A Guide Toward Storytelling Sovereignty

"There is an urgency that we make and take space for our ways of knowing, being, and telling, recognizing that although for generations upon generations we’ve been storytelling – our imaginaries have also been silenced, distorted, and commodified. There is also a call to slow down, for in order for us to create the just futures we seek, we need to abandon and unlearn the harmful imaginaries and defaults that have gotten us in this mess in the first place. One of the greatest solutions I see is the amplification of our stories, ideas, concepts, designs, and multitudes as told through our eyes and minds, making space to create not just the new, but to remember the old. For so long, our imaginations have been colonized to see and think only one way, but our storytelling is the literal antithesis to these singular (or binary) defaults. I hope this adds to that conversation. Additionally, I hope BIPOC can simply use this when yt folx refuse to pay or compensate, when they try to censor us, or when we aren’t supported in telling our stories unapologetically. While this doesn’t cover every nuance, it also does not allow for these harmful practices to go unnamed any longer. After all, as much as we must name to create the future, we also must name to dismantle."