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The Power of Storytelling, A Collaborative Episode with Minorities in Publishing Podcast · Restorative Works

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Hello, are we going we're going?
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It's going, but I have to ask for your permission first.
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So Jennifer, Jen, Tiffany, Dwayne, do we have your permission to use your image and likeness in our podcast and promotions?
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Yes you do.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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This is Jennifer Baker, yes.
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Perfect.
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All right, take it away.
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All right.
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Welcome to this collaborative episode of Minorities in Publishing and Restorative Works.
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I'm so happy to be here with this phenomenal group of people.
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And my name is Jennifer Baker or Jen Baker.
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I go back with she, her pronouns, and I am the creator and host of the Minorities in Publishing podcast, which is 11 years running.
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And you can find it at www.minoritiesinpublishing.com.
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I'll pass it to Claire.
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Thank you.
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And I am so happy to be here as well and to learn from all of you.
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My name is Claire de Miserby Lopez.
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I say hello to everybody from Costa Rica in Central America, and I am the host of the Restorative Works Podcast, which is a podcast to share stories on how the implementation
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of restorative practices is making a difference in communities and places of work.
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This episode dedicated to a round table discussion centers us around the power of storytelling.
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And today we're speaking with three powerful leaders and activists about how to keep hope in dire times, illuminating issues affecting our communities, radical empathy, arts as
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means to tell real life stories, and the effects of genuine engagement in community resilience.
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Jen, tell us a little bit about these wonderful people.
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I know we had to truncate these bios, but everyone again, I cannot emphasize the word phenomenal, wonderful, thoughtful enough in terms of every person who's in this space.
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First, we have Reginald Duane Betts, a poet and lawyer, a 2021 MacArthur Fellow.
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He is the founder and CEO of Freedom Reads, a not-for-profit organization that is radically transforming the access to literature in prisons through the installation of
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freedom libraries in prisons across the country.
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Betts has authored several books, including the poetry collections, Bastard of the Regan Era, which is one of my favorites and I teach it all the time, and Felon.
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Jennifer Correus is the coordinator and co-founder of the program Literacy for Reconciliation for Contextos in El Salvador and Chicago, leading the work in prisons and
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communities accompanying authors in their journeys of self-discovery.
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She has been recognized with numerous fellowships and scholarships, including the Rocky Gooch.
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Memorial Scholarship and the Esperanza Fellowship.
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So happy to have you here, Jennifer.
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And Tiffany Yu is award-winning social impact entrepreneur, disability advocate and content creator.
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She's the founder and CEO of Diversability, a social enterprise to elevate disability pride and build disability power.
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Her book, The Anti-Ablest Manifesto is available now.
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I am reading it now and I love every word that Tiffany has shared with us.
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So I'm so happy again to have you all here.
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I have it as well.
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And I will not get started because then we will postpone listening to these wonderful leaders and introducing the questions that we prepared.
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So Jen and I have been preparing some questions that will guide this conversation.
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We're going to go around four questions that help us to navigate the subjects that we described before.
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I will start with the first question and I will cue the order so that we can listen to everybody and then move on to the next.
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theme.
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And the first question that we would like to explore is how has storytelling propelled you into awareness and action?
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And if I may, Jennifer, can we start with you?
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How has storytelling propelled you into awareness and action?
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Thank you, Claire and Jen.
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It's so nice to be here.
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Thank you for having me.
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I think this is such a beautiful question because storytelling is like the root and the seed of every action for transformation.
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I think in my experience as a teacher, creative writing teacher in different contexts in communities and also juvenile detention centers and prisons, what I found is that stories,
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the stories of the people that have lived.
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these stories is what really informs any action.
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It's not only a way to be sensitive about these issues, but also to inform action projects, innovation based on true live stories.
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So I feel like every program that we have designed in context beyond creative writing has been informed by the stories, the real stories of the people that have lived them.
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It's not just about data or research or theory.
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It's about what people really say about their stories.
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And I think it's such a wonderful compliment to not only be part of those voices, but also take them to a place where they can become instruments for social transformation.
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And I remember speaking with Miguel and Flor, Miguel Tello and Flor Garcia that co-edited with you this book about restorative practices in Central America and how they said,
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Jennifer facilitated this process with us in a way that it was a collective process of creation so we could create these chapters.
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And soon we really want to hear more about this work that you're describing.
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Tiffany.
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If I may, how has storytelling propelled you into awareness and action?
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think about the work that I do around dismantling ableism and the definition of ableism that I use is when we devalue someone based on the way their body and their mind works.
