Stories Within the Story

I watched the movie "The Color Purple" for the first time yesterday. I may be one of the very few who had not yet seen this 1985 movie. I'm a little behind the times. This story has been brought to my attention on several occasions over the past 35 years. Most recently, in light of the racial inequities that have been brought to light, I was once again reminded of "The Color Purple".

I was well into the story before I realized there had not been one Caucasian person enter the scene. I smiled when the first white character was introduced as a person who drove one sister to the her sister's home. I loved the irony - a white person driving a person of color. I later realized this "driver" was delivering the mail. But my original take on this minor character remained. He was a person serving them, not the other way around.

The story was based around the main character but had other strong characters and story lines. I loved Oprah's character, Sophie, who was strong minded and full of spunk. Until ... the scene where the white people dominated the screen, brought her to her knees and stole everything she was from her. When "whites" were introduced into the story line, they were the villians.

As I played out this scene and compared it to the realities minorities face each and every day, I was embarrassed to be part of a race who has committed such injustices.

I continued to reflect on the vantage point this story was told. I considered the different stories that could have played out, had the tale been told from a different person's vision of the same set of events. I dared to consider what the story could have been, had it been told from the white person's point of view. 

The slant of the story, the perspective, each individual's history places a different emphasis on how a story is told. The adage "there are two sides to every story" is an understatement. Each one of us is a compilation of our history, our perspective, our state of mind and health, who and what we may be protecting. When prejudice we have unknowingly been raised with and exposed to, plus racial biases are added to the scene, it is little wonder there is conflict within this world of ours.

Racial privilege is a term that is new to me. I hang my head in shame to think that my view of the world is so very small and with a privilege I simply happened to be born into. I think of the babies who come into the world and know only the life they have been raised in. They become adults with their own personal biases stemming from the vantage point of their circumstances.

I think of the very small life I have lived and I try so very hard to consider the story another would have told of the exact same circumstance, from where they stood. When I retell the stories of my life I am conscious to speak of the other person's vantage point. I strive to tell my stories so there are no true heroes or villains. But I know even at that, my view is tainted by personal bias, history and lack of a full understanding of the other person's side of a story.

Stories are told from the vantage point of the person narrating the tale. Seeing, hearing and feeling the narrative from the main character's point of view provides us with limited insight unless the story is told in a way to bring each character's perspective into focus (which, may I add, "The Color Purple" did an amazing job). It is up to the audience to mine for the gold that is hidden within a multilayered depiction of events. 

It would serve us well, if we dug deep to find the truths within the headlines of today's news and the stories we are told as we live our lives.

An often quoted adage going around the Internet these days is to be kind to each other. You have no idea what another person is going through. Or as Ellen Degeneres says, quite simply, "Be kind to one another". Without condition, without bias, without assumption. Just be kind. Look for the story behind the story.