Haters, move to the left, ’cause I’m getting uppity. How many times am I going to hear a variation of “I don’t like your tone” or “calm down – we’re just talking”? No, asshole, we’re not just talking. We were talking, but then you decided to ask, “what about my rights?” Your big neon sign of privilege is showing. Not every conversation has to be about you.
A dramatic metaphor:
Imagine you’re riding your motorcycle down the street. The car in front of you slams on their breaks brakes to meet a stop light, and you swerve to avoid smashing into them, only to end up hitting a telephone pole. It’s your bike that’s a goner, but thankfully the other vehicles have no significant damage. You’re also the one bleeding internally from faceplanting. Only one ambulance has arrived so far. The paramedics are trying to help you in whatever way they can. The other person involved in the accident walks over and demands medical attention because they could be bleeding internally as well. They stopped really suddenly! Their airbag went off!
No doubt, they could be injured. Although it is a possibility, the biker is visibly in pain. The driver makes the point, “but sie must have known the hazards of motorcycles!” In this metaphor, the paramedics stop paying attention to the biker and start looking after the driver. The biker uses up a ton of energy just trying to say, “hey, wait a fucking minute! This is supposed to be about me!” and is only met with “when we’re done here, we’ll get to you. Just calm down and quit being so angry.”
Of course, in real life, everyone would look at the driver as though a Martian had just landed, and hopefully everyone would get medical attention in the first place.
The point I’m trying to make with my crappy metaphor is this: oppression hurts. Badly. For some people (can’t safely generalize), it takes a lot of mental and emotional preparation to even engage in a discussion about their oppression(s). People with marginalized identities do not need anyone with privilege trying to insert themselves into a conversation as though they are also marginalized, and make the discussion about how they feel or how they are negatively affected. (Also, if you are marginalized in one/two/n area(s), it does not mean you are marginalized all over.)
I know that when I want to talk about racism and sexism, I have to prepare myself emotionally. They have been with me all of my life, and yet, a lot of the time, I don’t have the words to express how I feel about racism and sexism. It fills me with fury when a white person, any gender, comes along and starts implying what we should really be paying attention to is how racism marginalizes white people. I am filled with the same fury when women are trying to talk about sexual harassment and sexual assault, and a man, of any race, interjects with “well, that has happened to me too! Big deal!”
There is also the flip side, when people with privilege start talking about how ‘difficult’ it is for them to understand a particular oppression, and the spotlight is put on how so terribly hard it is for a white anti-racist to understand the plight of POC and how we can make it easier for white allies to discuss whiteness. When a trans person starts talking about transphobia, a cis person might wander in with “I just don’t understand transsexualism. Educate me.” They might even say ‘please.’
The ways people with privilege obstruct discussions, derail, and turn dialogues into monologues is endless. It is a form of silencing, any way you look at it. And then, haha, and then, when someone being silenced by derailment starts getting justifiably angry for being symbolically gagged, we hear those magical words, “You’re being terribly rude and emotional. I am not taking your abuse.” I mean, let’s just sit down and have a nice cup of tea and calmly talk about oppression, right?
That’s the equivalent of saying, “I don’t like your tone. I won’t listen to you criticize my pedestal unless you say it nicely.”
Please, sir, can I have some more condescension?
Oh, there was a discussion on the F Word about Queen Emily’s “Quit Fucking Up” letter that turned into a long referendum on whether her tone was off and why it’s wrong to reject allies who ask for education. After I linked Nezua’s Drowning Maestro definition, someone started carrying the story to another blog that I called everyone racists, and of course one of the people who pulled the tone argument (a man, btw) started explaining that it was justified because he was asking people to follow the rules and be nice.
It was a whole bingo card, as such threads almost always are, and it brought something to mind that’s related to your post: I hate when people declare themselves allies and expect that to be taken at face value. They seem to think just saying “I sympathize with your cause” gives them a free pass to act entitled, to try to control all of the discussion, and regulate the people they claim to be allied to so their tone doesn’t get out of control, or whatever.
