In looking at the works of Black women, they are an ongoing conversation, a sisterhood of reference and retrieval that arcs back to 1619 and the beginnings of African enslavement. Counternarratives are the antithesis to stories that benefit the lives of the few. That’s why a complete overhaul is needed in how we approach and understand history, particularly the “how” and the “why” these master narratives have been sustained at all.Ĭounternarratives-the stories of those whose lives disrupt the fictions of master narratives-thus emerge as necessary and potentially life-saving works.
But it’s even more difficult when it comes to history. Knowing how to listen beyond the background music to hear the sounds and stories of those who don’t fit into the “accepted” narrative can be difficult in our own time. Such master narratives lead to the dominance of reactive slogans and movements, such as #makeamericagreatagain and #bluelivesmatter, when Black, Brown, queer, and trans folks and their allies remind the world that their lives do, in fact, matter. Another is that incidents of police and state violence, incidents of domestic terrorism, and white nationalism are the exceptions and not the rule.
One master narrative is the tale we tell about the United States being a welcoming country to immigrants, about how the “bootstrap” mentality enables one to build and sustain a life here. Master narratives become the background music of our lives, undercurrents so ingrained that the violence they often engender is rendered unremarkable.
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