Unmuting by Jeneva Clark, Ph.D.

While teaching virtually in the 2020 pandemic, I asked my students, Any comments or questions? If so, unmute yourself and speak up. One day, I heard my own words. I wanted to “unmute myself.”

Background: A virus had snatched loved ones and swiped our sense of smell. Quarantine had given us fear, cabin fever, and loneliness. The COVID pandemic had been a traumatic diagnosis by itself, but then new symptoms appeared: communal nausea and loss of faith, caused by a rash of racist murders. Compassion seemed to go the way of olfactory perception. Our wellbeing had been sucker punched and blindsided over and over.

Realizing that my private opinions were gnats in the hurricane of social turmoil, I began to think about the verb unmute. As social creatures, humans instinctively and mimetically avoid confrontation. Silence is my default setting. Until I decide otherwise, I am mute. But I can toggle that. To reject hatred, oppression, and intolerance, I must unmute myself and speak up.

Audre Lorde’s poem meant something new to me. “When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed, but when we are silent we are still afraid, so it is better to speak.” I feel those fears even now, self-aware that these words drip with privilege I can’t even see.

Was Lorde’s activism overbearing? Did she forget that we are not all outspoken? Did she forget that some well-meaning and like-minded citizens might not be as brave or as ready as she was? I don’t think she forgot.

I’m reminded of four rationalities that Woods et al. (2004) described in their work on educational leadership.

• Decisional rationality focuses on how decisions are made. Who gets to vote? How do we vote? How do we decide how to decide?
• Discursive rationality is a tendency to make judgements based on the importance of discourse. Are we having an open debate? Are we hearing all voices?
• Therapeutic rationality prioritizes feelings. Are we pleased with our involvement? Are we uncomfortable?
• Ethical rationality is concerned with right and wrong. What arguments are valid? What actions do harm?

Imagine sitting in class and having a burning question about the Pythagorean Theorem. You might decide to ask it because you believe your question is important for open discussion (discursive rationality). On the other hand, you might decide not to, because you feel nervous (therapeutic rationality). Unmuting is a customized decision each person makes. However, each person can find their unique unmuting moments.

Unmuting can be wise and discreet, but still impactful. Even though social activism might not always fit neatly in at a public-school lectern, in a judge’s chambers, or at a minister’s pulpit, we can discern appropriate ways to make our voices heard. Unmuting can be penning a letter to a legislator. Unmuting can be attending a special interest group rally. Unmuting can be intervening when overhearing a microaggression.

My mother worked at Atlanta’s City Hall in the 1960s. She could see civil rights rallies out her office window, and she knew why. She knew her segregation-laden childhood needed a champion like Dr. King, whom she could hear speaking from the street below.

Now in her 80’s, my mother shares the following story of regret. A decade after courts had favored Rosa Parks’ bus boycott, the bus problem wasn’t solved. The Atlanta buses could have been fueled by the racial tension their passengers brought on board. One day my mother boarded a bus. Unsurprised to see standing passengers, she also grabbed a handgrip and prepared to surf the city bus. However, she quickly noticed one conspicuously vacant seat. On the front row, violating the norm of segregated buses, sat a brave black woman. None of the standing white passengers, including my mother, chose to sit by her, an omission Mom regrets.

Then, a white man loudly scolded the black woman who sat in the front row. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself! No one else can sit there because of you! You should be in the back of the bus!” His unrestrained boldness to hurl hatred taunted my mother’s youthful cravenness.

The black woman got up and walked to the back of the bus.

None of the standing white passengers took a seat in the newly empty front row.

It’s a story not of heroism, but of regret. My mother didn’t unmute herself that day, for therapeutic rationalities. She didn’t keep it to herself forever though. Tearfully sharing a story of regret, so that others may learn and change, is a delayed bravery. Of course it isn’t enough. Mom could have done better. But we can learn from graceful admission of not-good-enough, in order to get better. Thanks to Momma, I try not to miss any of my own bus moments.

We trek through this valley together, hoping to outrun the shadows cast by pandemic-driven fear and hatred-driven racism. In these shadows, we try to live our best life, but can we flourish as a people? This overcast sky, albeit the only one we’ve ever seen, should not be. These shadows are not our friends. Imagination may guess at what our world would look like without them. I think that a more compassionate and equitable post-pandemic society, shadow-free, must begin by unmuting ourselves. We will move forward by considering others’ rationalities and healing from each other’s not-good-enoughs. It’s a start.

References

Lorde, A. (1978). The black unicorn. Norton.

Woods, P. A., Bennett, N., Harvey, J. A., & Wise, C. (2004). Variabilities and dualities in distributed leadership: Findings from a systematic literature review. Educational Management Administration & Leadership. 32(4), 439-457. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741143204046497