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And part of the way that I think we combat that and focus on the equitable value of people's disabled bodies and their minds is through story, is through humanizing our
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experiences.
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I also agree with what Jennifer said that
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I think for me, depending on who you are, maybe the data and the research and the theory is something that resonates with you more.
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But for a lot of people and for me, especially as I was writing my book, I wanted to make sure that I colored all of those concepts with as many stories from within the disability
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community as possible.
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Because I also just think about not only with the
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devaluing definition is also just the dehumanization, the ways we're thought of as burdens and afterthoughts.
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And I think part of how we create allyship is people really being able to see the wholeness and fullness of who we are.
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And a lot of that is done through storytelling.
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And I think that is so important.
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I read Ali's Wang's disability visibility and I brought it up to some of my colleagues in the university and they were amazed about reading stories that of course we have them in
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Costa Rica, but they have not yet been placed in a book.
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And there's such a pathway forward to continue to explore.
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Dwayne.
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How has storytelling propelled you into awareness and action?
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You know, it's interesting being on this call and listening to other people discuss how stories have been affected and impacted their work because I recognize that, you you think
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about intersections of work, you recognize that if we're all in community, then we are constantly in community with people who have different challenges.
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And now I recognize something deeply significant about my own work and that my work begins with myself.
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I called Jack somebody when I was 16 years old, I picked up a gun, I had no good reason to do it.
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And I had to tell myself a story about how I would become somebody after that.
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And the first story that I told myself was that I would be a writer.
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But in making that commitment to be a writer, it gave me, it equipped me with the tools to begin to understand my own life.
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So much so that as I got older and I started to realize how sometimes the world will not just provide you with explanations and rationales and excuses for what you did, but the
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world will strip you of agency.
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The world will say that your incarceration was a product of slavery, that your incarceration was a product of racism.
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They will say everything to you, but your incarceration was the product of a pistol and violence.
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But when you don't get a job,
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you know that the reason why you didn't get a job is because of your incarceration, because people in the world feel insecure about your presence.
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And I recognize that the only way to alleviate the insecurity that people feel, whether it's rational or not, is to tell stories of the full breadth of who people are and not let
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people simply hold on to the story of violence, which is a true story.
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And this is why, for me, some of the ways in which we try to think about incarceration is stemming from one of the...
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more consequential sins of American history.
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One of the reasons why we have to figure out how to disconnect incarceration from that narrative is because the sort of lack of safety that led to my incarceration, the lack of
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safety I produced is why people continue to feel insecure by my presence.
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telling a more robust, profound, and true story of who I am and of who we are today.
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I'm 44 years old.
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I'm no longer the 16-year-old boy with the pistol.
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And even when I was sent to the prison, I was not that 16-year-old boy with the pistol.
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I know I haven't done an effective enough job of telling that story.
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And I know that that's one of the reasons why the sort of continued discrimination, the continued challenges, the continued challenges I had with like loving and forgiving myself
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and my whole community, my whole team, thinking about my community and team being people who.
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are currently in prison who have loved ones in prison.
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We are looking for the narrative and the story that helps us understand where we live.
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And I actually know that those stories were much better than policy arguments because I've listened to the policy arguments for, you know, for the past 20 years and I've seen how
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they've fallen short and they've fallen short because the foundation of a lot of those arguments is an untrue story.
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That is so powerful.
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As we move on to the next question, and if it's okay with everybody, I would like to swap the order a little bit and start with Tiffany, pass it on to Dwayne, and then listen to
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Jennifer.
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And our second question asks about the collective experience of storytelling.
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Can you share more about the different methods that you use to engage people, to join together, to share and learn from the art of storytelling?
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Tiffany, can we start with you?
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Yeah, I actually loved Dwayne's answer.
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I would use the word profound.
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I would probably add to that too about really understanding.
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Like I think about that question, what stories are we telling ourselves first?
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And then how that understanding trickles out.
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But in terms of the collective, I mean, I think back to...
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DiversAbility's early years.
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And when we first started, we used to host a series called DiversAbility Unplugged.
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We actually still host that series.
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And for us, it was a moth-like or a TEDx talk-like series where we would essentially create a stage for our disabled community members to share their stories for five minutes.
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And one of the things we realized at the time, and this was around 2015, so about 10 years ago,
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was that we felt like we were one of the first places that many of our disabled community members shared their stories for the first time.
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And if it didn't happen in a live event environment, we also had an asynchronous community where people could share their stories through text that way.
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And...
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I think part of it is, I think back to this quote from Emily Ladow, who's another disability advocate.
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And she says, in order to make the world more accessible, we need to make our experiences as disabled people more accessible to the world.
