As anyone who has watched "Doctor Who" can tell you, silence can be terrifying. In "Doctor Who," the Silence (an alien race that a person only remembers when they were looking directly at a member of the species and forget the moment they looked away) was terrifying for the people who were helpless to fight it. In this case, the silence embodied the people’s helplessness.
On the other hand, there is silence such as Eliza’s in the hit musical "Hamilton" by Lin-Manuel Miranda. After her husband, Alexander Hamilton, cheats on her and publishes the scandal for the entire country to read, Eliza burns his letters to her. “I’m erasing myself from the narrative.” She sings, “Let future historians wonder how Eliza reacted when you broke her heart.” Eliza chooses to be silent and her silence makes her even more powerful.
Personally, I often choose to be silent. As some of my friends will tell you, I have a habit of not talking, although I will sit and listen to them for hours. This is my choice; I know that if I want, I can make myself be heard. If there is something I really want to say, I know they will listen. Like Eliza, I find silence empowering. Words can be powerful and, in the right context, the lack of words can be just as much. A person might be silent because they are learning; maybe they have only ever known one perspective and they are finally listening to someone else tell theirs. This kind of silence is positive and even hopeful because it is encouraging to someone who may not have had the opportunity to share their point of view. It also gives the listener an opportunity to gain perspective and grow.
Others might use their silence as a weapon. Eliza is an apt example; she (at least in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s interpretation) chose “to be silent to to remove herself from this very public humiliation”, as "The Mary Sue" phrased it. No one would use her words against her and no one would force her to speak on a topic she didn’t want to. Another example are those who take a vow of silence in support of people whose voices society often refuses to hear, such as the voices of LGBTQ+ communities or the Black Lives Matter movement. These silences are powerful because they catch public attention in a fundamentally unsettling way. People who are not given the freedom to voice their opinions, perspectives and concerns? That is not something that registers well with anyone’s conscience.
When someone chooses silence, whether they are intending to listen and learn or to protest, they have power over their choice. At any moment, they can choose to speak up again. But there are those people, such as the voices of LGBTQ+ people or people of color, who aren’t given this choice. They’re voices, and the voices of many other minority communities, are silenced because they conflict with the stubborn, set-in-stone way that our society is now. This experience of silence is more akin to the Doctor’s experience with silence that I referenced above: helpless and hopeless. These silences might be forced upon people because speaking up would be uncomfortable or even dangerous, or it might be that they are speaking up and no one is listening. Either way, these are silences that simply should not exist.
As a white person, I have always been able to make my point of view heard, and if I haven’t made my point heard, I know someone else has. If I turn on the news, I know that there will be a thousand different white people telling me what they think. This is not true for everyone, and that is a problem. We often do not hear the voices of people whose opinions, perspectives and concerns are just as valid as those we do hear, but might run contrary to the status quo society has set for itself. It is past time we started noticing, listening to and respecting the voices of people who have been silenced for so long.
