In Jennifer Stoever’s The Sonic Color Line, she discusses how specific sounds can be related to race. There are many sounds, or even lack of sound, that can be connected to painful events in race relationships. Stoever mentions that “sometimes these exchanges [of sound] led to arguments, sometimes to deep conversations; most often they resulted in silence” (Stoever 9). She gives the example of the young girl getting pulled across the ground for not leaving the Spring Valley High School classroom and explains how this exchange of racism is met with silence from teachers and administrators who could have helped give the young girl justice for this harsh treatment. In fact not only was it met with silence, but this event was flipped around to show blackness as a “dangerous noise, outsized aggression, and a threatening strength” (Stoever 3). Every time one of these incidents occurs, it is always met with either silence or people with power over changes of the law assume that the victim is at fault due to racist misconceptions. Just like how the slaves sing most when they are unhappy in Douglass’s writing, the black community has been crying out for justice during these times of horrible pain, however they have been met with silence from society. This silence causes more pain and suffering so how do we help to strip away this sonic color line using sound instead of silence?
