On any of the alternative news streams, you can usually find commentary - whether in the actual articles, or in the comments posted by critically-thinking folks - about the importance of narratives, and the horror of those narratives being co-opted by "good Samaritans."
During my brief, but intense, tenure as a Women's Studies student at the local university, a lot of the reading I was doing focused on community-building through storytelling. The most common example of this is the consciousness-raising of first and second-wave feminisms. Quite a few of the narratives I read were those of POC in general, and WOC in particular - their experiences in America, a land of imperialist values and ethics, the labor issues they dealt with, family-raising, and identity issues.
Prior to switching my major (or really doubling up, because I never left the English department, I just added another one), I worked briefly for an after-school program that partnered with a local center for underprivileged youth. This program focused on educating these students on the importance of storytelling as a strength tool. We tried to instill the value of narrating one's own experiences as a critical tool for developing identity, and finding strength in a source that most middle- and upper-class folks would consider a weakness (they're poor and lack access because they don't work hard enough for it, etc.). We would have the kids pick a point in their life that they thought of as "critical" to their development; keep in mind, this can be a lot to ask for from kids between the ages of 9 and 12.
Ultimately, this program failed those students. A part of that was because the kids had so much going on at home and school that the last thing they needed was to focus on telling stories. A majority of the kids hadn't volunteered; they had been signed up by the center's staff, and thus, lacked the personal interest they needed to commit and use the program for its benefits. A bigger part of it was due to the center staff (the folks in charge, not the Public Allies intern who initially brought us in) pulling the rug out from under us at every turn. They would hold the participating kids upstairs during the sessions, claiming that they needed to finish homework first, clean up, help the younger kids, etc. They would cancel certain sessions without notifying us first. All of these things that if you think about it, you can justify, but not when these kids are critical situations who just need someone to listen to them talk, and really, could accomplish major things if someone would just hear their stories.
That experience changed my life more than I usually admit, and there isn't actually a day that goes by that I don't think about what I could have differently for those kids and for that situation. I long to go back to it and figure out a way to make it work. I want to find those kids and make real relationships that last, and watch them grow up, and help them apply for colleges and scholarships and win competitions with critical essays that use storytelling as a way to communicate to admissions boards why they want to go to college, that college, to study this subject. I want to help them grow into young adults who believe that they can change the world, regardless of where they come from or who society has told them they need to be.
And now we come to storytelling.
There are a few common themes that arise around the criticism of storytelling. One is the theme of the "White Savior," also seen as gentrification, or charity, or whatever else you want to call it. Too often, when a community is overtaken by a group of "well-meaning" upper-, or even middle-class, citizens, who want to come in and turn the community around and rehab the dwellings and add more access to fresh, healthy foods - remember, I'm writing from Cincinnati, where all of this is happening right here, right now (and admittedly, some of it is AWESOME, like using food aid at farmers' markets, the rest of it is just standard gentrifying eliminations) - what they're really doing is re-investing in a space that was only affordable to lower-income families - primarily families of color - because no one else was interested in it. With these well-intentioned folks, property values and cost of living expenses are rapidly shooting upwards. This is also what has been happening in New Orleans since Katrina. Those lines get blurry in any economy that's as tight as ours, where the middle-class is rapidly shrinking and more people are sinking towards the poverty line, debt is outrageous, and normal folks can't even afford to own their own homes.
This is all "normal."
What isn't, and what desperately needs to be corrected, is that we generally only hear from the people moving into these areas. We never hear from the ones who are being forced out, because suddenly, their cramped residences with bad electric work and mold and pests, that were once affordable but still forced ends to be stretched so they could meet, have now sky-rocketed as premium spaces for new, modern loft areas for young professionals, who buy these buildings at a price of anywhere from 20k-100k and totally rehab and flip them as condos for upwards of 100k a piece on a regular basis.
I understand the hypocrisy here, because I'm an identifiably white person writing about the injustices of gentrification and class bias. I get that. I acknowledge that, though, which is a huge difference.
I heard an interview on NPR recently (within the last two weeks, commemorating the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina) of a presumably white woman who had moved into New Orleans. I missed the first half, so the portion I heard was largely about how neighbors (the majority being disadvantaged, lower-economic folks, primarily POC) initially reacted to her presence in the neighborhood, her position on the community board not long after relocating there, and how they felt about her now. She initially received responses of blatant irritation, hatred, or was simply ignored. There was resentment when she landed a position on the community board, which was dealing with a lot of combat on a gentrification issue (bulldozing old buildings to erect new apartments, and so on), but she was one major opponent towards redeveloping the ward she now saw herself as a resident of. Slowly, her neighbors came around, began accepting her. I can appreciate this interview because she was very careful to not sugarcoat or dance around any of the issues she seemed to be fully aware of upon her arrival. She was honest about the moments she felt doubt, and even a little guilt, about her presence in this neighborhood. It was refreshing after so many interviews of wealthy white people who are really doing nothing more than taking advantage of low property prices in lower-valued settings and viewing them as "investments."
Storytelling and narratives are not just about low-income communities or communities of color. Those are the two communities that need it the most, I could argue, but intersectionality is everything here. Trans* communities also need to take control of their own stories. I spoke to this in an earlier post, and the frequency with which cisgender white people are taking over trans* narratives, and frequently, damaging the real people behind these stories. Even when trans people are telling their own stories and the media begins listening, it is usually only trans people (specifically women) with high income, and they are primarily white. Laverne Cox is an exception, as is Janet Mock, on a slightly lesser scale. Both of these amazing women, though, are still the idealistic portrayal of trans women. They are WOC, but they are beautiful. They have access to the healthcare they need, they don't live as transients on the fringes of society, and the society they thrive in accepts them and hears what they are saying. This is not how the much larger portion of the trans community really is. Our voices go unheard, our bodies are victimized - not only by hate crimes and violence, but by the medical industry and politics, and for simply existing, we are told we should not. We are told we defy laws of nature, and we are too invested in simply surviving to be bothered with making sure the rest of the world knows that inside, we are powerful.
This is the first post in what I can only hope becomes a much larger series, and if you read this blog frequently, or even infrequently, I want to hear your stories. I don't care if you comment, I don't care if you want to guest-post, I don't care if you want to message me, like so many of you do. I would prefer that this storytelling takes place on a public scale, where we can all talk to each other, as opposed to one-on-one conversations, but I do want to hear it, in whatever form you want.
Story-time, folks.
