IBARW 2: On anger

[oyceter]

This is a post for Intl. Blog Against Racism Week.

My terms, definitions, and disclaimers

It's odd to be posting this right now; I've finally gotten more than five hours of sleep and so am obnoxiously peppy and optimistic.

I've read the following posts/articles lately, which have all tangled together in my head in a giant mess: Zee on tone, zvi on tone and educating, workplace anger and gender, the "gotcha" game, and jlh's question: "But sometimes I wonder, does that lead to added responsibility for me? I'm so used to 'educating' people about race, but is that my job, because so many of my friends are white?" I've also been going through old emails when rachelmanija, coffeeandink, minnow1212, liviapenn, rilina and I decided to do IBARW last year in an attempt to write up another IBARW post, and what gets to me (and I think the others as well, though of course I don't speak for them) is how conciliatory we sound.

The tangly mess in my brain goes something like: Anger makes people not listen to me. I want to be listened to, particularly when I speak about things that are important to me. Therefore I should not sound angry. But. I am a woman, and when I get angry, people listen to me even less. I am Chinese, and when I get angry, people listen to me even less. I look young, so people listen to me even less (I get mistaken for a student a lot). Talking about racism makes people uncomfortable, and people get angry easier, and listen to me even less.

And I think about it more (or I don't), and I think: That makes me really fucking angry!

Mitsuye Yamada puts it better than me: "Their anger made me angry [...] I didn't expect their anger." (link to rilina's reaction to the quote, though I highly recommend both Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Togther? (where the excerpt is from) and This Bridge Called My Back (where the essay was originally published).

gaudior has some excellent points about anger and people listening, and she is not at all arguing that people should not be angry -- admittedly, I had to reread several times because of my kneejerk reaction, but she clearly says that the anger is not helpful when it comes to educating, assuming that educating is the goal. And jlh has further good points about educating and the burden of responsibility, as does witchqueen.

And so, I am left in a conundrum. And I think about Frank H. Wu's introduction to Yellow, in which he introduces himself as a professional Asian-American; he is called on as the Asian-American voice in issues of race, he is known for his stances and statements on race, and he is an Asian-American activist. There's a sense of regret when he writes this, along with a sense of pride.

This is when I look at my own LJ. I know a lot of people are reading me now for posts on race, and I thank you for that. And I know many people came for commentary on fannish things, books and manga, and found the race posts interesting as well, and I am grateful for that. I don't think I am a Professional Chinese-American-from-Taiwan-TCK Person; LJ makes it easier for me to be all things and not just one thing. Also, I can't not talk about being Chinese, being from Taiwan, being a TCK, having grown up abroad. It's part of who I am, just like part of who I am is a woman who lives in California and has rats and swing dances and loves food and loves books beyond almost all else.

jlh's question also poses a twister: I don't think any POC should be responsible for educating anyone else on race and racism, not when there is so much already on our shoulders, not when we're going to get asked anyway. And one of the cool things about this IBARW is seeing people educate themselves; heck, I have learned a ton just from two and a half days of posts.

But for me, personally... I do feel responsible for educating. Not because I am Chinese, but because I am human, because I used to be too silent, because I have been complicit in this system as well. I wrote last year for IBARW on speaking out, and I continue to stand behind that. I continue to feel guilt about being silent, but I believe the answer to guilt is not to sit and feel guilty, but to do something to make things better. Blogging is a small thing in the scope of things, but it is still a thing, and it is a small thing that is getting me to do more things.

I didn't actually mean to talk about educating, but just to state why not educating isn't an option for me. And yet, educating is tiring, and I don't always want to be the teacher. One of my sneaky sekrit reasons for organizing IBARW this year is so everyone will be talking, so I don't have to talk as much! (It is all part of my master plan for world domination.) Seriously, though: the more people talk about all aspects of racism, the less problematic it is when one conversation gets derailed, because there are a million more going on.

But really, what I wanted to talk about was anger.

gaudior is right; anger makes people less willing to listen. And as you can all tell, I want people to listen to me. It is hard admitting to that, given the combination of the pressure both to be a quiet woman and a quiet Chinese person, and it is even harder admitting that I have something to say.

And yet.

To be listened to, I have to give away my anger. And not only that, even if I don't act or sound angry, even if I make every effort to sound calm and reasonable, people will still comment on my tone because I talk about race, because I am female, and because I am Chinese. I reread last year's posts on the Great Cultural Appropriation Debate of DOOM and there were times my hands were shaking because I was so angry, and still, I nearly bent over backwards to not give offense to anyone. And look how that turned out.

"Why are you so angry?" I've been asked. And my question back is: "Why aren't you?"

