Humans are Hominid Primates. Hominid Primates Believe What They See And Imagine What They Hear.

-- By OliviaMartinez - 16 Apr 2021

This line, repeated throughout the semester, has stuck with me as I consider my theory of social action and my practice. I want to use this essay to think more about what this means and the implications.

Story Telling

My favorite book is Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurtson. In this “autoethnographical collection of folklore”, one of the first recognized collections of Black American folklore, Hurston documents and preserves eternally the oral histories, the traditions, the dialect, the songs, and the lifestyle of Black communities in Eatonville, Florida and New Orleans, Louisiana. This work, during my first year of college led me to an interest in how and why stories are told. From this, I learned (1) Oral story telling is an important tradition, and it keeps more than just the story alive (2) Writing stories down is a way to prevent their erasure. But this changes something about the stories permanently. (3) Stories are a method of survival, used to communicate things that can not be written or spoken in few words.

Using the power of oral production and auditory consumption, via storytelling or spoken word or podcasts, change can be made. Humans can close their eyes to something they don’t want to see, but they cannot close their ears to what they don’t want to hear. Oral storytelling not only recreates the plot, but allows the listener to make it their own. I’ve read many books that, when remade into movies, I’m deeply disappointed by the person casted for a certain character’s role. After seeing the actor, I can’t disassociate their image from that character. But hearing or reading a story, they can be whoever I imagine. Hearing brings freedom, where seeing brings constraints.

The Jersey Devil and Harriet Tubman

Growing up in South Jersey, I heard so many stories about the Jersey Devil -- Mother Leed’s 13th child, born with a tail and wings. When my family moved to the pine barrens, I was terrified that this creature would come and eat me. I have a vague memory of putting on my rosary beads before bed and saying a prayer that the Jersey Devil would not come to visit. Then, one day, I decided to look up the story for myself. Somehow, in my searching through pictures and different reiterations of this story, it became less scary. Nothing said it wasn’t real, but I finally had a real image. I believed what I saw.

The 2019 movie Harriet, was beautiful in countless ways. Harriet Tubman was a small woman who many, likely, would not find intimidating. “Moses”, alternatively, was a force of power, infamous among slave owners and slave catchers, praised by abolitionists and heard by enslaved individuals. By word of mouth, enslaved individuals heard of Tubman and, by her songs they knew she had arrived and whether or not it was safe to begin their journeys. Songs and folklore, oral methods of communication, words to be heard, were crucial forms of communication for enslaved persons, constantly under surveillance and in danger. I can’t begin to imagine what they imagined when they heard Tubman sing.

From these two things, I draw the conclusion that consumption of information via auditory channels is a powerful thing. I feared the stories I heard of the Jersey Devil, but once I saw what the Internet had to say, I no longer had to pray for my safety from the creature. Enslaved Blacks, never having seen freedom in America, imagined and trusted the person behind the songs they heard and what lied ahead.

Seeing is Believing

Humans believe what they see. Seeing is believing, but believing is also seeing. Humans can will into existence what they want to see, and can avoid what they don’t want to see. Humans can close their eyes to scary, disgusting, or disheartening images. Humans can look away from those things which cause discomfort, frustration, and suffering, especially that of others.

Police Body Cameras

Throughout Obama’s presidency, the push for police body cameras took off throughout the country. Since then we’ve continued to see the murders of countless Black and brown people. In the last week alone, the news has shown killings of Daunte Wright and Adam Toledo, and the video of US Army 2nd Lt. Caron Nazario being pepper sprayed and held at gunpoint. The effectiveness of the cameras aside, all of America has now seen what Black people have known for years, and social media has helped to make it so that these videos and images can’t be avoided. People have no choice but to believe what is before them. There’s no question of when and how and why police shoot people. We see the before, the act, and the after. We have no choice but to believe what has been captured on video. I think, in part, that is why the media has been willing to call George Floyd’s death a murder, as opposed to the other jargon used to describe killings by the police.

Re-Imagining Justice

The Role of Storytelling

My theory of social action will have to involve storytelling. From what I have learned this year, ranging from the study Afrofuturism to simply attending Zoom school, I know that creating a more just society will require imagination, and auditory mediums are an important way to light the flame that leads to the next great idea. Since humans believe what they see, I will have to show truth in my work, one way or another. Although there’s a lot of talk around reimagining justice, I think the most important part, imagining, is often deemphasized. We must not forget imagining, and the path to that, is hearing.

This is fine work. It needs unification. You are writing about the consequences and ramifications of one idea, which happens to be my Second Law of Social Psychology for Lawyers. But the Jersey Devil, the living legend that was Harriet Tubman and the body cameras of the early 21st century paramilitary police are relevant illustrations that take up too much space and detract from the unity that is the draft's architectural ambition. They need to be presented lucidly in their essentials, perhaps supplemented by other ways in which making things happen in society using words triggers imagination through story-telling and acted drama. From Arnold to Leff to Simpson we read works that might contain other useful examples that can be invoked in very few words. I think the fulfillment of the effort ilies in pulling the skein more tightly together, so as to emphasize the richness of your single idea once it has been orchestrated as you choose.

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