And there’s the emotional cost of engaging people who don’t think of you as fully human, the fact that they will resort to the wite magic attacks (regardless of which privilege they try to protect with them). There’s almost zero chance of any real engagement – if they do acknowledge, it’s to go on the defensive as you describe and make it all about them and how your chest wound is taking attention away from their hangnail. Many times, they just pretend you’re not there or they’ll invent an excuse to as to why you’re not worth talking to.
What surprised me most when I stepped into the blogosphere was how everyone who gets defensive their privilege does so with the same language, the same gambits, the same arguments, despite the variety of privileges people carry.
Not that I’ve been wanting to vent about any of that recently. Thank you for writing this.
I don’t usually follow the F Word, but those comments coming from other cis people made my head spin like a ferris wheel. Spinning for ages but getting nowhere.
When I wrote this post, it was a response to a cis man deciding it was appropriate to say ‘but how is this going to help me? Here is how I think you women should do things’ when an initiative to highlight sexual assault in my campus community was being launched. As I learn more and more about different oppressions and marginalized people, it becomes clearer that privilege manifests in language and behaviour in almost the same way across the board, tone being the one I notice the most. Even though I started off this post with privileged men in mind, it was frighteningly easy to make it one that could apply to all sorts of privilege, especially my own.
With the recent radfem blow up (it’s like it follows a planetary cycle), it was the same old B.S. Cis people are allowed to use hateful language but outrage and resistance to that privilege is CENSORSHIP, even though it is trans people who are being censored. White people are allowed to deny racism, say “you played the race card”, but yelling at them out of frustration is verbal assault. Men are allowed to say and do sexist things, but a woman telling him off is being uptight and frigid. Excuses, defensiveness, and more excuses.
I wish you weren’t right about the fake allies, or allies in name only, being something that transcends each privilege. People say “I am your ally” but either never do a single damn thing, and/or just keep enabling your oppression by exercising their own privilege to do harm, blindly or not, by ‘letting things slide.’ It is aggravating, and makes me feel like they are only doing it to make themselves look better. Or! If they actually start doing ally work, but then expect thanks, it’s just as bad, since they’re only doing what they should be doing anyway. Let me go get you a medal, for crying out loud.
I got long-winded again. You can vent here ANY time, Lisa! I’m making it a business to vent!
Yeah – I just recently watched a friend of mine, who I admit is learning to check his privilege, but “still learning” is something I hate to hear. Anyway, he was reviewing some podcasts for a blog, and three of the podcasts had rape jokes. So, he almost calls them out, but won’t actually name them. I kno
Yeah on trans people being censored – they talk about how they’re being silenced by having their privilege pointed out, but then when I try to talk to them directly, they pretend I’m not there, or accuse me of arguing in poor faith and then pretend I’m not there.
And of course the very first time I saw this happen was on Donna’s blog, The Silence of Our Friends, where this one woman kept talking about how it was sooo hard to talk to blackamazon, and blackamazon was following and contributing to the same discussion, but she kept blithely acting like BA wasn’t there.
But yeah, the people who call themselves allies and then use that ally status to try to police the discussion – like in the F Word post – are some of the worst. They think that just by saying “I’m an ally” that they’ve offered something of value, so that the threat of withdrawing this thing should be enough to manipulate your behavior. And the threat is immediate – but it’s not a real threat. because the ally-ness they’re offering never actually occurred.
And, hell, the whole “We get to tell the people we oppress how they can talk to us” just pisses me off. I remember explaining on Alas (perhaps a bit too earnestly, but still) that white people shouldn’t be the ones to define when a racist act has occurred, because the answer will nearly always be “never,” but it was all “You can’t call it racist or I’ll get angry and won’t listen.” Except of course, they get angry at prejudiced, discriminatory, any other word carries exactly the same baggage – “You’re calling me a bad person, because good people don’t have prejudice,.” Or even Jay Smooth’s video about “what you did” vs. “what you are” doesn’t often help because – as he points out, they do a judo flip and turn the “what you did” argument into the “what you are” argument.