I thought ap_racism and deadbrowalking were "too angry" and "too hostile" and "too bitter" when I first found them. Looking now, looking at all the things talked about there, all the tiny racist incidences that shred away your humanity, little by little, I wonder why people aren't more angry. Sometimes I'm not angry when I come across these things; it's just shake your head and move on, business as usual, and a cynical laugh, and that makes me sadder than the anger does, because I need to care.

Also, holding on to my anger is a bit of a "Fuck you!" to the world, just like my wearing pink and girly skirts and frippy clothes is. So you're going to use these things to define me? Go ahead and try. And yet, of course I'm aware of how problematic it is, how maybe people will listen to me because I look small and feminine without realizing that I am angry as hell inside; how maybe people will overlook me as being soft-spoken, given what I wear and my Asian-ness; how maybe some people who might have listened to me end up going away because I am too angry; or how maybe people will listen to me because I'm not "scary and black."

These are the Catch-22's that partially define and delineate my life -- not all of my life, but some of it.

So hi. I am here, and I am angry as hell, and sometimes I will be constructive and educating, and sometimes I will be incoherently rageful. And that second part should not be something I have to hide, particularly given how so many systems try to take it away already.

Comments

[littlebutfierce]

Fabulous post!!! I definitely agree that there's a race & gender aspect to how anger is received. And in how we feel when we ourselves get angry.

And well-mannered discussions generally go further than flamewars. But still... yes, why AREN'T other people angry? And why is "why are you so angry?" such a common way to invalidate someone's point? Why isn't it okay to be angry? Visibly so, audibly so, during an argument? Blah blah blah ad nauseum--anyway, thank you for this post.

[oyceter]

Exactly! Like, so I am angry. And? Does that make what I'm saying wrong? Or does it just make it harder for you to hear, because the two are not the same.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

You rock.

[oyceter]

Oh, thank you!

[rilina.livejournal.com]

I had trouble reading gaudior's post too, for many of the same reasons. I agree with you that her point is very valid (and well-put), but anger isn't something we can give up entirely. And when people tell me, "Your anger isn't constructive," part of me wants to respond, "You have the privilege of being able to give up your anger without feeling like you're giving up your voice."

(For obvious reasons, I'm not the best judge of how I come across on LJ. I know that in other parts of my life, people who don't know me very well see me as quiet and demure, and people who know me better see me as confrontational, opinionated, and sarcastic. I tend to think I should be angrier on my journal than I am. Maybe I am wrong.)

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

>And when people tell me, "Your anger isn't constructive," part of me wants to respond, "You have the privilege of being able to give up your anger without feeling like you're giving up your voice."

There's also the part where, I think, a speaker isn't required to always be constructive. Sometimes you need to be angry for its own sake, and that or something connected to it is your goal, and no, it's not constructive, but so what? It wasn't meant to be.

[desdenova.livejournal.com]

It is certainly not your or any POC's responsibility to educate white folks on issues of race and racism. Nevertheless, I am extremely appreciative that you take the time to do so. I've found your writing very educational indeed, and it's helped to inspire me to educate myself. So, thank you.

[oyceter]

Thank you for listening!

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

hi--here, and listening, and thank you for the post, and...gah. I'm sorry that your anger gets turned into a weapon against you.

[oyceter]

*hugs* Hi, and thank you for listening, and for all the reading and thinking you do on your on LJ as well.

[jennifergearing.livejournal.com]

Yes. So much yes with this post. I'm less overlooked because of my Asianess by people I've just met/encountered in person, because I take a lot of features from my white father, but I've had people I know crack jokes about me being 'angry Dragon Lady' and running after people with a cleaver (a cleaver, ffs, and the fracking dog thing. it makes me angry thinking about it even now, and i was friends with these people -_-)

And y'know, people are multitudes. This idea that we function same way every time; react same way every time, I find it weird. We're not machines, our 'programming', to the extent that the analogy works, has loopholes. Some would say it's flawed, I don't think it is. We're emotional beings, and holding ourselves to emotionless standards is really odd, to me, particularly when we're trying to deal with the stuff that, as you say, shreds away our humanity, piece by piece.

And I keep seeing a sense of entitlement from some folk that's like "oh sure, you can be angry sometimes" but still expecting that they're so important that we will set aside our rage for them. Because they're special or something.

I feel like I'm repeating stuff other people have already said elsewhere at other times, but that's sometimes how it is, because we spend so much time repeating ourselves, because people aren't listening. They're hearing what they want. Tone isn't just about how we sound, it's about how people hear us. Which is why bending over backwards to be polite can only do so much, because up to half of the 'tone problem' isn't about what we do.

