Silence & Memory & the Telling of Stories
I have been inspired by Toni Morrisonâs Beloved. So much so that two of my last five posts have included quotes from the book. And here I am today with more extensive thoughts on the aforementioned quotes concerning silence, and memory, and the telling and retelling of stories. There is one moment in the book when Paul D refuses to ask Beloved about where she came from, or where she wanted to go, or how she got to the house. He respects her silence because he knows that whatever accompanied her travel was traumatic. In greater context, Paul D assigns this same silence to any movement of black people during slavery and/ or 4-5 years post Civil War. And for my thesis, that silence works well into 2017.
âSilent, except for social courtesies, when they met one another they neither described nor asked about the sorrow that drove them from one place to another.â (Morrison 53)
This silence is critical. It is undoubtedly interconnected with the black experience in the U.S. and our history of movement. What influences/ influenced women and children and men and families and entire generations to up and move, yet remain engulfed in silence and sorrow for what has been lost or what has been gained? How do we continue to navigate this silence that bears these stories; the stories that convey more when unspoken?Â
To understand this silence is to understand the United Statesâ history of storytelling, or the production of history as described in my thesisâ
where black people (and of course other marginalized folk) have largely been the defined and white people, the definers; or more directly, where white people have been the storytellers and black people, the told.Â
oppressive silence -Â where black people have been forced to keep silent
optional silence -Â where black people have chosen to be silent as a means to redeem their livelihoods
Therefore, I make a prime distinction between stories and memories from the very title of my thesis, Dare to Remember: A Digital Memorial of Black Brooklyn. It functions off of memory more than it does stories, because these stories are typically controlled, reduced, and distorted by the âdefiners.â Silence has maintained a trifurcated relationship with the âdefinedâ and therefore is the bearer of our memory and the reservoir of our sorrow. Where (his)stories are stolen, altered, and rewritten, memories of our silence remain personal.
How do I give respect to this silence without tampering with the traumatic? I opt into the digital sphere and opt out of an oppressive one where physical landmarks and literature are the sole signifiers for achievement. I represent silence through media which does not require noise, quite literallyâGIS mapping, photography, and virtual reality. Culminating in virtual reality, for all of its merits in visceral reactions, my thesis will not only make the silence visual but also perceptible. Haunting if you may.Â
More coming on: How digital media allows the black population to preserve and respect this very nuanced silence but also make noise in a way that does not submit to the oppressors definition of achievement (public works, landmarks, literature, etc.). This is revelatory simply because it permits Black Brooklyn to exist outside of the violent definitions imposed on them. We do not always have to conform to public works as indications of our achievement when it inherently reproduces that oppressive silence. It allows them to be the definers. (Shoutouts to all the black people who have leveraged digital platforms to reclaim their stories of societal contributions and cultural production, be they through silence or not: Black Twitter, all the rising and shining stars on YouTube, etc.)
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