So, I Have a Question...
Sometimes a single image is enough to send me down a rabbit hole.
This was one of those times.
I was watching a documentary about Queen Nzinga when they described one of the most famous moments of her life.
She arrived to negotiate with the Portuguese.
They had prepared a chair for the governor.
Not for her.
So one of her attendants knelt beside her.
And Nzinga sat on the attendant's back so she could negotiate eye to eye.
Real talk, I have no idea whether every detail of that story happened exactly that way.
Historians still debate parts of it.
But that's not what made me stop.
The question that wouldn't leave me alone was much simpler.
"Why does this image refuse to die?"
Out of everything Queen Nzinga accomplished...
Why do we keep telling the story about the chair?
Or maybe...
Why do we keep telling the story about the chair that wasn't there?
Okay...But Hear Me Out...
Okay...
Can we talk about the chair for a second?
Because I have been thinking about this chair way more than any reasonable person probably should.
At first, I was trying to figure out whether the story actually happened the way it's usually told.
And don't get me wrong—that matters.
But after a while, I realized I was asking the wrong question.
The question that wouldn't leave me alone wasn't,
"Did this happen?"
It was,
"Why has this story survived?"
Think about it.
History is full of negotiations.
Kings met with queens.
Generals met with governors.
Empires signed treaties.
Most of those meetings have completely disappeared from our collective memory.
This one?
Somehow we're still talking about the chair.
That's weird.
And when something survives for centuries, my little English teacher brain starts asking different questions.
Not,
"Is this the whole story?"
But,
"Why this part?"
Because stories are funny like that.
They have a way of preserving the moments that reveal something bigger.
The more I looked at that chair, the less it looked like furniture.
It looked like a statement.
Before anyone said a single word...
The room had already decided who mattered.
Who belonged.
Who was expected to stand.
Who was expected to sit.
And Queen Nzinga looked around that room and basically said...
"Nope."
Not with her words.
With her actions.
She changed the picture before she changed the conversation.
Now, I don't know about you, but I have a feeling we've all walked into a room that had already decided who belonged before anyone introduced themselves.
And suddenly...
This wasn't a story about a queen.
It was a story about respect.
Tamra Teaches
Can I tell you one of my favorite teaching tricks?
Whenever we started a new novel, I didn't start with the novel.
I started with a visual.
Sometimes it was a picture book.
Sometimes it was a short film.
Sometimes it was an episode of Arthur.
Not because my freshmen couldn't handle the big text.
Because I wanted to give them an image they could carry with them.
When we read To Kill a Mockingbird, we started with We Don't Eat Our Classmates.
When we read The Odyssey, we watched Arthur's version first.
Then, when we got to the “big text”, they already had a picture in their heads.
That's the thing about imagery.
Our brains hold onto pictures.
Long after we've forgotten page numbers.
Long after we've forgotten dialogue.
Sometimes one image carries an entire story.
And if that's true...
Then maybe one of the best questions we can ask is:
Why this picture?
Because once I started asking that...
I couldn't stop looking at the chair.
That's Wild
I noticed the chair immediately.
Honestly...how could you not?
It's one of those images that lodges itself in your brain.
A queen.
A negotiation.
One chair.
No seat for her.
It's unforgettable.
But after I sat with it for a while, I realized I'd been looking at the wrong part of the story.
I was looking at the chair.
I should've been looking at the room.
Because before anyone spoke or negotiations began or a single demand was made, the room had already told everyone how this meeting was supposed to go.
There was a chair for the Portuguese governor.
There wasn't one for Queen Nzinga.
No announcement.
No grand declaration.
Just a room arranged to communicate who belonged where.
That's wild.
Because we tend to think respect is something we express with words.
But sometimes...
It's communicated with space.
Who gets invited.
Who gets acknowledged.
Who gets introduced first.
Who gets interrupted.
Who already has a place waiting for them.
The room speaks long before the people do.
And Queen Nzinga understood that.
She didn't stop the meeting to argue about the chair.
She answered the room.
Not with a speech.
With an image.
One so unforgettable that centuries later, we're still talking about it.
And maybe that's the real story.
Not that she found a place to sit.
But that she refused to let someone else arrange the picture of who she was.
Wild Thoughts
Can I be just a little petty for a second?
Imagine having to prove you're a queen...
...while you're literally the queen.
Crazy business.
And before we laugh too hard...
How often do we do the exact same thing?
We walk into a room and let the room decide who knows what they're talking about.
Who's the expert.
Who's the leader.
Who's worth listening to.
As if conference rooms are somehow magical truth-telling devices.
Spoiler alert.
They are certainly not.
They're just rooms.
Filled with people.
People who bring their assumptions, their blind spots, their egos, and sometimes their insecurities right through the front door.
So why do we give the room so much authority?
Queen Nzinga didn't.
She looked around, saw exactly what the room was trying to communicate, and essentially said,
"That's your opinion."
And I don't know why...
But I find that deeply satisfying.
Because I think I've spent way too much of my life treating other people's seating charts like they were objective reality.
Maybe they were never real.
Maybe they were just furniture.
And honestly...
There's something incredibly freeing about realizing those are not the same thing.
Go Wild
This week, I want you to read the room.
No...
Not like your mama taught you.
I want you to read it like a storyteller.
The next time you walk into a meeting...
A classroom.
A church.
A restaurant.
A family gathering.
Don't listen first. Look.
Who's standing?
Who's sitting?
Who naturally takes up space?
Who shrinks themselves?
Who gets interrupted?
Who gets introduced?
Whose opinion seems to carry weight before they've even spoken?
Now ask yourself one question:
"What story is this room trying to tell?"
Then ask an even better one.
"Is it true?"
Because Queen Nzinga reminded me of something I think I needed to hear.
Rooms tell stories.
But they don't get the final edit.
Go Wild.
