Tim Tingle is one of the nation’s most sought-after storytellers. He entrances his audience with his ability to weave a tale that takes people to a place they couldn’t have imagined. In that sense, his stories are somewhat like Garrison Keillor’s -- in the way they take people on a journey into a surprise they didn’t see coming but was, in retrospect, the whole reason they allowed themselves the journey in the first place.
In a recent interview, Tingle discussed one of his stories, “Crossing Bok Chitto,” that changed his life. Until 2005, when he went on a book tour, Tingle had been “lulled along, as most Americans are, in the belief that our nation's victory over racist attitudes was a victory that set us apart as a people. I was stunned to discover otherwise. My eyes were opened and I saw a people brimming with judgment based solely on race.”
A Childhood Incident
Tingle’s story about Bok Chitto highlights the power people have over prejudice, the ability people have to end injustice if they are willing to act on their own integrity. Tingle described a memory of when he was seven, “drinking from a ‘Colored Only’ water fountain in a downtown Houston department store. My mother dragged me out of the store and was visibly upset.”
“The next morning at breakfast it was obvious to all, my four brothers and sisters, that she had stayed up most of the night crying. ‘Never again,’ she announced. ‘Never again will we judge people by the color of their skin.’
She walked around the table and kissed me and asked me to forgive her.”
Tingle’s mother, in essence, rewrote the story of her family’s life. Tingle said, “My mother was raised in Memphis, Tennessee, in an all-white neighborhood, as they all were in those days. She told of things her brothers had done and said to colored people, as she called them.”
After the incident in the department store, when she had the family conversation about racism, Tingle realized, “I will never forget what she then said, and though I could not possibly understand her at the time, I still remember her words. ‘We will all, at one time or another, suffer for making this choice. And when we do, remember this conversation, and know that you are doing the right thing.’"
Examining Prejudice
Of the story of Bok Chitto, Tingle said, “In the telling and the twice-writing of the story (first as a short story included in Walking the Choctaw Road and second as a children's illustrated book) over a twelve-year period, I have re-examined my attitudes and how they were shaped by experiences I witnessed, even as a child.”
IN 2005, Walking won the Oklahoma Reads Book Award and Tingle went on a tour of Oklahoma, “covering over one hundred towns and cities of every size. . . . I spent many long hours on the road thinking about things I saw, and asked myself why I felt as I did and why basically good-hearted people so casually insulted complete strangers, publicly and without regret.”
Now Tingle says, “I am seeing through newly-opened eyes. I identify with those, like Schindler in the film Schindler’s List, who brave public scorn and risk so much in reaching across the boundaries that separate us.”
NOTE: Stories as Keys: Talking to Tim Tingle includes more insights about race and storytelling from the interview with Tingle.
References
- Tingle, Tim. Personal Interview. 15 Aug. 2008.
- Tingle, Tim. Walking the Choctaw Road. Cinco Puntos Press, 2005.
Shaun Perkins - Shaun Perkins, teacher, poet, storyteller, porch-sitter, beekeeper, gardener, writer, has been a high school and university teacher for ...
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