My Story, Our Story, Their Story
Brian Howell, Ph.D., Professor of Anthropology, Department Chair
At one point during our CACE seminar, we had three circles on the whiteboard: My Story, Our Story, Their Story. We were asked to think about the stories we tell, to think about which category those stories might go. The focus, of course, was how we thought about telling “their stories;” the stories of people very different from ourselves. But if I’m honest, the most frightening one to think about was the idea of telling My Story.
As an anthropologist, the prospect of telling someone else’s story is woven into the very fabric of my discipline. Anthropology emerged in the 19th Century alongside other social sciences like psychology, economics, sociology and political science. Each of these were efforts to understand humanity through the lens of scientific ways of knowing, but anthropology was unique in being focused on Otherness. Where the other disciplines grew from a study of European societies and individuals (i.e., the Self), anthropology began with this singular focus on how to understand the cultural and social Other.
This wasn’t necessarily an ennobling virtue, as anthropology has gone through (and still goes through) deep introspective angst about the ways our telling of the stories of others – often vulnerable, less-powerful, minoritized others – have been abused in the service of colonial, racist, sexist, and consumerist projects. But this history of introspection and self-examination has also meant that from the very beginning of my anthropological studies in 1993 I have been part of conversations about how to think about and handle the stories of others with care, intention, and justice.
While I don’t pretend that I, or anyone, has exhausted this conversation (as the vibrancy of this CACE seminar made clear), what struck me recently is how difficult it can be to tell our own stories. What makes it difficult is not the telling per se, but “telling” a story is only half of it; there is also someone who is hearing the story. And I think we have all asked ourselves at some point, “How will my story be received?” Part of the reason we need to be so careful in telling “their” stories is our awareness that stories can be manipulated, abused, and weaponized. What about our own stories? What does it mean to share those?
Mark Lewis, our workshop co-leader, frequently talks about his teaching acting in the theater as being about valuing story, telling story, receiving story, and holding story. He wants his students to be adept at all four of these qualities, and while we can each become better at receiving and holding another’s story, we can’t be sure the one hearing our own story will do it. Whether our partner(s) value, receive and hold our story is something we need to trust will happen.
Not everyone can be trusted with a story. As part of our workshop, we read a chapter by James Baldwin, a Black gay artist who often found his story crushed by the racism and bigotry of the majority white, U.S. society. In the chapter we read together, Baldwin laments the ways Hollywood twisted the stories of celebrated Black artists and leaders such as Billie Holiday and Malcom X to fit the container in which a white consumer could receive it. It was clear that Baldwin had no intention of allowing his story to be twisted and compressed in such a way. He withheld his story in many ways and only shared that which he could trust would survive this process. He certainly thought about who was able to tell another’s story, but he also considered, very carefully, how his own story would be told.
I want to believe that we can tell our story and it will be received and held and valued. I think about the woman caught in adultery and how those around her thought they knew her story, demanding she be put to death. Jesus forced those around her to look at their own stories first, and each walked away, knowing that their own stories would not stand up to scrutiny. Jesus lifted her up to say that he could receive her story, hold her story, and value her. For those of us who seek to follow Jesus, this is our example. I don’t know that most of us feel like we live in any community, Christian or not, where our story can be shared without the fear of stones. I fear that too often we all, myself certainly included, are too willing to twist another’s story to fit our own imagination, demanding they conform to what we’ve already learned and think we know. Too often we are unable, or perhaps refuse, to receive, hold, and value the fullness of another’s story.
We should continue to ask the question of who is able to tell the story of another. There are important questions of power, access, love, and justice bound up in that question. But at the same time, we need to recognize that these issues are bound up in how, when, and whether we are able to tell our own stories. There may be precious few places where we know we can tell our story and it will be received, held, and valued, but I pray each of us find those places. And may God grant that the Body of Christ be one of those precious places.