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And I think about that other TEDx talk where it's like the danger of a single narrative.
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And I think that's so much of the reason why harmful stereotypes around disability is that
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The media only portrayed one single narrative around disability, which is that our sheer existence is tragic.
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And if we're not tragic, we're otherwise superheroes.
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And I think part of what I wanted to showcase, not only through our Diversability Community and Event Series, but also through the book, was that, number one, we're not a
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monolith, but hopefully...
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the collective of all of our stories together can help you develop your own views around what disability looks like and how you can better show up for us.
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And at the same time.
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I think also just showcase how extraordinarily ordinary some of us are, that we're not sitting in these extremes of stories that the media tends to lean into.
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So I'm a big fan of firsthand accounts, really again, sharing the wholeness of who we are and giving people a platform who may not feel like they have had one before to really tell
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their own stories in their own words.
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Wow, thank you so much.
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Dwayne, tell us more about the collective experience of storytelling.
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You know, it's interesting because,
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I mean, I do think it's a skill for me as a writer.
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And I think it's something to be said for the ways in which, as a writer, I want somebody to be empowered to understand that it's a process that comes with telling a story.
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I teach literature.
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And I teach literature and creative writing to students who are brilliant and are often trying to figure out how to tell their own stories.
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And it is not easy.
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And so one of the things...
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I feel it's necessary to do is remind people that it is art to this.
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And for somebody to be able to tell the full bandwidth of a story well, oftentimes they need to be trained.
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I wouldn't, I'm a lawyer.
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I spent three years learning how to be a lawyer and then didn't really learn how to be a lawyer until I spent a year working like 90 hours a week for a federal judge.
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You know, and so I actually believe that the significance of creating these platforms for people to tell their stories is twofold.
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One,
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You want people to feel empowered to hear their stories.
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Two, you want people to feel empowered to understand what it means to tell a story well.
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When you allow yourself to have no control over the story that you tell, when you allow yourself to have no control over the people who tell the stories that include you, then
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sometimes you advocate the ability to ensure that the full range of the story is told.
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But as a writer, and it's my job, and it's what I do in the world, I want to always be clear that there is different levels to this.
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I am not Rah Kim.
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I am not Kendrick Lamar.
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I have never held a Stradivarian.
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And far too often people think that because you have words, you have the ability to craft a story.
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Now, that is just not true.
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And one of the things that we suffer from is not taking our story seriously enough that we home to telling a story.
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Everybody ain't Marquez.
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Everybody is not going to produce 100 years of solitude, but everybody should read it.
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Everybody should hear it.
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And so one of the things that I struggle with with Freedom Reads, you we build libraries, freedom libraries, and we put them in prison cell blocks and it's only 500 books.
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That is not the world of literature.
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That means that we are being discerning.
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That means that we are constantly choosing what stories to tell and what stories not to tell.
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And it means that as somebody who runs an organization that does include people who are formerly incarcerated, does include people who have been victims of crimes, does include
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people who have family members that are incarcerated, that all of us are collectively thinking about what it means to have our stories told, but also being able to confront the
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fact that it's not always us who wants to tell the story.
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And I'm telling you, man, I hear Tiffany talking and I realize in the last 24 months when I've been profoundly, sometimes irreconcilably depressed on my floor weeping and unable to
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get up, that my ability to tell that story, to understand it, to say it out loud.
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to say that I was so distraught that I had to go to see a therapist and begin to understand if my brain actually was working different from other people's.
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And then confront people in the world who kept discrediting the idea that I might have ADHD.
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When I got confronted with that, I realized that, you know, actually, I can't even tell that story about ADHD yet because I don't fully understand it.
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But it is my story.
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And so if I step on the stage,
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If I step in front of a group of people and try to tell that story, I understand that I'm gonna cause more damage than good.
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And so when I think about the collective use of storytelling, the community use of storytelling, it is also trying to understand that, you have voice and it means you can
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speak, but it doesn't mean that you have to always speak.
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It just means that you have to be aware that you have to trust members of the community to do their work.
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And far too often we take a word like storytelling and translate that into anybody can do it.
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And I'm sorry, I spent way too many hours learning how to tell a story poorly to allow somebody who just wanted to step on a stage, believe that they could represent something
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as troubling.
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as trying to change somebody's mind.
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When changing that person's mind is literally, literally the only thing between freedom and a life in prison.
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Dwayne, thank you so much.
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Jennifer, what do you think?
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Man, that's so powerful, man.
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That's amazing.
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I think it's just a lot of things that resonate with me.
