Making and taking time
I’m a member of a couple of online support groups for people who stutter. The other day someone shared that they had a bad presentation and wasted people’s time. It wasn’t so much the presentation content that got them down. It was the act of stuttering while presenting it. The experience ruined their day. 😔
Many of us could relate and shared experiences and encouragement.
It resonated with me in a few ways. The first is how we frame our stuttering and the value judgements that we can ascribe to it. It’s not uncommon to hear and see comments like, “how bad is your stutter?”, “I stuttered badly” or “she has an awful stutter and did well to control it” . Framing stuttering as “bad” can affect how we think and feel about stuttering and ourselves. It can unintentionally reinforce a mental model that frames stuttering in negative ways.
I wondered if there there were positive things that came from presenting as well. Like the courage it took to present in front of others while being and sounding different. Were the intended messages communicated and received? Was anything learned by doing it from the perspective of the presenter and the audience? Could those things be something to celebrate while also acknowledging the other thoughts and feelings that might come up related to our stuttering?
Related, ‘wasting people’s time’ also stuck with me. I recalled a This American Life podcast episode called “Time Bandit”. It features JJJJJerome Ellis, who participated in an all-day event in NYC, where people have a 2–3 minute window to recite or perform something. JJJJJerome stood on the stage and delivered what he prepared.
In the process of doing so, he broke the rules. How? By stuttering and going well over the time limit. And, while he was at it, he questioned the intent and equity of the rules too.
JJJJJerome first spoke about a state in Brazil that passed a law mandating that phone companies offer a 50% discount to people with breaks in the timing and fluency of their speech.
He then segued to talk about the format of the event he was actively participating in then and there:
“…when I was first invited to participate in this magnificent event, I was struck by the two-minute time limit, which later became a two- to three-minute time limit. And I understood intuitively that the purpose of this time limit was to create as non-hierarchical a space as possible.
But in removing one hierarchy, the time limit introduces another. A time limit assumes that all people have relatively equal access to time through their speech, which is not true. Stuttering is very unpredictable. I can rehearse something as many times as I want, but I don’t actually know how long it will take to say anything until I have to say it.”
JJJJJerome’s performance wasn’t “bad”. It didn’t waste people’s time. Quite the opposite. It was a compelling statement of diversity and inclusion. A profound and visceral way to raise the issue of temporal accessibility and disabled speech. He was applauded at the end.
He concluded his performance with a quote from Black feminist scholar, Kimberlé Crenshaw:
“Treating different things the same way may generate as much inequality as treating the same things in different ways.”
Not everyone speaks the same way. Some of us take more time.
JJJJJerome describes himself as a stuttering, Afro-Caribbean composer, poet, and performer. He was interviewed for the episode and talks briefly about how stuttering intersects with being Black: “as a Black person, I am also thinking about the way that time and access to time is racially inflected…there are many moments in the world when a person of colour is just not given as much time to speak.”
He talks about jazz as an act of resistance in the face of conventional song formats and expectations. When it comes to time signatures, song lengths and structures, and racial and social justice, jazz might be more punk than punk.
And in his bio, JJJJJerome spells “Jerome" as it might sound when he says it and invites others to spell it either way (as people who stutter, our own names can be tricky to say). Again, this defies convention yet more effectively reflects who he is…his experience with his name and how he says it…his reality.
All of this makes me think about rules, structures and formats, how they influence our behaviours, and the extent to which they are enabling of who we are and the things we value. Sometimes we can take them for granted, assume they can’t change, or fail to see how their design affects people and what they can and can’t do. If and when that’s the case, we shift the burden onto people to navigate and comply with rules, structures, and formats that weren’t designed with their realities and potential in mind.
The pressure we put on ourselves and each other to conform and comply — to be, look and sound ‘normal’ — can be all-encompassing sometimes. To what extent are we disabling or excluding people? Or, to frame that more positively, to what extent are we designing rules, structures and formats for equity, inclusion, and accessibility? Are we making and taking time to be diverse, inclusive and accessible? Not simply for the sake of doing it, but because it can make things better with and for people.
Stuttering is how we speak. Let’s take and make time for it. I’m grateful for JJJJJerome’s self and social advocacy for more equitable, inclusive and accessible rules and structures.
