Our Silence Cannot Protect Us:

Finding an Ethics of Nursing Outloud

Abstract

In “Our Silence Cannot Protect Us,” I aim to interrogate nursing’s silences and neutralities, situating them squarely in their resolute politics. I am excavating some of my own frustrations with the discipline in its professionalized version, a version that cleaves to a veneer of care but all too often forsakes action in favor of safety, of proximity to power. I do so using a variety of theoretical interventions, drawing heavily on the prophecy of Audre Lorde, recognizing that neutrality is always unilateral, only possible from a single fixed perspective–and there are always other perspectives. I start with a consideration of neutrality and then move into silence and its hazards. I then consider where neutrality gives way to active complicity and conclude with some suggestions for action.