Blog Post #5: “Showing vs. Telling”

In her article “Critical Race Theory Counterstory as Allegory: A Rhetorical Trope to Raise Awareness About Arizona’s Ban on Ethnic Studies,” Aja Y. Martinez “define[s] allegory as a trope by which to render invisible forms of racism (structural or colorblind,) visible.” (Martinez pg.1, p.1) This definition goes deeper than just the already wide-scale concept of racism. It highlights the importance behind all forms of storytelling mediums and why their creations will forever be timeless. There’s no book, film, or any other form of creative media that does not have an underlying meaning behind its surface context. As an undergrad student studying creative writing in many different forms, there’s a rule that must be followed in developing your story-lines and context. This rule is simple – first, you must write from experience (identifying a real problem that you’ve either directly or indirectly struggled with) and then masking it with a metaphor. Simply to elaborate, if one were to write a story about leaving an abusive, addictive relationship – it could be written as a compelling story of one overcoming an addiction to drugs. So, the metaphor comes after as it has to work for the story so, where one truly writes from is from personal experience and struggles, however wide-scale, large, or small they may be. This is a very powerful tool to be able to utilize because it encompasses the idea of showing as opposed to telling. Showing will always be more effective than just telling in any kind of argument or method of persuasion. This important concept is directly displayed within the structure of Martinez’s article. After her quick introduction introducing this concept of allegories and metaphors being more effective in delivering ideas, she gets right into this allegory. She allows the audience to decode and interpret these significant metaphors within the allegory for themselves, which is effective in delivering her point that they are more effective. The audience knew that this was an allegory about Arizona’s anti-ethnic studies climate as it was in her introduction, but she didn’t give away all of the allegory’s hidden, effective metaphors. There’s significant moments throughout the allegory between the prominent, meaningful characters that truly hold these metaphors – which one would only understand from actually, actively reading the piece. For example on page 7 of the article, the moment where the characters of Senator Borne and Doctor Benitez are sort of fighting for this dominance during her presentation – this demonstrated the shutting out of any different culture or language. Senator Borne explains to Dr. Benitez that “it’d be really great if you could just pump the breaks a bit and use some layman’s terms for us regular folk here,” (Martinez, pg.7, p.1) when she was explaining her scientific discovery. This sophisticated, scientific-term filled way of speaking was something Benitez’s character worked hard to learn and an area of her individual life that she took pride in. Senator Borne asking her to reject this and conform to the way all the other people in the room speak represents this force of conformation that he’s placing on the Hispanic community. This interaction followed Senator Borne neglecting to call her by her proper, earned title of “Dr.” All of these significant exchanges between these meaningful characters display for the readers this ridding of individuality that these right-wing individuals are advocating for. This is a small metaphor that I interpreted and picked up on within my own reading of the allegory – not just a repetition of Martinez’s explaining of the metaphors that follow her allegory. This individual interpretation is what leads to genuine understanding of the issues the author is exploring, not just the author directly explaining the meaning behind the allegory herself. This is why Martinez’s structure of her article is so effective, as her allegory is followed by her blatantly explaining all of its underlying meaning. She is directly demonstrating for her audience the difference between showing and telling – exactly proving her point behind her whole article, that it will always be more effective.