For everyone decrying the tone of the discussion...

[rachelmanija]

...my problem with the entire question of tone and courtesy is that it's typically only applied one way: people of color/non-white people who are angry about racism are told to watch their tone and be more polite.

It reminds me of how women angry about sexism are told that they're being shrill and strident, and men would listen to them if they were more polite and phrased it better. I say that not to compare oppressions, but to say that the mechanisms of socialization work in some eerily similar ways to maintain oppressive power structures: Speaking up for your rights is rude. Telling people who are being kicked from corner to post that it's their own fault nobody's listening, because they're not saying it right, is normal and polite.

The question of "personal attacks" is also applied and seen in a similarly skewed manner. When a person of color says, "Hey, so-and-so said a racist thing," they're seen as making a personal attack. When a white person says, "You're not smart enough for your opinion to count," they're seen as arguing the issues.

The burden of being polite and impersonal - in a matter that affects people's everyday lives on a profoundly personal level - is placed on the backs of the people who have to cope with the oppression in real life. And the people who are at the top of the power structure are the ones who get to be perceived as being polite and nice, when the substance of what they're actually saying - your opinions don't count, you're not educated enough to have a valid opinion, you're too educated to have a valid opinion, we don't want you - is neither nice nor polite.

These are not my original ideas, just my phrasing. I have seen this argument made many, many times by people of color. And also by white women. And also by GLBT people. A much more detailed explanation here, including the point that no tone is ever good enough.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

The worst name-calling and personal attacking I've seen is whites against other whites, which (I think) polarizes people so much that the original problem (and need) gets buried.

The last day or so has brought about some heroic attempts to get the real work back on track, but wow.

[madam-silvertip.livejournal.com]

That's been my impression here and on other occasions. Which is not to say that the resulting furor doesn't seriously hurt people of color, not least by derailing the conversation about the original problem.

[theodosia.livejournal.com]

Seriously, I'm seeing this too -- it may be a function of where I'm reading or my not realizing some of the participants are considered PoC, but I know enough of who's publically known as white to find it.

[brownbetty]

I think this is partly because PoC know they can't ever, ever, ever call white people names without a ten page bibliography citing their sources. White people, on the other hand, know that their race will never be judged by their actions, they will never get called on their tone (or at least, it will not be done systemically, and used as a reason to dismiss their concerns entirely) and that no one will dogpile themn for daring to critique a white person.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Yep, this makes total sense.

*sick*

[rydra_wong]

thingswithwings had a brilliant post about this:

http://thingswithwings.livejournal.com/57068.html

(Yes, I link compulsively ...)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Oh yes it is, thank you for that link.

[madam-silvertip.livejournal.com]

This is true, but there's also the aspect that for us (white people) this is an internecine, family dispute, often literally (the same people in a family and/or group of friends having violently differing views) and those are always especially vicious. We see other people acting in ways that scare us and about which we want to say, "Not us! Not me!" And we tend to project that fear and viciousness onto nonwhite people as well, whose internecine battles exist but are different.

I can see this aspect of it in the reaction of many white women to being accused of racism. So many of us have had to get over huge amounts of false guilt imposed by society and family for things we were supposed to have done, not to have done, did to other people without knowing it, etc., that if we can get over any of it and speak freely, it's very destabilizing to hear "that hurt me" or "that was wrong." It's not immediately obvious that this is not coming from someone within the same family/kinship group and the guilt/shame issues are different.

And for some of us the false guilt issues have to do with white perceptions of nonwhite people, and how we were educated to relate to nonwhite people, which often turned out to have little to do with reality (the reality of nonwhite people). It's easy then to resist taking the next step into realizing that liberating oneself from this kind of false guilt doesn't mean there isn't still white privilege.