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Silence on the LamApril 16, 2006 (This is sort of a continuation of yesterday's "Placards That Bloom in the Spring," but maybe it stands on its own. Your call.) "Your silence will not protect you," says my bumper sticker. So said Audre Lorde, and I believe her, but I also know for a fact that silence may make your life easier in the short term. On Martha's Vineyard silence is as pervasive as the south shore fogs, which can be depended on to settle in for a three-day squat right after you've cut your best hayfield. That's one big reason "Your silence will not protect you" is on my bumper. Silence is a powerful thing; silence has momentum. "Silence like a cancer grows," sang Simon & Garfunkel in a great song from my youth. They got that right. I came up through the grass-roots feminist movement of the 1970s and 1980s, where "breaking silence" aptly described what women -- all kinds of women -- were doing. Our silence had been taken for granted, and often forced upon us. Breaking silence, we discovered, was the beginning of life, and of community. I've lived on Martha's Vineyard now for more than 20 years. The silence seeps into my bones and resonates with those old New England genes, the ones that get nervous when voices are raised. My bumper stickers are generally aimed about 50% at the outside world and 50% at myself. For many years my bumper said "Live and Let Live." Now it says "Your Silence Will Not Protect You." I'm a writer. Writers give shape to ideas and experiences that otherwise would make no sound. In my adult life I've had (and created) many opportunities to make a difference for myself and others by speaking/writing out but very few to make a difference by voting. Probably the most important vote I ever cast was for the Massachusetts state ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) almost 30 years ago. Its importance had much to do with the hours and weeks and months I invested in the campaign. I still have three (faded, shrunken, paint-stained) T-shirts to prove it. Which brings me round to this example of why breaking silence takes more courage than voting, or why voting in secret is not necessarily breaking silence. Last Thursday the Martha's Vineyard Times printed my response to an article it published on March 30. The article was about the Island Community Chorus. I called my letter "Not a Spectator Sport." Friday morning I had a call from the president of the Island Community Chorus board. "You must have been expecting to hear from me," she said. Well, no, actually I wasn't. When my letter about the dirt bikers appeared about two months ago, I did not get, or expect to get, a call the next day from either the pro- or the anti-dirt-bike forces. A couple of acquaintances e-mailed me: they don't like dirt bikes; they did like my letter. Over the next couple of weeks I had several interesting conversations about dirt bikes and my letter, at Back Alley's, at guitar class, on Main Street, Vineyard Haven, at the West Tisbury post office. In my experience that's the usual response to letters to the editor, and I'm happy to get it. The call from the president of the chorus board was unusual. Damage control? I thought, even though my letter was not damaging, or intended to do harm. The board president suggested discussing it over coffee. I was curious, and besides, this woman had tossed some work my way last year. We met yesterday morning at Mocha Mott's in Vineyard Haven. The substantive part of the conversation started off with B.P. expressing concern lest donors and prospective donors see my letter and be concerned (i.e., not open their wallets) because there was "dissension in the ranks." Whoa, Nelly! thought I -- donors are that jittery, that irresolute, that clueless about the chorus that any breath of divergent opinion might make them snap their purses shut and walk away? More to the point, the board was so jittery that it thought donors were jittery, irresolute, and clueless, etc., etc.? I'm relieved to report that the conversation didn't get stuck there, but I'm still a bit amazed that the prospect came up. I'm sure it happens in politics all the time: elected officials and candidates for elective office are warned by their handlers that this or that remark might alienate potential contributors or lose them votes. You see why I'm a little ho-hum on the subject of voting? B.P. gave me to believe that other board members, and maybe other chorus members, were asking what they should do about my letter -- should they write letters in response? B.P. may have been exaggerating, or maybe even making it all up, but I doubt it -- it rings too true to my experience on the island, particularly my experience years ago with one island theater group. I was writing lots of theater reviews in those days, and breathe an even slightly discouraging word about a performance and you could expect cold shoulders at the grocery store, snotty remarks on the telephone, and even a huffy letter or two in the paper. The Martha's Vineyard Times prints nearly all the letters it receives, from which one might expect the letters-to-the-editor pages to be a vital forum for discussing important issues. Most of the time they aren't. Once you've screened out the thank-you letters and the heartwarming-story letters, which don't expect a response, most of the letters are brickbats. Partisans of one side go whack, bang, slash; partisans of the other side go slash, bang, whack. Most everyone else shakes their head or runs for cover. Being a writer, I can skewer an argument so deftly that the person making it doesn't realize at first that it's been mortally wounded. The longer I live, though, the less satisfied I am with stylish razzle-dazzle. Keeping the lines of communication open is more important. I'm not likely to listen to anyone who's trying to trash, humiliate, or silence me: do as you would be done by. The depressing thing is that this usually isn't enough. Communication requires not only clear, thoughtful speaking/writing but clear, thoughtful listening. It's amazing how fast people go into defensive mode -- no matter how carefully you phrase things, they take it as an attack and they do not want to discuss any of the specifics. No, the really depressing thing is that the chorus, like other island groups, like the whole U.S. of A., is so ready to shoot the messenger rather than listen to, and sit a few minutes with, the message. Interestingly enough, the chorus B.P. used to be, and maybe still is, visibly active in the local League of Women Voters. Democracy is not a spectator sport -- that's what the League's bumper sticker says, and that's what I had in mind when I wrote "Not a Spectator Sport." I do believe that the skills and the courage that democracy requires are best formed and fostered in families and in local organizations. If families and organizations fear dissident opinions and try to squelch them, then how do we develop the skills and the courage to speak out? or the skills and the courage to listen?
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