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Especially, think, we think about writing an expression, I think, as you said, it doesn't always translate into a publishable craft.
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I think when we...
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In context as we do this program is called soy autor, which means it's an affirmative sentence.
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I'm an author.
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And by that, we don't necessarily mean that I'm going to be a published author.
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You might choose to become one and you learn what it means and what it takes.
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But I think there's a difference between writing for publishing and other purposes for writing.
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And in author circle in soy autor, we explore all those different
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purposes for writing for some of them and we do this at very early stage on the writing process we ask ourselves why do you want why do I want to write this?
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Why do I want to publish something?
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And for some of them it the purpose that they choose is that they want to figure out a situation.
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That is their purpose.
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For others the purpose is because I want to tell my mom this.
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for others because I want to speak to others that have lived this situation.
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For some others, it really becomes this great desire of being a published author and that the story is amplified to different audiences.
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But I think when we define the purpose of why to write, I think that is the key.
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And also defining the audience.
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I was just remembering this morning as I was preparing for this,
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the latest author circle, Autor, that we had, we were with a group of teenagers.
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And one of them, I mean, they have stories that range from suicide, trying to commit suicide, to having a great time with their siblings.
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And both any stories, any range of stories, whenever you put your heart and your mind into a purpose,
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you can display the whole complexity of a story.
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And I think Dwayne mentioned how the story can unfold all the different parts of you without one being more important than the other or one being more true than the other.
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And I think that is also the beauty of writing, also the beauty of listening to others, listening to others people writing.
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Like we had students that part of the process is that you choose what you wanna write.
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You can choose to write about a birthday party that you have, even if you yourself have a story of harming somebody else.
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But you choose to write about your birthday party and that's okay.
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But somebody else will dare to write about that story of harming others.
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And you learn by writing your birthday story, but you also learn about that one that wrote about harming others or being harmed.
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So think that when we listened to all the different levels of bravery, think, you also learn how to be brave through others.
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And at the same time, when you listen to published stories about other authors being brave enough to say the things that you don't dare to say yet, I think that's powerful.
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Yeah, thank you all so much for that.
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This is Jen Baker returning and I'm going to circle back to some of the things that have been said that have very have had me really doing the church and all that while I've been
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on mute because my question is about what narratives have felt honest and I say honest rather than the word authenticity that can be used, especially where I work in the
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publishing industry.
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Because honest feels like it's more about the reader and the emotional impact and how that can also shape the way we see things.
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And so in hearing everyone and Jennifer talking about the bravery and the choices we're making and Dwayne you talking about like starting with the eye and also the work that this
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entails, Of like understanding the ways to tell story and coming into your voice.
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And Tiffany, you talking about the accessibility of all of that and what it can do.
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and that kind of tying into the accessibility with the policy and how that can change that as Dwayne mentioned.
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So the cohesion of this whole conversation is coming down to also elements of this question of what narratives have felt honest to you and shaped the way that you see
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storytelling.
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And if you can, if there is an example, like a brief example you could give to how of like,
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even in your own work, right?
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Like what has felt honest in what you've produced or really what helped you produce something or see something differently.
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I'd love to start with Dwayne and then go to Tiffany and then go to Jennifer.
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You know, and I want to make sure I say something though, because I do think it's a difference.
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And I appreciate what Jennifer just said.
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I do think it's a difference between the professional storyteller and how we want to tell stories within our community.
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I think that it's always, it's a difference between me going to hoop on a basketball court and me being LeBron James.
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And I just want to be clear about that.
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So I do think like all stories, we need to cultivate the ability to tell our stories.
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But I also think we need to cultivate the humility that lets us understand that there are really levels to it.
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But also, also, right, our stories aren't just tragedy.
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And so when somebody says, I want to write this story about my birthday party, that is just as significant because one of the lies that we are told is that the only stories that
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matter are stories that somehow reflect our trauma, somehow reflect our tragedies.
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And so I'll tell one story and I did want to tell a story
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somebody else told but I'm gonna tell this story by myself because I've been writing about the penitentiary for the last 20 years and I recognize that writing about the penitentiary
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has in some ways been rewarding and have opened up an immense number of doors for me but in some ways has been so limiting because people imagine that my life is just it's just
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sorrow and they imagine that sorrow is the end of the road but I got hip to something recently see because when I when I got depressed
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First of all, people suggested that because I was depressed, I was breaking down and not that I was depressed and I was building an organization up from three people to 20, that I
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was raising millions of dollars, that I was walking independent centuries doing what I believe and still believe is deeply meaningful work that I will keep doing, that you do
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that work even when you barely getting up in the morning.
