Critical Response 3
“For
this nation was built upon the belief that one could and should forget the past
and invent a future. By contrast she spoke of the future as something finite;
and indeed it is, because history in all its limitlessness determines the
future.” (Moraga, 168) By unscrambling this history that we know is just certain
versions of the story, the versions that somebody took upon themselves to
determine were more important than the other stories and do not represent the
whole truth, we can look for the truth and for the places to find the ghosts that
are hidden behind as well as within the whole story. We can look at the stories
that have never been told, or maybe they have been told but nobody was there to
listen, or to believe in what they thought was invisible and nonexistent. These
hidden pieces of history are what the lessons this week are all about. Powell referred
to the parts of history left untold, ghost stories, which is exactly what they
seem to be. “Ghost stories are both the stories of material colonization and
the webs of wisps of narrative that are woven around, under, beneath, behind,
inside, and against the dominant narratives of “scholarly discourse.”” So much of
the history that hinders our future is kept within these ghost stories. “I must
believe that I am not, and will never be the only one who suffers.” (Moraga, 68) If the stories told by these “ghosts”
or “others” were listened to, learned from, and taught, we could determine the
full truth and be closer to the end of suffrage and discrimination and to the beginning
of acceptance of everyone and a more queer world. Duncan as well as Riggs told significant
and insignificant stories of their lives and the lives of those around them to
tell these ghost stories that we typically would overlook because they are not
always accepted or taught, therefore allowing us to learn what we missed, and apply
it to our own lives. What stories were you apart of but not included in the telling
of them? What roll did you play? What would the story have been if you weren’t
there? Would there be a story at all?
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