Against All Odds

The juridical system deemed the delivery of an oral testimony invaluable during the French Revolution and required that every relevant word uttered in the testimony be transcribed for the court’s record. The transcription was meant to inscribe the living voice into the court’s protocols. Yet the voice and the way it transmits the testimony are not present in this form of transcription. In light of that, it is possible to ask how a transcription of words alone could account for the voice. In the following, I analyze Central Park Five member Korey Wise’s coerced confession from 1989 and engage with the voice and the ways it is heard within the context of oral testimony. Thinking with Giorgio Agamben and Fred Moten, I offer a new methodology for the transcription of oral testimonies that brings the testifying subjects’ voices onto the page. The methodology shows that a consideration of vocality is crucial for understanding the testimony, the value listening can bring into fights for justice and decoloniality, and the devastating implications that mal-listening practices can have for those who wish to be heard.