Silence

When I see this picture of a raindrop about to fall off the tip of this leaf, I can only imagine how quiet it will be in comparison to all the other sounds of nature surrounding it.  There’s something so peaceful about this picture that makes it hard to remember that if we had the ability to zoom out and look beyond that particular leaf, as well as tune into our other senses, we might even forget the other sounds we would hear such as the rustling of leaves and the deafening sound of cicadas. Maybe it’s the focus of the camera on this leaf that makes it hard to think about what else is surrounding it. I imagine this leaf being in the woods, and thinking back on moments of when I was silenced, the woods probably would’ve been a good place to get away from it all.

It’s ironic that the first topic I thought of when considering whether I’d ever felt silenced was a topic I’ve silenced myself from sharing on this blog. When Anne spoke to our class about the use of the blog, she said she hoped that by the end of the class we could each take responsibility for our words and use our given names in our blog posts. My silencing is less about taking responsibility for my words, and more about how willing I am to open myself up to others. And though my own name is slightly obscured on this blog, my posts all show up in a search of my full name on Google. For me, that’s terrifying.

What I’ve come to learn about interactions on the Internet is that nothing goes away.  Last year, I wrote a post about the MTV debate that was occurring here at Bryn Mawr. Recently, I searched “MTV” and “napkin notes” on Google to see what came up and was surprised to find a blog citing my post from someone at the University of Texas. That’s not a problem – it’s exciting to realize that perfect strangers can be interested by what I have to say. In addition, because I still stand by what I said in those posts, I’m fine with them being associated with me.

In class Thursday I was particularly haunted with the picture above, JHunter's visualization of silence. While my interpretation of “Bouquet of Eyes” varies from hers, I am grateful for the push towards looking differently at a subject that I thought I had adequately explored. It is this new interpretation that I will use now to speak toward my own experience with being silenced at my summer job.

This summer I had the misfortune of learning that silence can sometimes be a group phenomenon, and it is in these particular instances when the absence of voice can be the most dangerous. From June to August I worked at an overnight camp for underprivileged youth, like I have for the past three summers. The counselors range in age from 17-21, not much older than the children we watch over. It is difficult for me to talk about what happened this summer in a composed way, because the happiness and welfare of the campers was and still is my utmost concern and to see that threatened was infuriating.

When looking at Jomaira’s images, I was actually a little startled.  Not because their image reflects a dimension of silence I seldom imagine, but because several years ago, I would have likely put up a very similar image of silence.  What startled me was that I didn’t realize how my first-gut connotations of silence have shifted in recent years.  Before, my initial thoughts and feelings of silence would have been ones that were associated with oppression, the inability to speak, absence, dark—concepts that I think are evoked when looking at their images.  But recently, I often associate silence with more positive notions and less tension.  Just as one example of how and why, I think of silence and light together and chose my photo accordingly.  We often forget how remarkably silent light is given what it does.  Light, unassuming and silent, has capabilities that range from giving us the capacity of sight, the dichotomy of day and night, and also life itself.

While scrolling through the visuals of silence on Serendip, I found myself deliberately returning to the image of Irene’s bedroom. I was captivated by the soft lighting, the warm brown colors and the simplicity of its decoration. I was reminded of my own bedroom back home. Similarly, the image of my bedroom is a place of peace and rest with its array of books, wall of mirrors and made bed. While I enjoyed seeing a bedroom that projected similar sentiments of comfort and intimacy, I know that the appealing visual of my bedroom is a facade. In contrast to the expected hospitable nature of a bedroom, my bedroom was a rather lonely and confined space for much of my life. So, as much as I wanted to feel the welcoming silence emanating from Irene’s image, I could not ignore how it was a visual reminder of my isolating relationship with silence.

Before I begin writing about my experiences of silencing/being silenced, I think it is important note that it was difficult for me to think of such a time, and the privilege that comes with that.  It privileges me because I can see myself as neither oppressor nor subordinated in this regard, at least on the surface.  When I think of silencing someone, I think stereotypically yelling “silence!” as we saw from many popular movie scenes in the youtube clip.  I would like to think that is hard for me to remember silencing someone because it is not something I do, but I am sure that is not the case.  Even if I haven’t directly yelled “silence!” at someone, there are probably times I have silenced a person or group either with an offhand comment or by being a bystander and not helping a person that I recognized as needing a voice (i.e.: watching someone be bullied).  However, memories of being oppressed are, in general, easier to conjure up than memories of being an oppressor. 

“I’m not going to dignify that with a response.” In my family, we use this as a jokey phrase when one family member insults another in a facetious manner. Though it becomes a laughing matter as the insulting party is chastened and the insulted vindicated, choosing not to dignify a truly offensive action with any sort of reply or reaction can be a powerful and provocative use of silence as a statement in and of itself. At my high school, we used our silence as a tool to combat the hatred of the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), in a different manner of protest than that used by the Occupy demonstrators in Esty’s picture, who used their voices loudly to make a statement.  Instead, we stood united against the WBC’s attempts to get a rise out of us or tear us apart.

Okay, folks, I think I've found what we've (well, I've) been looking for (ta dah!):
a way that you can read the articles for this class (all your classes?) on your computer,
and annotate the electronic text, without having to print anything out.

These are the steps that worked for me:
1) download (the free) Adobe Reader X from http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html
2) open up one of the pdfs assigned for class reading
3) The Comment & Markup toolbar doesn’t appear by default, so either
select View > Comment > Annotations, or click the Comment button in the Task toolbar.
This will make both the highlighting and the sticky notes functions available, so go to town!
4) There are tutorials on how to use other features @
 http://cjasn.asnjournals.org/site/misc/annotating.pdf
but, for now, these functionalities are enough for me!
Have fun--

Yours in the service of paper-less-ness
("I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues"),
A.

I realized today that this 360 reminds me of one of my favorite TED talks by Bryan Stevenson, an activist and lawyer in the American justice system. Similar to our 360, Stevenson brings up issues of race and poverty in our justice, or more like our injustice, system. More importantly, he highlights how there is a silence in our society about the injustices that mar the image and realities of individuals in prison. I invite everyone to listen to this TED talk, it is definitely worth listening to and thought-provoking. I think he does a beautiful job at talking in depth about his vision for our justice system, the unheard voices in prison and the silence that keeps society as a whole from caring.

I also wanted to leave you with my favorite quote from the talk:

“Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve done” –Bryan Stevenson

I have also posted the link here:

http://www.ted.com/talks/bryan_stevenson_we_need_to_talk_about_an_injustice.html