Perhaps the one thing most widely insisted on in the literature of the oppressed is the need and right to tell one's story, both one's own and the community's. This is implicit of course in all of literature, as we have seen. But it is even more urgent in the literature of the oppressed because.....
In the foreword to Fontamara, a novel dealing with the exploitation of Italian peasants, Ignazio Silone argues for the right of everyone to be heard: "Let everyone, then, have the right to tell his story in his own way."{7} Both aspects are crucial-to tell one's story and to tell it in one's own way of speaking-and both have ethical implications. Suppressing people's stories, whether consciously (as when slaves were forbidden to learn to read and write) or unconsciously, is immoral. But so may be presuming to speak for someone (as well-meaning reformers often have done) or requiring them to speak only in the public language. The black poet Langston Hughes understood this:
. . . someday somebody'll Stand up and talk about me. And write about me- Black and beautiful- And sing about me, And put on plays about me! And I reckon it'll be Me myself! Yes, it'll be me.
One of the problems with telling one's story in one's own way is that the oppressor often controls language.
"The exile of a poet is today a simple function of a relatively recent discovery: that whoever wields power is also able to control language and not only with the prohibitions of censorship but also by changing the meaning of words. . . . [W]hole zones of reality cease to exist simply because they have no name." This is why merely telling one's story can be a revolutionary act-and it is not only Communists who suppress stories.
The opportunity to tell one's story is at the heart of our sense of justice. All legal systems call for the airing of stories, including that of the accused, as the necessary precondition for justice being done. The right to speak is given to the vilest criminal. (God even allowed Adam and Eve a chance to tell their side.) But there is also an ethical responsibility to listen to these stories, and to listen without prejudgment. We recognize that a court which goes through the motions of listening to the accused but which has already made its decision beforehand is not a just court. As there are ethical implications in allowing the marginalized to tell their stories in literature, there are also great implications in how we listen and respond.
The literature of the oppressed believes not only in the right of and need for storytelling, but also in its power. Storytelling can change things-within the storyteller, within the hearers, and, perhaps, even within the larger society. Most of all, storytelling has the power to heal. A battered woman in the opening line of a short story by Jane Augustine reveals the psychological necessity of bearing witness: "If I don't tell someone, I'm not sure what will happen. I'll crack perhaps."
Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said he and his staff were recently invited to a Friday afternoon “happy hour” on the terrace of Mr. Brown’s office.
“If you had to pick from a handful of Republicans who you can work with and who will be predisposed to do something together,” Mr. Schumer said. “He is one of them.”
Political reality suggests that Mr. Brown must now position himself in the center if he hopes to be re-elected. On Thursday, in the Armed Services Committee, he voted against repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law that bars gay men and lesbians from serving openly in the military — a stance certain to anger some voters in Massachusetts, where gay marriage is legal.
“I’m a fiscal hawk and a security hawk,” Mr. Brown said. “On the other issues I am going to look at every one of them and make a decision accordingly.”