And this is also relevant to me right now because of going through the same thing on an inflated scale with the whole transphobia thing.
Still venting… I need to write a post about allies and privilege and adapting wite magik attacks to other privileges. When I pointed out the Drowning Maestro, there were people on another blog going off about how I was calling them racist for using the tone argument. Face. Palm.
Comment three wasn’t supposed to be there, but I’ll finish it:
Anyway: I know he’s not reviewing the rapecasts, so if I want to listen, I’ll know what he reviews is safe. However, I think that not saying anything absolves them from any responsibility or consequences for making those podcasts, and that’s frustrating to see from someone who tries to be an ally.
(I wrote this reply in bursts throughout the day when I got a chance, so it’s incredibly disjointed!)
Poor little her, not being able to talk to BA because she refuses to take anyone’s crap. I think I remember reading this when it happened, or it’s happened more than once with BA (I wouldn’t be surprised). Also, I find it hilarious (you know, in that sad, painful way) that you’ve been accused of arguing in poor faith. I swear, radfems who make it their life to fight with trans people are the most absurd bunch of privileged people I’ve ever encountered in my life.
How unaware of your privilege do you have to be to talk about someone as if they’re not there?! It’s just saying they’re not interested in having a discussion at all and want to invalidate the other person’s existence, not just experiences. I am disgusted this happens, especially in the blogosphere, but not at all surprised. It happens a lot offline too. It’s also hilarious (again, in the “oh my god whaat hahaha whaaat?” way that tone apparently only applies to discussions about racism. No, it’s ALL across.
I feel another post coming on about this. A few months ago, a supposed ally of mine criticized me and my work without giving me the chance to defend myself. Some of my friends defended me, but he kept insisting he knew what was best for anti-racist feminist work and that he was ’speaking’ for the people who felt marginalized by my work. I was all, “who? Straight white men?”
What you said about white people trying to define what is and is not racist and when we should use the word ‘racist’ — agh! “Why can’t we call it something else… something nicer, other than ‘racist’?” sounds exactly like “Why can’t we make it sound less serious so that no one challenges me?” Dress it up, make it sound fancy, it’s still racism. We hear it from everybody — ‘I don’t want to listen to you call me ____ist because I think I’m a good person!” We get caught up in morality, between good and bad, and it hinders us from seeing actions instead of people. Like you said, Jay Smooth’s video still isn’t the answer because we hear “this was ____” and think people are saying, “you are _____.”
If you write the post about allies and privilege, I will definitely link it.
I think I’ve seen it happen a few times with BA. She’s too mean, her writing is too idiosyncratic, and so on.
And then 101 discussions. I love it when people are talking about actual violence that’s occurred – whether it’s a murder, or that girl who had a DNR order attached to her wheelchair because she had cerebral palsy, or what happened with Ashley X, and suddenly it becomes a requirement for people to be educated in order to care about what’s going on. It’s not enough to support the notion that we’re talking about human beings, we have to dissect their lives to understand why they deserve to be treated like human beings. As if there’s some rational explanation for it all.
Also, people who preface their statements with “It’s wrong that this happened,” and then tries to excuse the fact that it happened in a way that blames the person it happened to.
[...] transphobic behavior they’re exhibiting at that particular time. It’s not unlike what I said to Uppity Brown Woman the other day about white people defining racism: . . . white people shouldn’t be the ones to define when a [...]
that’s a -great- metaphor, not a crappy one. thanks for that…
“What surprised me most when I stepped into the blogosphere was how everyone who gets defensive their privilege does so with the same language, the same gambits, the same arguments, despite the variety of privileges people carry.”
yup. i’m up for having another go at a Universal Asshole (Privilege-Defender-To-The-Death, if you prefer) Bingo Card or checklist one of these days
We could pretty much base said bingo card on the Wite Magik Attaks, no?
