Who Tells Your Story?

As the song goes,
Who lives?
Who dies?
Who tells your story?

And that,
I mean to talk about here,
Is the whole crux of it.

It’s in the telling.

It’s not even in the facts
But in the telling.

Consider,
Once more,
The Boston Massacre.

Here’s one of the most famous
American stories,
Enduring from even before
There technically was a country at all,
And
It
Is 
False.

But, clearly,
A very good story.

Something really did happen,
But in the telling
It became something else.

It became legend.

It became,
Well,
Propaganda.

Which of course
Was what it was always intended 
To be.

And then John Adams
Defends the bad guys in court,
And wins his case.

And the story never
Ever
Goes away.

Such is the power
Of stories.

There is literally
No longer any reason
To tell the story
Except to illustrate 
The passion of patriots,
Of a revolution,
And yet still
The story goes on.

This is an age
Of iconoclasts
And yet 
This story
Remains
Untouchable.

That’s the world we live in.

In essence
We’re saying
If we were in that court,
Regardless of the facts,
We would absolutely 
Uphold the narrative 
Of the Boston Massacre.

Because nothing is more important
Than being right,
Even if the facts
Must be told
In the form of a story
That isn’t true.

All of which is to say,
Who tells the story?
And why?

Well, you know.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Twenty Years

Twenty years later and this is still the only day in American history like this. (Except the burning of the White House, War of 1812, 8/24/14, a response to York.) That is what  we felt in those days. In WWII this is what Europe looked like, a continent. This is what it looks like when war happens. This is what traumatized  a nation. In twenty years  many things have happened since. Incredibly, it took no time at all to forget how that day felt. No time at all, and there were people who argued it was staged. That’s the world we live in. No time at all and politicians started thinking, “We will lose power if this remains the narrative.” No time at all and the reality of a war became a preamble to twenty years  of claiming it was America that turned aggressor. Twenty years and they still work to identify  the bodies. Twenty years of victims. Twenty years, a lifetime  for a new generation  born after and growing up in the shadow of fallen towers. Twenty years after a morning in which I wa
Read more

The Rat Was In the White House

The rat was in the White House. Vile, Diseased, Infested, Vermin. And yet for all that There was also Something exotic, Challenging every preconception, And sometimes that Provokes Inspiration, Shaking loose The doldrums, The humdrum, The routine. It was an interesting four years. And it will be For many years To come. History won’t soon Forget. Although, You know, Stranger things Have happened.
Read more

All My Favorite Colors

I don’t know, I’ve never particularly  Had a problem Integrating the world. But that’s the problem That so often happens  For others, And I think It’s the biggest problem. It’s great to know How things are different  But to keep them Locked up in little boxes, Separate, Apart, Deliberately, Defiantly, Angrily, Defensively, As if something will be lost... And I get it, Sometimes  There have been efforts To lose identity  By force, To integrate By eliminating  A minority’s features, And that was always wrong. But it’s also wrong To repudiate The melting pot. It’s wrong To rob yourself Of the ability To embrace unfamiliar things Because you think  It might threaten  The integrity Of what you’ve got. But listen, You have no integrity If you fear such a world. You lose far more Than you retain If you hide from The possibilities. If all you experience  Is an echo chamber Then eventually  You go deaf. So this is a message For all my sisters and my brothers.
Read more