A CRT Counterstory

Abstract

While teaching young girls from the lower socioeconomic class and usually lower castes in a rural part of Punjab, Pakistan, I witnessed not only class-based learning gaps but also the ways in which class impacts their subjecthood and their academic lives. These experiential facts are even more complicated for those who are multiply marginalized based on class, caste, religion, and other discriminatory factors like color, accent, and hair but whose marginalization remains largely invisible. Storytelling, in these situations, serves both as a personal and political tool for marginalized people to have conversations about these challenges. By using the genre of counterstory, this paper highlights the intersectionality of caste system, gender hierarchy, colorism, and racism, particularly in the context of Pakistan. This “new rhetoric” of counterstory enables a storyteller to bring their experiences to a wider audience and talk about various issues with minimized possibility of chastisement. Many scholars offer and employ this methodology, for example, Martinez,[1] Derrick Bell,[2] and Patricia Williams[3] have written dialogues and told stories by using their experiential knowledge of marginalized and underprivileged communities. Building on this previous work, this paper provides its readers the chance to analyze and understand their experiential knowledge because “counterstory or counter perspective is presented to develop the minoritized viewpoints and to critique the viewpoints which put forth by various characters.”[4] [1] See Aja Y. Martinez, Counterstory: The Rhetoric and Writing of critical Race Theory (2020). https://www.amazon.com/Counterstory-Rhetoric-Writing-Critical-Theory/dp/0814108784 [2] Bell, Derrick. And We Are Not Saved: The Elusive Quest for Racial Justice. 1987. Print. Faces at the Bottom of the Well. New York: Basic Books, 1992. Print. [3] Williams, Patricia J. The Alchemy of Race and Rights: Diary of a Law Professor. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 1991. [4] See Aja Y. Martinez, Counterstory: The Rhetoric and Writing of critical Race Theory (2020).