Google Search is Not Re-Search
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What do you need to do good research? And let me press pause and frame up this discussion. A long time ago on this space we made a statement and someone challenged it and said, and I quote” You not the only ones that can do research, we can all research for ourselves”. Well, they are right and wrong. Allow me to explain.
Anyone can do research, that is true. Everyone should do research also. Do not trust us, check it out for yourselves to the limits of your ability but that is just the thing. Do you have the ability to fact check everything and match the research of a professional researcher? Of course not. No more than you can slam dunk like Jordon or play guitar with your teeth like Jimi. You must be kidding. Research or scholarship is not a lay profession no more than performing cataract surgery. Please do not confuse a Google search with Re-Search. Research requires knowledge of scholarship methods aka methods of inquiry into a validation of facts. That means a comprehensive understanding of primary and secondary sources. I will give an example below. Research also means having certain resources such as access to Jstor and books. Do not tell me you researched it on Wikipedia or took it from a blog/forum. You cannot read one book and quote that one book. You must also understand the sources of the book. The qualification of the author to speak. Just because Dr. Afrocentric makes a statement on Linguistics does not make it valid– what are they a Dr of? Then how are they also experts on genetics and linguistics and anthropology, economics and genetics?
CASE STUDY
A friend of mine got into a disagreement with a statement published in many newspapers regarding the boom in “Black” business after the BLM campaign. he started citing scores of top outlets that reported the boom in business. Now here is what you need to know about a RS (reliable source). Even if CNN reports something it does not make it RS. What is CNN’s source? Well it turns out CNN was citing a Black Business Group who conducted their own “research”. So I asked him for the source of their research to check the quality of the research. B/c if that is the source of the statement let us see how they arrived at it. So he found the source and you know what it showed. THEY (someone with a horse in the race) spoke over the phone casually to 120 random small businesses and asked their OPINION about increases in sales. Nairobi– we might have a problem. This is not a proper research method. There are no double-blind procedures, there is no metric beyond their opinion. What about other factors like Corona dying down? Maybe summertime is when businesses have an increase in sales anyway. How about it is based on anecdotal evidence and maybe the question was loaded leading to that response?
I AM A SCHOLAR
While making this film we realized, that just because someone is African American, it does not make them an expert on African American issues, culture or history. No connection. Being A Zulu born in KZN South Africa and living in a township in Hardin does not make you an expert on Zulu culture, South African history or the social-economic issues of the place. Especially when you consider a very large number of Native South Africans are uneducated and untravelled. Not even know which countries border their own country. Being Amhara does not make you an authority on the origins of Amharic from its parent language Ge’ez let alone its connection to other Afro-Asistaic (Semitic) languages. Being born Muslim does not make you a sheikh or a scholar on Islamic Fiqh or Jurisprudence. And laypeople struggle with this. They claim authority based on non-relevant things. Your place of birth, your race, your gender does not confer a PhD. If it did it would be amazing that you can go to the University on Timbuktu and get a Masters in the history of the Sahel because you happen to be Mandinka.