I think I'm rambled enough .. Yes. Thankyou. And now that my brain has somewhat recovered from this flu, I might actually get around to posting for IBARW.

[oyceter]

Because they're special or something.

Heh, yes. They're ok if I'm angry, but only if it's not at them. And really, that doesn't count as being ok with my anger.

And yeah, I keep repeating things, and other people do too, and it is so tiring. And then I think of me, hearing the same thing for the billionth time and finally having that click in my head and knowing that it wouldn't be there if I hadn't heard it so often. But...

It is still not anyone's responsibility to repeat that stuff to me. I'll do it because I choose to, but always always while remembering that the choice isn't without a cost.

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

Something that I noticed about being angry over injustices a long time ago: if a woman is angry about some form of injustice that does not affect her directly, that's considered a good thing and she may very well be listened too. If she was angry about something that affected her directly, that's when she was most likely to be ignored or dismissed.

Women were encouraged to express anger in the mid-19th century, during the anti-slavery movement. Women were encouraged against to express anger during the anti-war protests in the 60s and 70s. Everyone devoted to those causes was expressing anger, and it did make a difference. In each case, it was when women began to express anger over their own situation that they were told that being angry would get them nowhere, because people don't listen to anger. And yet, many women continued to express anger, and while there is still a long way to go, still, a lot has been accomplished through anger.

I believe that there's a similar dynamic at work when other people who are the objects of institutionalised oppression speak up for themselves, in their own interests, with righteous anger.

It is my belief that anger is important, that anger should not be set aside. It is my belief that it should be harnessed, used to fire the spirit and support the body while you fight, even while it is controlled and channelled so that it feeds the message rather than rendering it incoherent. It seems to me that anger is how people respond then they are hurt, injured, mistreated, betrayed, belittled, excluded, done an injustice. And yes, people who think of themselves as good people may get upset if you tell them by your righteous anger that they have at the very least benefited and been complicit in such things, and very likely more than that. But that's our problem (speaking for myself as a white person).

Because people in power, people with white privilege - are, for the most part, not going to give up, or share, power and access, or let go of all the apparatus of lies and mystifications and covertly racist policies and all that shit that keeps us comfortable and unaware just because someone makes calm and logical arguments and appeals. Because we can come up with just as many calm and logical arguments why it can't be done, at least right now, or why it wouldn't be right or fair or proper, or it would harm something important like the economy or national security or making whites feel good about ourselves, and all the other bullshit arguments. We have a million of them.

Most of us will not really be moved until we see and feel the anger of those we have oppressed, and understand it, and its consequences, in our gut. Or at least that's how it seems to me.

[oyceter]

Heh, yes, very much so. As if to say, if someone is too close to a thing, they cannot judge it. And sometimes, that is the case. But with institutionalized oppression, all the people further away are so busy trying not to see it that it doesn't work that way.

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

The problem with anger as a rhetorical motivation is that centuries of Western rationalism have cast strong emotion as a form of hysteria, especially when women are angry. When I was writing my dissertation about chronic fatigue syndrome support groups, I analyzed the problem of anger when used by activists. The case of CFS is a good example. A lot of doctors and researchers have considered it to be a psychosomatic condition over the years, even though patients insisted it was biological, something the research is now bearing out. But because the medical establishment was predisposed to see it as a psychosomatic condition of primarily women, people with CFS were characterized as hysterical, even more so the more they protested the psychosomatic label. In effect, "if you're angry about being called hysterical, then that only goes to prove that you are hysterical." A catch-22 that allows the establishment to contain and compartmentalize the anger being communicated by an activist group.

When Audre Lord, and Helene Cixous as well, talk about not using the master's tools to dismantle the master's house, they're talking about using anger instead of rationalism in order to confront rationalism. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that point of view because it makes rational thought the province of only one group of people, rather than a trait that happens to be highly valued by that group of people but possessed by all. I also think it's possible to be both rational and angry.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

When Audre Lord, and Helene Cixous as well, talk about not using the master's tools to dismantle the master's house, they're talking about using anger instead of rationalism in order to confront rationalism.

This is incorrect. Or rather, it may be correct for Cixous, whom I haven't read recently, but in her essay, "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House," Lorde specifically is addressing racism in the women's movement and specifically identifies racism, classism, and heterosexism as the master's tools she means.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

I am all for anger. Especially your anger. It's been such a thing, watching you become so focussed and active over the past year or so. Anger is awesome.

(And can be terrifying, both to the person experiencing it and to the witnesses, but any display of power has the potential to be terrifying.)

