For this assignment, we were asked to tell a story in parts. Either opposing perspectives or similar position enforcing a particular topic. I really resonate with the format of how This American Life tells stories, so I was eager to have an episode assigned as one of the homework tasks for this week. I do really like how they strengthen one narrative with multiple perspectives and I wanted to see if I could create a similar style audio piece for my assignment.
Even though I had a great time creating this project, I am also really interested in telling the stories of opposing individuals. If I had more than a week to do this project, I probably would have gone in this direction. I feel that showing both sides of the story can really strengthen the the concept of the narrative.
In the TED talk by Chimamanda Adichie, she talks about the danger of a single story, and I think this is very true and we are living the result of this concept in our current political position. I don't have a single friend, unless they're not willing to admit it, that voted for our current President Elect. After the shocking results from the election, it is very clear that we need to immerse ourselves outside our tight knit communities and hear other people's stories. Stories that we might not regularly hear being engrossed in stories that are similar to our own. I think telling the story from both perspective is very interesting and given the time to do it well, it can be really powerful.
The individuals that I told the stories for, are women in my community, so it was easier for me to pull together a story--- not to diminishing the minorities in tech story, because it is extremely important one to tell. But to reach out of your community to individuals that don't trust you to get them to tell you their stories, I feel, takes time. Building relationships where a person feels comfortable to share their personal stories is not something you can necessarily do in a week. That's why I ended up reaching out to individuals in a community that knew they could trust me with their stories. Given that however, I want to try to create a story this year that has the opposing perspective ---just going to put that there...
Here is my audio response to the assignment -
Minorities in Tech: