By BROOKLYN BROWN
Tsisgwohi (Birdtown)
In activism, you often hear the term “voice.” You hear the saying, “give a voice to the voiceless.” What is a voice? What does it mean to lend a voice?
Artist: Brooklyn Brown Concept: Voices can be a burning fire to ignite change, or a cooling water to invite peace. Both are a voice, and both are needed.
Ecclesiastes 3:7 says there is “a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.” In those times to speak, I believe that is the voice. When it is time to speak, I believe that means you lend your voice.
There are many issues in our community where we need voices: Missing and Murdered Indigenous People, the opioid crisis and substance use disorder, domestic violence and sexual assault, mental health, culture and language revitalization, to name a few.
Sometimes people are in circumstances where they are deemed “voiceless,” not because they do not have a voice within them—a spirit that cries to share their story—but because they are unable to use their voice. Sometimes it is because they are children, or they are abused, or they are dead. Sometimes they are not in a space where they can use their voice. It is in that time, most of all, when we must lend our voice for them.
Other times, people use their voice, but they need other voices to join their choir. I have been voiceless; I have been a voice. I have been the voice in need of a choir. To those who lend their voice, thank you. To those who deal with these issues in silence, I hear you.
For all these issues, there is a silent suffering in our community. When we lend our voice, that is who we are lending for.
It’s time to speak.
