Not Enough Voices

The HybridPod

On Friday, 12 August 2016, Sean Michael Morris gave one of two closing keynotes at the Digital Pedagogy Lab Institute held at the University of Mary Washington. Below is the text of his talk; the audio above is edited from the video recording of that morning’s keynotes.

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I do my best to stay quiet. It’s only on Jesse Stommel’s insistence that I’m here. It’s not that I don’t like to talk. My family will tell you I like to talk plenty. It’s that when I speak, you listen to me. You listen because I have a podium. I have slides. I have this script in front of me. All your training tells you to listen to me.

I do my best to stay quiet because when I’m quiet, I can hear you. And it’s you I’m interested in. Your stories. Your efforts. Your insights.

Over a year ago, I was having dinner with a friend of mine. He does social justice work related to small businesses. Unions. Minority business owners. Underdeveloped neighborhoods. Very worthwhile work. He told me that when he sits down with a group he’s facilitating — made up largely of people of color, and LGBTQ business owners — he starts by saying that everyone has stories they want to tell, but at that table, everyone is equal.

That, of course, is not quite right. We’ve heard something like it before. It’s the “all lives matter” argument.

All stories are equal. All stories matter. This is not how we get to hear stories we need to hear. This is not how we amplify silenced voices.

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