Narratives, Voice, and You

Earlier this summer, one of the largest disparities of storytelling in recent public attention swept across the entire nation by force. As a result of a new wave of the Trump administration’s immigrant deportation initiatives, a widespread call for protests erupted across Los Angeles throughout all of June and early July, soon becoming one of the most pivotal events of the year.

All accounts agreed that the demonstrations were massive. The first few days alone brought the city into a brief singular focus of public attention. Los Angeles residents marched with visitors for the No Kings protests and community activism groups from across California. Police were deployed in droves, and later were followed by the notably controversial choice of mobilizing and quartering the National Guard. Media outlets were abuzz over each new occurrence, from the constitutional implications of military action to the resistance of state governor Gavin Newsom. 

The disparity itself was in the form of coverage. During the protests’ outbreak, many outlets, especially those right and center-leaning, adopted a tone of condemnation. Reporting focused above all on apparent lootings and violence towards law enforcement, where images of cars ablaze and windows shattered frequently circulated. News spread quickly, and consequences were not in the least insignificant, as political figures of all leanings spoke on the topic of keeping public safety, and eventually governmental measures such as the infamous allowance of military presence were implemented. 

Whether such an actual outbreak of violence occurred is debatable, however. Most on-site reporters claimed seeing widespread peaceful demonstration, a far stretch from the organizing rioting and vandalism claimed prevalent. Many sources corroborated such perspectives with the violence inflicted by police, firing rubber bullets that inflicted several serious wounds and dispersing crowds with excessive force, as well as the consistent unethical actions of ICE agents that had brought about demonstrations in the first place. Regardless of stance, a stark difference was clearly visible in the protests’ portrayals, one simply too noticeable to not be deliberate.

In writing, narratives are a deeply familiar concept. At a fundamental level, all stories can be described with a direction and intent, bases on which everything else is then established. Narratives develop in the literal telling of them - the underlying mechanics through which a writer expresses their voice, and all the contributing motives behind it. Whether fully planned or unconscious, some form of narrativization drives nearly every aspect of a work, embedding itself into each minutiae of tone and theme and choice of words. 

In turn, narratives are influenced by context. While, for example, press, within the framework of responding to a protest, have their own individual aims in mind, such factors go deeper. Matters of identity and perspective shape the way in which a work is created, as they shape basic worldly understandings. It is impossible to separate such influences from a work without undermining everything about the work itself, and nor should it arguably be done at all. Rather, such qualia are integral in an inalienable way, and in fact enrich the full perspective. It’s why, after all, diversity and opportunity are particularly important, as they serve an elemental role of development - allowing narratives to be experienced in complete depth and fullness. 

Los Angeles was a defining example of a narrative grown beyond writing entirely. As seen by the split tellings of the protests, it was one told on an all-encompassing scale, driving major social and political shifts through underlying intent and its portrayal. It demonstrated narrativization’s role as much a tool of rhetoric as one of storytelling, and used, furthermore, for a concerning end. With the sheer importance of news in the current cultural landscape, an attempt by a presidential administration to create a single monolithic perspective should almost certainly be called into question. 

But applications of narrativization are not necessarily dangerous in of themselves. Narratives are, again, something integral to the foundations of all stories, and, regarding perspective at large, irremovable from any view of the world. Repressing such an essential form of personal expression would be similarly monolithic and destructive. Instead, as writers, we should rather consider the possibilities of using them for the better.

Diversity’s importance within the framework of narrativization is integral. To form a complete whole, writing needs to be accessible by all, and marginalized voices otherwise deprived of it require uplifting. In a landscape where it is increasingly more difficult to access the humanities, freedom to create ranges of perspectives simply must be given. The ability to choose to write is a powerful tool, with drastically underestimated capabilities. With the threat of imposed singular narratives imminent, there is simply no better choice than to take up the pen and fulfill it.