Exposed: The Ethics of Storytelling

"Streetwise Revisited: A 30-year Journey" exhibition, Seattle Public Library, 2016

Source: Josephine Ensign

"I want people to think of me as being this thirteen-year-old little girl that raised myself on the streets and survived through a lot of stuff like the Green River Killer, and other people that were crazy and through me shootin' dope and never died. Cleaning up my life and having my kids and doing the best I can do." Erin Blackwell, street name "Tiny" in a 2014 interview with the late master photographer Mary Ellen Mark (1940-2015)

I am revisiting the story of Erin Blackwell, a Seattle woman who, as a then thirteen-year-old prostituted teen in downtown Seattle, was the focus of an influential documentary and accompanying book on the "street kid" phenomenon of the 1980's: Streetwise (1984) by Martin Bell (documentary) and Mary Ellen Mark (book). I also am revisiting and extending my thinking about the complex ethics involved in storytelling, whether that is through photography, film, or—in my case—writing.

Specifically, I am wrestling with the ethical issues involved in my research and writing of my current Skid Road book project's chapter, tentatively titled "Streetwise" (now retitled "Threshold") and based on the story of Tiny. Since my book project is a narrative history of homelessness and health in Seattle, all of my previous chapters have focused on the story of a 'real life' Seattleite who lived and/or worked at the intersection of health and homelessness. But all my my main characters up until "Threshold" are now dead. The fact that they are dead obviously does not let me off the hook from being respectful of who they were as people—respectful of their memories and their legacies, including living relatives.

But Tiny—Erin Blackwell, who is very much alive and still living in the Seattle area. How do I go about 'using' her story as the basis of exploring the complexities of the homelessness crisis—particularly the youth homelessness crisis— in our nation and in Seattle in the 1980's and 1990's?

Since I moved to and began my work with Seattle homeless youth in 1994, I have come to know a fair number of the homeless youth depicted in Streetwise. I've also worked with social workers and other care providers who were involved in one way or another with Streetwise. Thus, I am privy to insider information, much of which is not in the public domain. That, I know, will not make its way directly into my book but it will end up in it at least indirectly. I have completed 'official' oral history interviews with the health and social care providers. I'm still wondering whether or not I want to try to interview Erin for this chapter. Somehow it does not feel right to ask her to expose herself more than she already has.

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More information on Streetwise and "Streetwise Revisited: A 30-year Journey" exhibition in fall 2016 at the Seattle Public Library can be found at Seattle University's excellent Project on Family Homelessness website.