voices, heard

The struggle of liberation has been in part to create the conditions for the formerly silenced to speak and be heard.

(...) 

Even when the evidence was overwhelming some still hurled abuse and threats at the victims and found ways to deny the merits of their stories. Because to believe them would mean questioning foundational assumptions. It would be uncomforable, and many speak of comfort as a right, even when - especially when - that comfort is built upon the suffering and silencing of others. 

If the right to speak, if having credibility, if being heard is a kind of wealth, that welath is now being redistributed. There has long been an elite with audibility and credibility, and an underclass of the voiceless. As the wealth is redistributed, the stunned incomprehension of the elites erupts over and over again, a fury and disbelief (...). These voices, heard, upend power relations.

- A Short History of Silence, in The Mother of All Questions, Rebecca Solnit (2017)