What Lies in Grey Areas

'What Lies in Grey Areas' is both the proposed question and answer to my capstone project. The subject of this poem are the gatekeepers of victim accounts. There is a responsibility given to those with power over the stories of others and it is one that rarely comes without bias. I am emotionally connected with all of the information I'm dealing with and I don't claim to approach these stories without bias. I know that to anyone seeing these stories for the first time, I am just as much a gatekeeper as their original authors. I urge everyone to read these stories on your own before thinking too deeply into my project. I am not here to tell you what to think, only my interpretations and how I see them today and in my own life. Innocence and blame are subjective but an author has the chance to lead you to the conclusion of their choice. I am drawing conclusions by holding them at arms length and shrouding them in distrust for their authors. These storytellers drew conclusions by holding facts at arms length and shrouding them in misogyny. These stories are either ancient or entirely mythological, meaning we will never know the perspectives of the women they are about. I do not have the facts or a perspective based on anything more than the texts available to everyone else. Like I am suggesting about these authors, I too have bias and an agenda. However, my agenda supports the amplification of a historically and presently silenced group of people. My agenda supports the questioning of biases that shaped centuries of systemic oppression. I am approaching these stories with anger and trauma and it is my place to do so. This project in and of itself is a grey area. I am not providing you with newly found facts and research. I am further convoluting already contradictory information by offering a new interpretation.