Farah Jasmine Griffin on Our Responsibility to Bear Witness

Welcome to I’m a Writer But, where two writers-and talk to other writers-and about their work, their lives, their other work, the stuff that takes up any free time they have, all the stuff they’re not able to get to, and the ways in which any of us get anything done. Plus: book recommendations, bad jokes, okay jokes, despair, joy, and anything else we’ve got going on that week. Hosted by Lindsay Hunter and Alex Higley.

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On this episode, Lindsay and Alex talk with Farah Jasmine Griffin (Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature) about telling her family’s story alongside Black history and literature, bearing witness, her favorite contemporary works, her new book(s), and more!

From the episode:

I think that those of us who survive have a responsibility to bear witness. And that in bearing witness, you’re beginning a process of justice. These are stories and suffering that must be acknowledged. For humanity, they must be acknowledged. I wanted to do that for both the lives that I’ve encountered, but also [extend] an invitation for readers to do the same thing. Let’s bear witness together. That’s what we should do.

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Farah Jasmine Griffin is professor of African American and African diaspora studies and English and comparative literature at Columbia University. The author of numerous books and the recipient of a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship, she lives in New York.