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Because we come from a tradition of people that is humanity, that has consistently done the work of living even when they were barely able to get up in the morning.
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But I want to say something else, because I've realized what has devastated people in recent time about my own life, where they have come to me and said, are you OK?
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It's because they've seen a man weeping in public.
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And I thought to myself, and this is like the truest thing I think I've said maybe in my life ever as a writer, is we do not weep enough.
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is that we get criticized because we cry, because we are filled with sorrow as if the world should not be inspiring more sorrow than we can take.
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It is a reason why the flood is a metaphor for the world coming to Sunday and then being rebuilt again.
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And I've realized like, what if the second O of sorrow is the first O of joy?
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And I wrote a line and it said, nothing grows without weeping, not even joy.
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We imagine that we can stand up in front of the audience and tell a story of joy that is somehow disconnected from whatever sorrow we've witnessed, we've experienced, we've seen,
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and that is a lie.
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And so in terms of the stories I tell these days, that is the truest story I know because I have came to know who I am and who I want to be by being unafraid.
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to let the emotions, whether it's sorrow, joy, or frustration, lead my body to produce the water that will allow me to continue to grow.
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Thank you so much for that, Dwayne.
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And yeah, I agree a lot.
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Like it's, the interconnection is constant.
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It's constant.
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Tiffany?
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also want to echo what Dwayne said around the fact that stories exist everywhere.
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So I may tell my therapist a story.
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I may be on a stage and tell a story.
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I may be among friends and talking about birthday parties, right?
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And so I think it's, I love that distinction between the professional storyteller and the skill around that.
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But then, and then even again, coming back to stories we tell ourselves, the internal dialogue that is going on as well.
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But I think, you know, I've been thinking a lot about your question around honest stories.
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And I will tie it back to authenticity because I think about this a lot.
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And I think about who the audience is.
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And so I will tell my,
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who the audience is and my hope is that I may not be bringing the full honest story in all places at all times, but I think about the impact that I would like to achieve.
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So for example, if I think about storytelling through the lens of advocacy, an honest story is how can I provide context?
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in a persuasive way so that the person that I'm speaking with can join me in solidarity or if they're in a position of power make changes knowing that I don't know I'm their
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constituent or this issue is personally important to me for all of these reasons.
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And at the same time that version of that story may be very different than the one I share
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in small groups with trusted friends or with my therapist, which are how can I sit in my grief and heal through the hard parts of existing in this body in all of its minoritized
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forms?
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And my hope is that
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If you take all of these stories and put them together, it represents the wholeness of who I am.
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I just may not be bringing all parts of those all the time.
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And I guess one specific example could be, I just started para-climbing, which means top rope climbing for people with disabilities.
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And if I'm talking, and for context, for those who are not aware, one of my arms is paralyzed in a car accident.
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And if I'm in a community of other para climbers, we're all talking about strategy and tact about how we get on the wall.
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Versus if I'm posting something on social media, it's about raising visibility and awareness that para climbing exists.
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Versus if I'm talking to my coach.
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Again, I guess similar to the Paraclimbing community, but I'm specifically asking about how to climb with one arm and on the team right now, I'm the only one who does that.
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So then it's also going into communities of people who can also only climb with one arm to encourage them to come over and join the Paraclimbing community and know that it is
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possible to climb if you only have one arm.
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And then perhaps on Instagram, or actually I already said Instagram.
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Perhaps, I don't know.
31:22
And so I think about this one story of, and then there's another story, which is Tiffany during her pre-disabled era, which was Tiffany before nine years old, loved rock climbing.
31:34
And I had so many different memories of rock climbing at friends' birthday parties when I could climb with two arms.
31:42
And the journey of Tiffany rediscovering and finding her inner child in some ways,
31:48
of getting back on the wall again.
31:50
all of the, and in some ways overcoming a lot of that internal dialogue I had that it wouldn't be possible for me to get back onto the wall now in this disabled body.
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So that's also a different story, right?
32:03
And so it's all of those versions.
32:05
I don't know if that was the best example, but it's just something that's been top of mind recently.
32:09
But all of those are to me honest stories.
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I'm just.
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determining who my audience is for those different ones to determine which parts of that story I share.
32:22
And I will say, Paraclimbing is becoming a competitive sport.
32:25
so perhaps there, not perhaps, there definitely is a very large mental health component, as we've seen from Olympic athletes who decided not to compete in certain years, or
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Paralympic athletes who due to certain injuries, aren't able to make the team.
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So also being able to balance that side.
