Pain thus turns out to be a powerful site of testimonial quieting, a concept developed by the philosopher Kristie Dotson, wherein “an audience fails to identify a speaker as a knower.”32 Because the audience doubts or impugns the speaker’s competence, the speaker ends up effectively being silenced. She may complain of her pain, but her pain cries go unheeded. As Dotson shows, this kind of silencing is often enacted against Black women in America.
