“When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.”
“I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.”
Examples of Written Stories: The Lenght of the Story is Up to You!!!
"My story of silence is about my great-grandmother who was beaten by her husband . . . "
"My story of silence is about how my family has been waiting for a FEMA trailer for 2 yrs. and FEMA continues to give us the run around."
"My story of silence is about how Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, Brittany Spear receive so much media coverage, but there's no media attention surrounding the genocide and systemic raping in Darfur!!"
"My story of silence is about how my community decided to mobilize against Chicago developers who were basically buying old apartments and converting them into condominiums and kicking residents who have lived there all there lives out. We pushed the developer out of our community. And of course none of the new stations covered this.
"My story of silence is about growing up in the Church and believing that a woman's virginity is important to the point of not being able to be comfortable with a man touching me sexually.
Example of Artwork showing a story of Silence!!
The story of the generations of Garrett women. Submitted by Fallon
The purpose of this blog is to document the silences within our relationships, within our homes, within our families, within our communities, within our jobs, within our schools, within our churches, temples, and synagogues, within our governments, and within our world. We want you to share with the world all your stories of injustice. Stories that the media, elected leaders, self appointed leaders, associations, and organizations choose to ignore and not speak out on. We want to document so many silences that the silences become uncensored uninhibited noise.
The beginning impetus behind this project of documenting the silence is the result of a shaming campaign that Gina McCauley at whataboutourdaughters is launching against Black Leaders and Black Organizations who have chosen not to speak on the Dunbar gang rape of a Haitian woman who was forced to perform oral sex on her son. Of course, I heard the story before Gina’s campaign, but was “silently” angry. And once my anger passed and I had analyzed the power constructs at play in the situation, I became silent. My Black feminist privilege allowed me to analyze and critique the crime, but after critiquing it and posting on several blogs, I too became silent.
It was not until my godmother who’s an old school Black feminist chastised my silence as a “crime.” And so, I started to think how I could aide people like Gina McCauley and brownfemipower blogger in their fight to break the silence around crimes committed against women of color. Well, I thought about what happened in West Palm Beach, but then I also thought about what happened to Sakia Gunn a 15 year-old African-American woman who was stabbed on May 11, 2003 because she told Richard McCullough that her and her friends were lesbians. Then I went on an internet search to uncover other “soul stealing” stories that were not nationalized by the media or elected/self appointed leaders. I discovered stories that dealt with rape of Iraqi girls and women. I discovered stories of Native American women raped in their tribal communities and how the federal government could not intervene given land property rights. I also discovered stories that dealt with Latina service women being raped in the US military.
In conjunction with finding stories of rape of women of color that were not nationalized by the media or elected/self appoint leaders and organizations, I also found stories that demonized women of color’s ability to mother such as the story of Carisa Ashe who was convicted in 1998 of murdering her new born because the autopsy showed that the baby was shaken to death and so in 2001 the Fulton County judge Rowland Barnes ordered Carisa to be sterilized.
At the moment, I am most concerned about the story Sametta Heyward who’s accused of killing her two children by leaving them in the car while she worked. Heyward says she left the kids in the car because her babysitter canceled. I think there is more to this story then what the media is telling especially if the story has anything to do with access to child care, poverty, racism and class. So, this is a potential story that is being investigated by some members of Ella’s Daughters.
All these stories made me grieve and they made me reflect on my mother’s story of domestic violence and how my family was silent about the beatings and how their silence affected my older sister and I. So, “documenting the silence” is a way to breathe continual noise into these stories of injustice so that people are aware and take responsibility for breaking the silences.
In general, stories to document can resemble those listed above or those that are very personalized such as the story of my older sister who was laid off before the 12th month of work so that the company did not have to provide benefits for my sister and her children. That’s a silence.
It is time to document the silences until the silences produce noises!!!
This type of documenting will consist of people using their written words to tell the story of silence. Written testaments can consist of and is not limited to various genres of writing (i.e. Personal testimonies, Prose, Poetry, playwriting, essay, quotes, phrases, etc.).
Video Documenting
This type of documenting will consist of people using PowerPoint, video images, movie making applications, music files to tell the story of silence. Video documenting can range from still shots with music to a full length documentary. This form of video documenting will be uploaded through Youtube and on this blog.
Sound Bites/ Music
This form of documenting is for people who express their stories of silence through sound and noise.
Visual Art Documenting
This form of documenting is for people who express their stories through the visual arts.
Class Assignments
This form of documenting is a way to ensure the longevity of this project and the continual archival of stories.
Established Documentarians
As this project moves forward, it is the hope that well established documentaries who are currently documenting silences will also post segments of their work.
Why Document the Silence?
We should document to break the silence.
We should document the silence so that it is amplified making all types of noises.
We should document to provide a space for those who were victimized to have an additional space to tell their narratives.
We should document as a future testament that some people did care enough to speak out.
We should document because systems of sexism, racism, homophobia, militarism, imperialism, ageism, class, and capitalism are tools of silence.
We should document because our lives are interconnected with each other and not to speak is to commit a crimes against ourselves.
Why the Internet?
Of course, I am conscious of the class privilege tied to these forms of documenting because all people do not have access to the internet. Hopefully, as this project moves forward we can envision ways to make documenting available for all people irrespective of class and economic positioning.However, I see the internet as a viable space to organize around issues of social injustices.
mother who’s an old school Black feminist chastised my silence as a “crime.” And so, I started to think how I could aide people like Gina McCauley and brownfemipower blogger in their fight to break the silence around crimes committed against women of color. Well, I thought about what happened in 