32:44
And the emotional part of entering a competitive sport may be a conversation I talk to about with someone else.
32:53
perhaps not the best example, but just again, it's for me the honest story is if I take all of those different puzzle pieces and put them together, all of those are still Tiffany
33:05
stories.
33:05
They're just used in different ways depending on who the audience is.
33:11
No, that was a great example.
33:12
Thank you.
33:12
Because it shows the variance and it ties to what everyone's been speaking about, especially Duane of like, like, where are we looking and how are we not confining, but we
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are really focusing what the story is rather than doing all the things.
33:26
So I really appreciate that.
33:27
And fellow Jennifer, your thoughts?
33:32
yes.
33:33
I think I'm just going to mirror what Dwayne and Tiffany said.
33:38
I think it's interesting that we have so many different experiences.
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But whenever we talk about storytelling, it becomes also a very similar experience of how we think about how we create these spaces.
33:54
So I think the example that I want to give is based on two aspects.
33:59
The first one that I think went to
34:01
Dwayne talk about vulnerability and how vulnerability it's important and part of the craft.
34:08
Just give me one second.
34:09
I think there's somebody washing dishes and I think you can hear a little bit of that, right?
34:13
Just give me a sec.
34:36
Hi, I'm back again.
34:39
So I'm going to start a little bit over.
34:42
So I was saying that it's interesting how when we think about storytelling, we mirror each other in spite of how many differences in our contexts are.
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And it's wonderful to have this conversation to see how our stories intertwine to one another.
35:00
So my example is based on two aspects.
35:03
The first one is vulnerability that I think Duane talked
35:06
a little bit about.
35:08
And the other one is based on, think, when you give yourself up, and I'm going to talk a little bit about that later, that speaks a little bit about what Tiffany said.
35:19
We had this author, we had this writer, her name is Betty.
35:23
And whenever we were at the beginning of the writing process, we asked her, as we asked everyone, why do you want to write?
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Why?
35:34
and who's your audience and what story you want to tell.
35:38
And she said from the bottom of her heart that she wanted to write a story about how her kid was born in prison.
35:48
And she wanted to write about this because she wanted to tell him that in spite of being born in prison, his life should not be tied to this experience.
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That was her whole reason why to write.
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Her audience was her kid.
36:05
But when she started writing her first draft, she wrote about a lot of other things that had nothing to do or a lot to do with this one story that she picked.
36:14
And she wrote about being an orphanage.
36:17
She wrote about her parents migrating to the United States and never coming back.
36:22
She wrote about living in the street.
36:24
She wrote about being abused.
36:28
She wrote about not being, not being,
36:31
not having access to education.
36:33
She wrote a lot about a lot of things.
36:36
And whenever we asked the question back, are you still sure you want to write about your kid growing up in prison as a baby?
36:46
And she said yes, which meant that she had to go back to her draft and repurpose her writing, her draft.
36:55
And she put aside everything that had to do with other things.
36:59
to write the story about her kid.
37:02
And I think it's not that those other stories did not happen.
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What happened is that she chooses to prioritize one of them and put light into this one.
37:16
And then again, we heard and the whole group heard the story about my grandparents living in the streets.
37:25
We were the audience for all those other stories.
37:28
But the one that made the book was the story that had an intention for her kid to know that his destiny was not tied to prison.
37:40
And I think that says a lot about not only you become vulnerable to access your own emotion and let others access those really hard emotions, but at the same time, you put
37:53
the story first.
37:56
you are brave enough to say all these stories are important, but this is the one that I wanna dedicate right now my time to.
38:08
So I think that give yourself up is like, you put your story first and you think about the audience and the impact you wanna make, and you realize that maybe your other stories have
38:21
other places and other times to be released.
38:24
because they need to be released.
38:26
But whenever I think about honest stories is whenever there is a clear purpose of what you wanna do with it and you stick into it.
38:41
Thank you so much for that.
38:42
And it makes me think that all of those other stories are still the story too.
38:48
So like how we're like looking at it in the frame of maybe each piece of what Tiffany was mentioning is still true.
38:57
Like there's still truth in that and inherent connectivity to who, where this child comes from, the lineage and the power in that lineage.
39:07
So it's very beautiful.
39:08
Thank you so much for sharing that.
39:11
I'm gonna circle back with the last question and I'm sorry it's the last question because I've had just an utterly wonderful time just listening to all of you.
39:19
And also I know we got stuff to do.
39:24
Change the world and all that good stuff in our free time.
39:28
So my last question is, in y'all's opinion, what values or commitments can help us to restore present and active listening in spaces for storytelling?