Darling, if you have something to say to me, you say it to my face.
Sugar dumpling: some of us already did. It got boring. You’re an idiot, is why. Did you need to hear it again for some reason?
I mean, on the “tone” tip, Christ knows no one here is accusing you of being too polite or anything, but really, I can’t tell if leaving that particular comment on this particular post is irony, performance art, or just you wandering in drunk at this point.
UPW: apologies if I’m breaking your comment policy, but, you know, “she started it.”
so, okay, one square could be, say:
“I MUST REFOCUS THE CONVERSATION ON MYSELF! EVEN AT THE EXPENSE OF MAKING ME LOOK LIKE EVEN MORE OF A FUCKBRAIN THAN I ALREADY DID!”
see, this is where “institutionalized privilege” really meets the more personal or rather interpersonal level of “just plain assholery.” a rather splendid little example, really. it’s not clear at what point the infantile “PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO MEMEME” ends and the “UH OH PEOPLE BELONGING TO THE GROUPS I REFUSE TO RECOGNIZE AS ACTUAL PEOPLE ARE HAVING CONVERSATIONS AMONGST THEMSELVES, MAKING FRIENDS AND INFLUENCING PEOPLE DESPITE MY DISAPPROVAL, THIS MUST BE STOPPED.”
I mean, the distinction is less important when the privilege-enforcer in question, as in this case, has -generally- the brainpower and social skills of a particularly maladjusted slime mold; clearly other cases are more complex.
If this song’s gonna be about you, I guess it’s gonna be about you. Besides, this post is about tone arguments, and this is a sterling example of the species:
Also, comments 125, 140, 150, and 153.
LMFAO WOW M ANDREA NEEDS A VERY SPECIAL WHITE LADY AWARD.
i laugh only because i’m expecting company in a bit and i don’t wanna fucking go insane when i should be having a nice time. >:o
also who the fuck said anything about you, andrea? what is it, like everytime there’s a post about radfems hating on trans*folks (yes, hating!), you assume people must be referring to you? what does that even say about you?
And this post and discussion isn’t even about radfems hating on trans folks.
Hope the m Andrea quote didn’t overshadow your company, Lorelei.
holy shit, i know. it was like, one comment. how did she even find her way here?!
no, i was okay, but seriously what the fucking fuck is that? she is such a racist slob i can’t even bear to think about it.
I think she read my transphobic post that’s pinged above, and followed it here.
I still have trouble believing that comment was on her post about how Justicewalks explained her white privilege to her – but then she goes on about how Justicewalks is “one of the good ones,” or something.
Feh, I feel icky just talking about it.
m Andrea, I don’t know if you’re referring to me or Lisa, but if it’s to me – you would know if I were talking to you or about you.
belledame, don’t worry about the commenting. I only have the one guideline!
Also, this bingo card needs to happen. One of the squares can be “you’ll catch more flies with honey than you will with vinegar.” I hear that adage ALL the time when it comes to discussions of privilege.
Dang, I just realized I misspelled ‘brakes.’ That is embarrassing.
Oops, I missed it too.
And totally true on the “catch more flies with honey…” Iine. I saw one of those last night.
[...] for white privilege, and someone on the staff of the publication I was writing for told me to watch my tone and that when he tries to get his point across to people with opposing views, he does so with [...]
[...] privilege, women of colour This is a tired, old post that I’ve written about with respect to tone, and that so many before me have written about. Hey, what’s another one to add to the pile? [...]
holla.
stopped counting the number of times i’ve been told to not be so “intense” or soften my tone. apparently that would make me more successful at creating the change i want.
i don’t disagree with the premise, actually. i should progress myself continually to progress society. but it’s no surprise that feminist arguments always bring out the “tone police” in persons privileged in one way or another.
it’s like me telling a sexist comedian to change the “tone” of their jokes so they can express sexism more effectively. no, what they need to change are the sexist ideas themselves.