Silence contains power. Whether it is imposed upon someone or chosen to withhold information (and thus exert control), silence - all the things left unsaid - is as telling in its form of communication as the spoken word or writing. What do we erase from our daily language? Who do we exclude? Who or what is not addressed? As we willfully skirt around ideas, or are forced to remain silent, or even are silent without consciously knowing it, silence gives voice to fear and power - for the listener or the person withholding, depending on the circumstances of control. When my mother attended school for the first time in the mid-1950s, her teachers would not allow her to speak. My mother could only...
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