39:39
And I'm thinking not just about what y'alls have said today, but also in the ways that y'alls have shared your stories in writing, in video, and in other forms.
39:49
I'm thinking about Dwayne Redaction, what you did with that collaboration with Titus Kaffar, and how we're melding the visual and the textual, and how that kind of propels in
40:00
a way that can really show a message, if one wants to call it a message, but also really strongly.
40:07
viewpoint and an understanding and bring a reader in or even Tiffany the way that you've structured the anti-abolist manifesto where it's like it's about you it's like your
40:18
community it's about society and how that structure even kind of impacts the way that I think about the way I can commit or what the values that are being posited to me of like I
40:29
didn't know this and this is how I'm connected we're connected we're all connected
40:36
And Jennifer, in the example you just gave of like looking back at all those stories that came to be able to bring forth the story that was the intended one and how that was just
40:46
needed for the creator to do that.
40:50
So again, in your opinion, what values or commitments can help us to restore present and active listening in spaces for storytelling?
40:59
And I'm going to go to Tiffany, then Jennifer, then Dwayne.
41:07
Ooh, this is a deep question.
41:12
I think a lot about...
41:18
saying sharing without the expectation of response and in our work
41:30
many of us in the disability community do have some trauma in our stories.
41:36
And I want to amplify what Dwayne said, that that is not the sole reason of our existence is to recount those stories.
41:47
But I think in my own personal journey, I did some work around learning the difference between oversharing and vulnerability.
41:58
And my understanding was oversharing was, let me tell you all these things and hope that you still pick me or choose me.
42:08
While vulnerability was, let me share something and what I've learned throughout, what I've learned through it without expectation of response.
42:18
So when you ask this question about the listener, right, I was doing the research around oversharing versus vulnerability from a storyteller perspective.
42:27
I think about listening without the expectation of response, I guess.
42:33
And I wonder if part of those is sharing, is having an open dialogue about the expectation or not having them at the outset.
42:46
And it reminds me of a chapter in my book around not giving unsolicited advice.
42:51
And a part of...
42:54
part of the listening is asking a follow-up question, what type of response are you looking for?
42:59
Or even before something is shared, kind of just setting those to say, are you looking for feedback?
43:05
Are you looking for, know, and if you're not looking for anything, that's okay too.
43:10
So I don't know what values are affiliated with that per se, but.
43:20
I even think the response of I'm still digesting or processing or I'm not quite sure how to respond could be a good starting point for the conversation.
43:33
But when you were talking about values, related slash unrelated, is I did take a quiz a couple years ago called the Via Character Assessment.
43:43
And it's a free quiz you can take that actually tells you what your values are backed by.
43:48
science by taking, you know, seven general virtues and distilling them down into maybe 30 values or something.
43:55
And I took that quiz a little while ago because essentially what I appreciated out of it is that I found so much of my work leaned into some of those top values.
44:07
And I think for each of us, either as storytellers or listeners,
44:12
to better understand the things that we value and how we can see those reflected back in the stories that are told to us as a listener can potentially help guide us, help guide
44:24
us.
44:25
Yeah, help guide us.
44:26
And maybe I'll end it there.
44:28
I don't know if I have a fully formed thought per se as to how to answer that question.
44:36
but thank you for the oversharing and vulnerability.
44:38
I'm definitely gonna apply that even when I teach as well or work with writers, because I feel like that is something that people toggle with so much and don't realize it at all.
44:49
Thank you.
44:50
Jennifer?
44:55
Yes, think what Tiffany said just echoed me a lot.
45:02
I think that not only, as she mentioned, not expect a response or not feeling obligated to respond.
45:13
I also think that for the writers who share, I think being aware that you might receive any response and be ready for that.
45:24
Because what happens is that, you know, when you write it and you spend so much time writing about this one story, you have thought about it a hundred times, you have probably
45:33
shared it with others, and you have probably resignified that story to yourself.
45:40
But the audience that come to you and hear your story for the first time, it's the first time listening to your story, and they might not react at the same way that you wish they
45:53
react.
45:54
So they might be angry, they might respond angry, they might respond with indifference, they might respond with empathy, they might respond with, you know, they might not respond
46:04
in a way that feels right to you.
46:07
But I think we have to give the right for others to respond the way they wanna respond.
46:15
Because...
46:18
it's the first time really listening to a story and they haven't been they haven't gone through that process.
46:23
So I think being aware of that it's important.
46:27
And the other thing that came to mind is its connection.
46:32
think whenever we know that the story of other is also my story.
46:37
I think that's when it makes sense.
46:39
Like a story that might look very different from mine.
