Our Stories, Our Voices, Our Choice
A few months ago, I went to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City with a friend. Framed among a display of contemporary portraits was a quote by writer and activist Audre Lorde. The quote read, “Black and Third World people are expected to educate white people as to our humanity. Women are expected to educate men. Lesbians and gay men are expected to educate the heterosexual world. The oppressors maintain their position and evade responsibility for their own actions.” This excerpt, from her essay “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference,” has stuck with me to this day.
In the American milieu, marginalized people have long been expected—implicitly, but sometimes also explicitly—to explain our oppression to the privileged. And when we decide not to spend our efforts coddling the privileged’s understanding, we can be villainized, our response interpreted as an unwillingness to help people understand who we are. But there is a significant difference between sharing our stories freely and having the responsibility of being educators and activists forced upon us. The existence of our respective identities does not automatically involve roles as spokespeople on behalf of those identities.
The existence of our respective identities does not automatically involve roles as spokespeople on behalf of those identities.
We have the right to choose not to share our experiences. We don’t owe our oppressors anything. Should we decide to tell our stories, we reserve the right to tell them without explaining every minute detail that falls outside the privileged’s understanding of our existence. Marginalized people can tell stories, and none of those stories need to make the oppressors feel included. They are the stories of our experiences, which may not center around the dominant group at all, so they need not include a glossary of information to make oppressors feel more comfortable at our expense.
Furthermore, the emotional labor that is involved with sharing our deeply personal experiences can be draining. As Lorde wrote, “There is a constant drain of energy which might be better used in redefining ourselves and devising realistic scenarios for altering the present and constructing the future.” Time spent explaining the situations and social dynamics that led us to our present condition is time not spent engaging in the projects and passions that could drive us forward into a better future.
Oppressors will never truly understand the oppression marginalized people have experienced because they have not lived through it. However, they can recognize their privilege and utilize it to uplift the stories that are told by minorities. Those who are privileged can be allies by listening when those who are oppressed speak up. There is a myriad of ways in which those with privilege can educate themselves if they have a genuine curiosity and truly want to be allies to the marginalized communities. Placing the responsibility for one’s ignorance on the marginalized individual is simply a way for the oppressor to evade accountability for his actions. Meanwhile, actively seeking out resources and opportunities to learn about the history and consequences of oppression demonstrates a desire and willingness to empathize and understand the roots of the oppression. It forces the oppressor to directly face the reality outside their bubble of privilege.
To be sure, it is imperative that marginalized people access the opportunities to share our experiences if we so desire. These stories, when shared willingly and openly, are what lead to discourse and generate deeper understanding of the issues at hand. They are what help those who truly want to learn. In these circumstances, marginalized people are in control of what, when, and how much of their story they would like to share. This agency provides protection from any potentially exhausting emotional labor but still generates an environment for productive and compassionate dialogue that illuminates the privileged’s contribution to the oppression of minorities.
We have the right to choose not to share our experiences. We don’t owe our oppressors anything.
While this discussion is vital, it is also crucial that minorities have the opportunities to tell stories that aren’t only about their experiences with oppression. We have stories and beliefs about experiences that concern issues relating predominantly to minority communities, but our voices also need to be valued in spaces that cisgender white men have historically dominated and continue to dominate. We have interests outside of the constrains of our identities that we would like to explore. It is our experiences that imbue mainstream stories with the depth that resonate with our communities and makes us feel seen without placing our social identities at the center of the story. Representation can empower us and show us that we have the potential to thrive in spaces occupied by the majority, that we are not limited to the places where we have historically been delineated.
It is important for those who are privileged to learn about the oppression experienced by minorities. And it is even more important to use that understanding to be allies in order to help make the necessary changes to improve society. However, the choice of whether to share our experiences belongs solely to the oppressed. Without such agency, our stories are reduced to a commodity whose sole purpose is to ease the conscience of the privileged.