Your Stories Matter
In December 2015, Steve Locke was on his way to work when he was stopped by a police officer. He was stopped because he fit the description of a man who had attempted to break in to a nearby house.
As Steve answered the first officer's questions, two more squad cars pulled up and a second officer joined the first. Another two police cars continued to circle the block during the 35-minute encounter.
After checking Locke's driver's license and returning it to him, the first officer said, "We have the victim and we need her to take a look at you to see if you are the person."
In his 2015 blog post describing the incident, which I stumbled on last month, Locke wrote, "It was at this moment that I knew that I was probably going to die."
When I read those words, I burst into tears.
Steve Locke is Black and, at the time, was a professor of art education at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. All the police officers were white. None, from Locke's account, was disrespectful.
"I was not going to get into a police car," he continued. "...I was not going to let them take me anywhere because if they did, the chance I was going to be accused of something I did not do rose exponentially. I knew this in my heart...
"If you are wondering why people don't go with the police, I hope this explains it for you."
More than any marches, protests or slogans, more than any legalistic explanations, historical context or toppled statues, Steve Locke's account was an eloquent expression of one aspect of the contemporary Black experience in America. This, by the way, was the America before Trump, before Charlottesville and before Black Lives Matter. But to read his story now puts all all that has happened since into painful perspective.
It was at this moment that I knew that I was probably going to die.
I'm a member of several minorities and have occasionally been singled out, unpleasantly, because of it. I was beaten up once when I was in my teens, possibly because I looked Jewish or gay or simply different. And I've had faggot shouted at me from a passing car on more than one occasion, in cities as supposedly progressive as Toronto and Portland. Yet my minorities are largely invisible. I don't hide or try to pass as something I'm not, but nor do I stand out as visibly "other."
I can't know what it's like to be Black in America. I can never know, not viscerally. But stories like Steve Locke's help me to begin to understand what it might be like. More powerfully, they help me to feel what it might be like.
That's the power of story. It's not only the power of Steve Locke's story. It's the power of your story.
In an interview a few years back, actor Alan Rickman said, “It’s a human need to be told stories. The more we’re governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible...”
In my novel The MoonQuest, stories are banned and storytellers are exiled or put to death. The result is a dystopian society devoid not only of imagination but of empathy.
When we feel others' experiences through their stories, as I did with Steve Locke's, we yearn for the kind of transformation that will change not only us but our world. When we feel nothing but our own fear, we demonize and vilify others.
That happens in The MoonQuest and it happens all around us...is happening all around us. (The MoonQuest, by the way, was not conceived in response to current sociopolitical events, certainly not those occurring in America. I began it more than 25 years ago, in my native Canada.)
That's why stories are so important – not only in the fantasy world of The MoonQuest, but today, in our own world.
I encourage you to read the full story of Steve Locke's experience. I encourage you to read other stories, not only of the Black experience and not only of other minority experiences. I encourage you to see the world through other eyes, through other hearts. Do it and you'll discover just how much you and the writer have in common, regardless of differing backgrounds...of different skin color.
Who hasn't had a challenging experience with an authority figure? Who hasn't been attacked for who they are? For who they love? For what they believe in? For how they look? For how they dress? For how they speak?
Think of the bullies in the schoolyard...the adults who criticized you...the "friends" who belittled you.
Stories are expressions of our humanity, of our universality. In our stories we discover not what separates us but what unites us. We discover not our differences but our similarities.
Read others' stories, but do more than that. Tell your stories, whatever form they take. Share your fears and joys, your failures and triumphs. Share your humanity. Let us see you...and let us see ourselves in you. That's how we heal ourselves. That's how we heal the world.