46:44
But when I think about connection, probably
46:47
I make more connection with that story more than I thought at the beginning.
46:54
So I think having in mind this idea that all of our stories become...
47:03
become ours, you know?
47:06
And finding those connection tissues between all of them, whether we look very different or we seem to be different, think connection, I think it's a big part of it.
47:18
Yeah, it's crucial.
47:19
It's crucial.
47:20
Thank you so much.
47:21
And Duane?
47:24
Yeah, you know, found that bit about oversharing to be, you know, deeply, deeply important.
47:32
I guess the thing I wanted to say is...
47:39
Part of what listening is is making a commitment to seeing somebody else.
47:44
And it may be violence as the ultimate form of erasure.
47:51
And it's sort of profoundly difficult to accept that when you engage in violence, whether it is violence or the tongue or physical violence, your very act is to make somebody else
48:02
literally invisible.
48:05
And I think the...
48:07
The thing about storytelling is it might be the most honest way that we approach attempting to see another human being.
48:18
when I asked myself how to most genuinely and honestly engage in that act, I think it's just that frank admission that when we write, are ultimately trying to write ourselves
48:35
into existence.
48:37
Not because we don't believe that we're here, but because we fear what happens when we say too much.
48:46
I completely understand that when you walk into a room and tell a story, that person is hearing that story for the first time.
48:54
But I hope that I remember when I hear a story for the first time, I can accept that that person telling the story is trying to live.
49:03
It's trying to do more than just...
49:06
pontificate is trying to do more than just be loved.
49:12
It's trying to do more than just have a pet on the back because I have been guilty of sharing way too much with people in this world and know what it means to tell somebody
49:21
something and had them close a door on you.
49:24
To tell you that because you said this thing that you somehow unworthy.
49:30
to say something to somebody because you are hurting and they say all you want to do is X.
49:36
And I think it's important for me to note that all of us sometimes are insecure storytelling.
49:42
And that just does not mean that our stories don't matter.
49:45
You know, I think that stories aren't violence.
49:49
And I think that stories can actively not be violence.
49:54
And you know when a story is violent.
49:56
So for me,
49:59
I think as a listener, somebody told me once, Dwayne, you always say, you don't need to thank me.
50:08
And he was like, you can't say that to me.
50:10
Because saying thank you is a story that I am giving you.
50:14
And if you tell me that I don't need to say it to you, you are affirming the fact that you do not need to be seen.
50:23
Listening is really acknowledging.
50:26
that somebody telling you a story is both trying to be seen by you and trying to admit that you are also somebody worthy of being seen.
50:38
Yeah, listening is also the hardest thing to do, it feels like.
50:45
Especially when you get in that dating pool, but like in life in general.
50:51
Do you hear me?
50:53
so glad you said that.
50:54
Cause this is the thing, right?
50:56
I ain't even gonna lie to you.
50:56
You I just got divorced and everything and I'm happily not in a dating pool, but for real, like listening is so much the hardest thing to do, especially when you want to be loved
51:06
and especially when you talking to somebody that you want to be in community with.
51:10
It is three people on this call.
51:12
I have so actively struggled to listen.
51:14
And then after I got over the burden of the struggle, I have been deeply, deeply and profoundly rewarded.
51:21
from listening to all of you.
51:23
And I actually appreciate it.
51:24
And I appreciate the laugh.
51:26
Hmm.
51:29
I had, you should have heard me on mute.
51:34
But I cannot thank y'all enough because I came out of this richer, I came out of this conversation change and those are the best conversations to have and I was listening as
51:45
well.
51:46
So I'm so glad everyone was here to share, to hear and this will not be the last time we all touch base with each other.
51:55
the work we do is important and who we are is important.
51:58
So I can't say thank you enough to Reginald Duane Betts, Jennifer Correios, and Tiffany Yu, and Claire, and Dana for collaborating on this episode, for sharing and being in the
52:12
circle with us.
52:13
Pleased to learn more about all these incredible guests.
52:17
Make sure to go to the button.
52:18
with an eye on this episode and to learn more about minorities in publishing and about restorative works, please follow the links in this episode's description that will come
52:27
once it is posted.
52:29
And I, Jan, I just want to thank you again for making this possible and all of you.
52:34
My heart is filled with gratitude and you know, let's continue to embrace our common humanity and everybody.
52:42
Thank you so much for listening as well.
52:44
Take care of others.
52:46
Take care of yourself and let's bring on this work of strengthening relationships and community through powerful studies, through powerful stories.
53:59
you
54:11
Hello, can you guys hear me?