Ive been wondering, What are the stories we dont hear, in the stories we think we do hear? For years Ive been quoting Frederick Buechner and I wonder if the words of his I revere most are in fact wrong, or in need of tweaking, or maybe I misunderstood their emphasis. Because at best I think he has it half right when he says, “My story is important not because its mine but because if I tell it right youll recognize in many ways its yours.” We all believe stories connect us with one other, show what we have in common. But I think the under-discussed element here is that if we listen well to the stories were told, well recognize just how stark are our differences, well see there are different stories being told, too. Sure, we have some things in common as members of the same species, but arent the events of our lives so different they are equally as defining as our commonalities? My relatives came over in steerage. I had Irish relatives who fled their homeland during the potato famine – I know precious little about those stories because I didnt listen when I was a child, more interested in the dazzle of tales about the wee people from a grandfather who seemed, to my young eyes, to have lived his entire life sick, in bed. My Polish grandfather also came over in steerage, but again, I didnt listen well to that part of the story because I was more interested in tales of hopping an early morning train to avoid a marriage, or losing his farm in the Depression. But I thought of the steerage stories last night as I prepared to turn the podium over for a dialogue reading by Jaki Shelton Green and Shelby Stephenson. We shared that, her and I, the fact of relatives coming over in steerage. That was our commonality. But her people had a different story about it. My ancestors sloshed over. Hers arrived in shackles. Mine wandered out into the world to find their way. Hers were set on auction blocks, stripped naked, orifices examined by slave owners so they could determine how much to bid for them. If I said to her, well my ancestors came over just like yours, in the fetid swill in the bottom of a boat, why cant yours get over it, pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and make something of themselves? I would have told a story. But it would have been a false story, because I would have failed to listen to the differences implicit in the stories of our two families. (It also would have been false because, in fact, her family is more accomplished than mine). My commonality seemed greater, at least on the surface, with Shelby – we share a commonality of skin tone, and the privilege that grants us. But there are stark differences between our stories, too I grew up a Northern ethnic, on a street where every house contained a different family of first or second generation immigrants, one block over from the projects. We were all trying to stay above poverty. Shelby grew up on his familys plantation in the rural South. Much of his poetry has been devoted to attempting to come to terms with the trauma of learning his family bought and sold human beings, people just like those who were his playmates. So that is a story that separates us, but one I need to hear in order to understand him. In both cases, wouldnt it be arrogant to assume connections that are more extensive than they are? Worse, what if I were to assume I knew their stories, when I didnt? How often are peoples stories determined by those who think they know the others story but dont? Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani writes in todays NYT about how African writers can only be published in the West if their works fills “the slot for supplying the West with savage entertainment(...ethnic cleansing, child soldiers, human trafficking, dictatorships, rights abuses...). The same stereotypes Africans often claim to abhor tend to form the foundations to our literary successes.” Editors in the West are determining what is the authentic story of writers in Africa, according to predetermined notions of what those stories should be about. Its reminiscent of a story I was told years ago by an African American poetess, who spoke of being admitted to one of those exclusive liberal colleges up North where a white Poet/Professor encouraged her “to write about Black Rage” because thats what he expected her to write about. We tell the stories we believe. We hear the stories we want. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in the recent heartbreaking response to Michael Browns shooting in Ferguson. For most African Americans,and some whites, the story is this – an unarmed boy was shot to death by a cop who got away with it. Thats it. Essentially, there is no other story. As a teenager, I dealt a number of times with the police and found them, generally, to be small-minded, vengeful and more than willing to lie to make a case. I heard two detectives once conspire about how they were going to fabricate a story about a friend of mine in an attempt to pretend he was trying to break into cars. My friend had been caught urinating in a parking lot. So I had no difficulty believing the story about an arrogant cop killing a boy. But for too many others the story they heard was, “A thug stole cigarillos and threatened a cop.” For these people, who were white, what seemed to be important was protecting societys armed warriors, those who would protect their property, from a boy who I heard referred too often as a “thug,” although it would have been more accurate to call him a high school grad heading for college. Those in the first group are amazed – Did they not hear the story about the boy shot dead? Those in the second group, those who have never been stopped by police merely because of the color of their skin, or followed around in a store, or harassed on a corner in their own neighborhood, or called animals or demons – they cant see beyond the stolen cigarillos. That type of innocent death isnt part of their story; they cant hear that part of others story. But they can hear the part about being robbed or bullied. Which is a different story altogether. While the Ferguson stories are about identity, ethnicity, and class, it is about stories, too. Maybe we focus too much on telling stories to bring us together? Maybe we should be paying attention to the stories that show us how far apart we really are? As Mark Knopfler wrote in Brothers in Arms, “We have but one world, but we live in different ones.”
Posted on: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 13:55:51 +0000
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