Last July, I was in Rwanda with several dozen media stakeholders who gathered at the Kigali Genocide Memorial to meet with the Aegis Trust and the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide. I was there to discuss the growing problem of hate speech worldwide. I was one of only two Americans in a room representing 17 countries, and I listened intently as my colleagues spoke of their fears about the increasingly violent rhetoric dominating American politics.

“Americans care more about free speech than stopping hate speech” was the line I heard over and over again. And there was no part of me that disagreed.

Freedom of speech is one of the principles we hold dear in this country. It’s in our bones. We are taught that we have the freedom to think, feel and be. We have the freedom to create our own stories – and that is both a power and a responsibility. But I fear that too often we embrace the former and forget the latter.

Last month, vice presidential candidate JD Vance gave us a stark example that the stories we create around our lives can be as dangerous as they are moving. After spreading lies about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, he admitted to CNN host Dana Bash that he made up the story. That said The Guardian simply in one headline, “JD Vance admits he’s willing to ‘make up stories’ to get media attention.” And both in the vice presidential debate and in many interviews since then, he doubled down on this tactic as a means of getting attention.

This is troubling, of course, but mostly unsurprising to hear from a political candidate who has chosen to join a campaign whose primary tactic is fear-mongering. But the fact that Vance is a critically acclaimed memoirist gives me reason to examine this moment with extra care.

Writing a memoir is telling a story about your own subjective truth. Memoirists tend to look at the world around them with an insatiable curiosity to understand their place in it. They explore their pain in the context of their physical place and do their best to build a narrative arc around a life that can often feel like chaos. There is no shortage of memoirs written by Americans that open a window into what it feels like to be a citizen of this country, and no two stories are the same; walk into any bookstore and you’ll find a multitude of perspectives that either challenge or comfort you.

Vance’s 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy”, was one of these perspectives. He wrote about his life growing up in Ohio and many of us in this country devoured it, myself included. He took me to a part of the country I don’t know and told me a story about a place I don’t understand. As many of us do by default, I trusted the storyteller.

However, there have always been critics of memory. For example, a 2022 Politico interview with Kentucky-born author Silas House, who is one of the foremost thinkers on the South, was quoted as saying “When I criticize (‘Hillbilly Elegy’), conservatives sometimes accuse me of wanting to keep it out of the hands of readers…in by no means am I saying the book should be banned… Every family story has value, but I wish he had told that story without generalizing an entire place and people to suit his agenda.”

Since the release of his book, Vance has gone from spinning his own story to spewing hate speech, which the United Nations refers to as “offensive speech directed at a group or individual based on inherent characteristics (such as be it race, religion or gender) and that it can threaten social peace.” It’s an abuse of storytelling that has been proven effective by dictators and authoritarians for generations.

The following presidential debates in September, when Trump repeated the lies Vance created, gave us an undeniable example of how hate speech leads to violence. In the following weeks, Springfield, Ohio endured dozens of bomb threats against schools and public offices. Elementary schools had to be evacuated, local colleges chose to meet virtually for safety reasons, and the city canceled its annual celebration of diversity, arts and culture.

When defending his lies, Vance unapologetically explained that he made up the story because he knew it would attract attention. And he is right. We’re still talking about it. I write about it. It gained traction. Springfield still struggles with abuse. And our country has descended into a culture war between those who want to humanize their neighbors and those who believe their safety depends on dehumanization.

But here’s what Vance doesn’t understand—a good writer, a good person, and a good leader hold themselves accountable for their failures. They investigate themselves to find their faults and recognize their own shortcomings, which are often mirrored by the people in their lives, especially those who are hurt.

Vance got his chance when he admitted he lied. He could have set an example by saying he did something wrong. He could have told us that he was caught up in his party’s tactics and succumbed to peer pressure from his boss. He could have admitted that he found himself acting in a way he didn’t think he would and apologized for hurting people living in his home state. That’s what a protagonist would do.

Stories are not prescribed or set. If Vance wants to tell a story told through hate speech and call himself a savior through premeditated lies – fine. We can’t stop it. This is the power given to us Americans by our freedom of speech. But with his power comes our responsibility. We don’t have to be his audience. We, the voters of this country, can decide where our memory goes. This is our story to write. And I hope we make it a good one.

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