Tonight I'm Thinking a lot About Amplifying Voices, and Not Just My Own
Channel: Tameca L Coleman
Date: 20/07/2021

Today, a lot of emotions hit me all at once about ways I could listen and hold space more, and also use whatever I have and am capable of towards the positive change that I also yearn to see in the world. 


Here's the transcript, if you would like to read along: 

Hello. 
I have been thinking a lot about voices that do not often enough get a seat at the table, if they get a seat at the table at all - still - and often in relation to telling their own stories, and in *safe and supported spaces that are *not hellbent on treating those stories, and the people who have lived them, with fascination over empathy and honestly, as well as an ability to hold space and just *listen when it is appropriate.  

As a queer, nonbinary, mixed-race Black and predominantly femme presenting person, I feel this deeply and passionately. I also recognize more and more my privileges. I recognize that there are some things I can leverage in service of making space for and amplifying voices if and when they are ready to be amplified - helping where and how I can, while also finding the words for my experiences, and being in service as an example for others who may need this, as I have needed this, and in many ways still do.  

I see this ultimately as a walking *with and beside, and often stepping aside to make room. I see this as community building without needing to control or corral that community, or to overly project on that community my own needs even as I work to help connect and cultivate communities in which I can walk and feel safe, held and heard.  

I feel that it is absolutely necessary to *let this kind of work move as it needs to. This needs to be organic, apart from my own agendas - even as my agendas are working in the world. I do my best to be transparent and genuine. I do my work. I do my part. And I know that these actions are small in comparison to what needs to happen, and a great deal of that has nothing to do with me.  

I am also thinking about how my privileges have caused harm. I am considering ways in which my social training and as a result privilege and *ignorance has taught me to silence and shut out voices that also need to be here, and this is professionally and in my personal relationships. This has not been intentional or deliberate - but that does not mean I get to ignore that, because now I know a little bit better, and I know I have room to grow.  

There is space for all of us, and there is space for all of us to heal and to grow, and be whole and integrated when and if we are able and ready to do that.  

I can see that this is news for so many of us. I also know this work is hard, so it is understandable when it hits on our many unhealed triggers.  

The work is constant if you want to be honest about it. It is constant work. It is not one book, or even a string of books. It's a whole lot more than that, and we don’t ever have to face it alone. 

I am using myself as an example here, because I do not want to become like so many who are "well-meaning" or "trying" and supposedly "doing the work" but absolutely unable to accept very important feedback from their communities, often from whom they have asked for this feedback, - often silencing, bullying, and shutting them out. I have been cornered in the processes of silencing many times, even if I didn't always know it at the time. But, I see and know it better now, and I am becoming more knowledgeable and adept, in large part because of the communities I have been able to find and be directed to who work in alignment with what I am talking about here and what I want to help amplify and also see in the world. 

I am proactively working in alignment with everything I have voiced here, and it is because last spring everything hit me in a way where I completely shut down and was not sure I could go on. I am not being melodramatic. I am not exaggerating. 

Everything needs to be different. 

I intend to be nothing more than true to the words I am speaking, and I depend on my communities to grow me and grow with me when and if they can, when and if it’s appropriate, and if they see value in this and want to. 

That’s all. 
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