Silencing, librarianship, and gender: sticking up for stories
Most posts in the silencing series on Gavia Libraria start with a story from the Loon’s own chequered professional history. Part of the intent, of course, is communicative: stories inform, stories enlighten, stories illustrate, stories ground abstract discussions in real events and real people. The same story told by many different people can give the lie to “isolated incident” excuse-making, creating a sense of scale or plurality where none previously existed. Stories have power, and the Loon has tried to use her own stories powerfully.
None of which contradicts another of the Loon’s reasons for telling those stories: she wanted to tell those stories, have them read, perhaps even feel heard and validated through reader responses to them. Storytelling can be cathartic for the storyteller. It can also break through pluralistic ignorance (where someone doesn’t realize that others have dealt with the same problems because nobody ever actually says so) to create a sense of validation, or (in the ideal case) a true community of fellow-travelers.
The Loon found herself a little sad, a little worried, at some anti-storytelling talk today in some of the library-focused social-justice communities she tracks on Twitter. While it’s true that storytelling is the beginning rather than the end of social-justice activism, it’s (in the Loon’s experience) a common enough beginning for enough people that she doesn’t want to see people who feel a need to tell their own stories silenced.
One thing the Loon noticed is that the anti-storytelling tweets came without exception from people whose social-activist history is lengthy and admirable—far more so than the Loon’s or her Boring Alter Ego’s. That doesn’t seem like accident; the Loon guesses that precisely because individual storytelling is so often the wellspring of someone’s journey toward social activism, those who have been around the block a few times or more hear an awful lot of stories, often enough variations on themes they’ve heard an awful lot before. Wonderful though stories are, repetitive stories pall.
Individual storytelling can also create an inappropriately-homogenized environment with respect to intersectional issues, simply through the effect of storyteller numbers on story volume. The Loon herself, for example, is Caucasian, straight, cis, and from a middle-class background, in which respects she mirrors the dominant demographics of librarianship itself. Her stories are likely not the stories of a librarian of color, or a trans librarian, or a librarian from a working-class family… but because such librarians are far scarcer than librarians who demographically resemble the Loon, the Loon can—wholly without ill-intent—contribute to drowning out their stories and their voices.
Finally, it is true that storytelling can be a conscious “forget about you, what about me? and all the people like me (and unlike you)?” derailing tactic. The Loon does not in any way defend this phenomenon; it is unconscionable. She will make bold to suggest, however, that not all stories experienced this way are told for purposes of conscious derailment; some are the honest errors of new pilgrims on a long and unfamiliar road. While error need not be tolerated, it may be strategically worth correcting error in ways that encourage pilgrims on their road.
It follows from all these caveats that not every social-justice event needs to allow, much less focus on, storytelling. Storytelling’s detractors are entirely correct that systemic issues require identification and investigation well beyond what is possible through individual storytelling. The Loon also sympathizes with the weariness and exasperation of longtime activists hearing the same old stories yet again, and she certainly wants more voices unlike hers heard rather than drowned out.
Even so… because of story’s importance to individual storytellers, and story’s valuable role in consciousness-raising and drawing new entrants into social activism, the Loon would prefer not to see individual storytellers shamed or silenced, and to leave at least some activist spaces and events open to story. No one is obliged to honor the Loon’s preferences, of course, but for her part, the Loon means to go on reading and hearing and learning from and validating individual stories—even sometimes telling them.
I think what we really need are people who are good at telling stories about structures and systems. Storytelling is so much of how we learn from one another. But if I want you to know less about Emily and more about the structures that produced me–homonormativity, white supremacy, ideologies of Western expansion, whatever–I need to find a way to tell stories about those things. How do we elicit those kinds of stories from one another?
An excellent question, to which the Loon has no immediate or pat answer. Commenters, what say ye?
So there are a couple things
Story telling & anecdotes are important. There is nothing inherently wrong with telling them. They definitely have their place. For marginalized people stories provide visibility and comfort/solidarity/realizing you aren’t alone. It’s also important to tell our stories in our own words and to be heard.
However personal stories are generally out of place in a “201” discussion or discussion that is going to create concrete results. There are tons of studies & statistics demonstrating sexism in tech. Ditto for racism and other forms of oppression. Why then do people (mostly those in majority groups) want stories & anecdotes? The proof is already there in the numbers or studies.
Telling stories about being discriminated against can be really difficult and scary. You’re making yourself vulnerable in front of a lot of people, many of whom have engaged in similar behaviors. Telling stories opens you to criticism and nitpicking. If you had done X thing then the discrimination wouldn’t have happened. If only you had been nicer, explained it better, etc.
If you’re up there at the podium giving a probably sanitized version of a traumatic event, you can see people in the audience rolling their eyes. If you have an one-on-one discussion you’ll get disbelieving responses to your face. You’ll get people asking for proof and questioning the validity of your story because if it was true you would have sued.
Telling those stories without support is re-traumatizing. One reason it’s traumatic is because a common reaction is for privileged people to say they’re sad and try to center the conversation around their feelings as opposed to the discriminatory acts. If a person of color is talking about racism, white people are going to feel uncomfortable. So white people will try to find ways to make themselves feel better rather than confronting the shitty racist reality.
I used to regularly deploy personal anecdotes to prove my point. I’ve mostly stopped because it makes me feel like shit. It makes me feel vulnerable and opens me up to personal attack. All too frequently what I describe is minimized or I’m made to feel at fault. No thank you. I’d rather maintain my personal dignity, emotional safety and general well being.
I would say the larger issue is that telling stories makes discrimination about individual acts as opposed to structural and institutional problems. Structural racism is deeply embedded in basically every institution in the U.S. Structural and institutional racism is why black people are more likely than white people to go to jail for the same crime. This is a massive issue that can’t be dealt with by firing 10 racist judges (as if it were that easy). You need to get at the root of the problem which is institutional. It’s everything from driving while black to stop-and-frisk. The school to prison pipeline is not going to be disrupted by changing some of the individual cogs in the machine.
I work in a large library system. When I go to workplace events there are a small handful of people of color in the room. This isn’t because hiring manager systematically throw out resumes from people who don’t seem to be white. When I go to library school classes and I’m the only person of color in the room it’s not because admissions officers are klan members. It’s because of huge amounts of structural racism which reinforce the status quo. Who is being recruited? Where is recruitment happening? Why are hiring managers OK with job searches which keep on “accidentally” selecting finalists who are all white?
and now dinner.
Thank you for this. Would it be all right for the Loon to promote it to a post (with credit of course), or would that be an uncomfortable level of exposure for you?
Thank you for checking in. I am comfortable with you promoting this to post level with credit.