method. - The concept of "grafting" describes how ideas, memories, and historical information are synthesized from diverse sources to form a new, evolving understanding of self and place. - A major risk of history-making is the possibility of only grafting the "worst parts" of history, which can dictate damaging self-perceptions (e.g., viewing oneself only as a victim). - Intergenerational connection is required for community survival, as the loss of these ties leads to cynicism and distrust. - When direct oral history fails, the responsibility falls to the living generation to use media to curate and preserve accurate historical records for the future. ## Concepts & Definitions - **Ethnomusicology:** The practice of studying and recording folk music, exemplified by Bella Barok. - **Grafting:** The process by which ideas, memories, and historical information are interwoven from disparate sources (like grafting fruit types onto an apple tree) to create a richer, composite understanding. - **Double life:** The necessity of leading a life in two parts—the public reality and the hidden private reality—due to external pressures. - **Infection skill:** The ability to hide parts of oneself, which is presented as a detrimental learned behavior that erodes trust. ## Mechanisms & Processes - **Bella Barok's Method:** Traveled to record folk music, interviewing people and documenting melodies, and then incorporating these external, simple melodies into his own "grander compositions." - **Memory Grafting:** The act of collecting external memories (e.g., Holocaust experiences) and synthesizing them into a shared, collective "tree of knowledge" to build a singular, stronger historical understanding. - **Media Curation:** The active process of reviewing online presence, journals, images, and videos to re-interpret history and ensure the record is accurate for the future. ## Named Entities - **Bella Barok:** A Hungarian composer, forefather of ethnomusicology, who documented folk music. - **Zultan Kayi:** Hungarian composer who introduced Bella Barok to folk music. - **Dr J Nome:** Contemporary scholar who proposed the concept of "memory grafting" applied to WWII era queer history. - **Mora Kelly:** Authors who studied collective trauma, publishing in *Sexuality and Culture*. - **Alan DS:** Author of the book *The Velvet Rage*. ## Numbers & Data - Age when Bella Barok made a name for himself: **early 20s**. - Publication date of Mora Kelly's study: **October 2020**. ## Examples & Cases - **Apple Trees:** Farmers commonly "graft multiple types of apples onto the same tree trunk" to combine multiple flavors and uses (pie, sauce, eating whole), making the tree stronger. - **Bella Barok's Work:** Transitioned from documenting folk melodies to incorporating them into grander compositions. - **Queer History Post-Holocaust:** The queer community of New York City gathered stories across the Atlantic from Holocaust survivors, grafting them into a collective knowledge base. - **Mora Kelly's Study Focus:** Contextualizing collective trauma within the queer community of Portland, Oregon. - **The Need for Documentation:** The necessity to remember how queer forebears navigated life in their daily lives and celebrated during times of triumph, rather than just focusing on trauma. ## Tools, Tech & Products - **Social Media:** The modern mechanism for creating self-history books. - **Electronic Media (Images, Video Clips, Journals, History Books):** The tools the current generation must use to "reinterpret the Mythos of best friends and roommates." ## References Cited - *Sexuality and Culture* (Journal/Paper where Mora Kelly published). - *The Velvet Rage* (Alan DS's book). ## Trade-offs & Alternatives - **Trade-off:** The desire to incorporate all experiences (grafting) versus the risk of emphasizing only the negative aspects. - **Alternative History Collection:** Moving away from solely relying on lived experience (which might be lost) toward proactively curating digital records and family stories. ## Counterarguments & Caveats - **The Danger of Representation:** When representation in media focuses solely on crisis (e.g., the AIDS epidemic), it can "ignore the core Joys and Beauties we see in our everyday lives." - **The Intergenerational Gap:** Younger generations lack access to direct information from their Elders, leading to fear and cynicism. ## Methodology - **Ethnomusicology:** Collecting and documenting oral and musical tradition (Barok). - **Memory Grafting:** A conceptual method of synthesizing diverse external narratives (Dr J Nome). - **Community Archiving:** The active requirement to gather and curate family stories and history online and in documentation (Speaker's stated imperative). ## Conclusions & Recommendations - The community has an "obligation" to curate its online presence and collect family stories to ensure future generations do not have to live a double life or lose the ability to trust. - Legislative action to prevent the removal of queer history from schools must be stopped. - The final goal is to build a comprehensive historical narrative so that succeeding generations know they are "part of a bigger story that is worth scholarship." ## Implications & Consequences - Failing to archive history leads to systemic vulnerability, making the community susceptible to negative narratives, internal conflict, and the loss of emotional clarity. - The inability to trust anything or anyone fully is a direct consequence of living through required concealment. ## Verbatim Moments - *"Once Upon a Time queer people love these words whether we're in it for the villains or the heroes the princesses or Prince Charming"* - *"we live in an age where not only do we have the pleasure as a general populace of listening to stories from our past but we also have the privilege of writing down our own stories for the future"* - *"I immediately have to think of someone who is considered to be the forefather of ethnomusicology Bella barok"* - *"there is a lack of safe spaces and intergenerational relationships that we are finding it difficult to deal with the effects of trauma on us as queer queer individuals"* - *"we inevitably hide our real selves even from each other making it even more difficult for younger generations to learn from us or maybe even more importantly for us to learn from younger generations"* - *"We have an obligation to our community to curate our online presence to whatever extent possible so that future Generations have a clearer picture of those who came before"* - *"so they don't have to live a double life anymore and lose that oh so important ability to trust"*