Sometimes what it takes is conciliatory niceness, but a cattle prod has its place in the discussion too. (Not just for your venting; sometimes, when you lose your shit, it's over something I hadn't noticed, and probably wouldn't have noticed, except it got you so bothered.) I endorse your right to be all over the spectrum between conciliation and 10,000 volts, as you feel is needed.

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

:points upward: Yes.

[kate_nepveu]

I'm still working on finding my anger and expressing it, and I recognize these tensions. Thank you for saying the other side of one of my posts of yesterday better than I could--I had a reason for it, but I felt the tension at the time and I'm glad to be able to point to this.

[oyceter]

I've really been enjoying your posts for IBARW, so thank you for those.

And so much yes to trying to unbury that anger and identify it and then finally moving to express it. Especially because there have been so many times for me in which the lightbulb finally goes off, and I think, "Hey. I'm really mad about this! And I'm going to do something about it, even if it's just letting people know that I am mad about it."

[shati.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I have been thinking about anger a lot lately -- because my instinctive reaction to anyone's anger, including my own, is to hide from it (until it goes away!). And if you're a kid around adults with bad tempers, that's a good instinct, but when you're an adult around people who are angry at systematic injustices, it's really not. It's something I'm working on -- learning to listen to anger as well as to patience. Because it's true that anger will make some people want to listen less, but in situations like this the onus shouldn't be on the speaker to hide her feelings.

I remember being amazed at how not-angry you came across during the TGCADoD, when I was furious. I cannot imagine the strain it must have been, and still be.

[peneli.livejournal.com]

"because my instinctive reaction to anyone's anger, including my own, is to hide from it (until it goes away!). And if you're a kid around adults with bad tempers, that's a good instinct, but when you're an adult around people who are angry at systematic injustices, it's really not."

This is something I struggle with a lot. Not only do I try to hide from it, if I can't hide I get insanely calm. I become made of ice and marble so their anger can't touch me.

[seajules]

Thank you for talking about all of this.

[oyceter]

Thank you for reading!

[peneli.livejournal.com]

here via matociquala

"So hi. I am here, and I am angry as hell, and sometimes I will be constructive and educating, and sometimes I will be incoherently rageful. And that second part should not be something I have to hide, particularly given how so many systems try to take it away already."

Amen

[dsthenes.livejournal.com]

IMHO, you cannot educate people, you can only help them learn. And, above all, that's why it's not your responsibility. People evolve and change in their own sweet (or unsweet) time, because genuine attitudinal change comes from within, not from without. And it's something that can take a lifetime to occur. (I sound like a fucking hippy...)

And you're perfectly correct: anger is an impedance to listening. And really listening to what someone is saying is something most people suck at to start with. Add a dose of anger, and you may as well be talking to a brick wall.

D.

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

I’ve been coming to the opposite realization: my usual ingrained instinct (and, certainly, where I was last year) is to say, "Oh no, anger won’t be rhetorically effective, speak carefully," and while this may sometimes be true, I think sometimes that’s my own fear of anger--my own and others’--speaking. Because anger has worked on me: there have been times when other people’s anger has startled me into truth, where other people’s rage has made me realize that I can’t continue dithering over something, trying to weigh all the options; that the matter is exigent and visceral.

[shewhohashope.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I know how to not be angry.

I've put off writing anything for IBARW so far because I can't think of anything that won't work me up into a rage.

And recently several people have told me that they find me intimidating because I argued with them in a seminar. Apparently being tall, black and 'angry' = intimidating. I don't think they actually thought I'd try to beat them into submission, so I don't know what's going on there.

[oyceter]

Apparently being tall, black and 'angry' = intimidating.

ARRRRRGH. Makes me want to whap people.

I'm having more and more problems replying to comments, because sometimes I just want to shake people for completely missing the point. Particularly after seeing the same types of comment over and over and over.

The response I want to make is that it's other people's problem for seeing you as angry, but of course, that's oversimplifying the situation x 1000.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

I used to think that being angry prevented people from listening.

Now I think that being angry sometimes prevents people from listening. But sometimes it's the only message you can't ignore. It's like pain, really. Pain serves a function. There are lots of times when you're pretty sure something is wrong but ehhh you don't want to go to the doctor because it's expensive & a pain in the ass & etc. But when something hurts like a motherfucker you GO because you want it to STOP.

In the same way I find that when people calmly explain their problems, well, you make the decision whether to listen to them or not. But when someone is screaming at you and spraying spittle in your face you PAY ATTENTION. Sometimes it takes that to get people to realize there's a problem. I think there's a lot of people right now thinking about race in fandom that might have ignored it forever if FOC had quietly talked about what they didn't like. Instead we've had huge kerfuffle, drama, the ongoing race drama of people yelling at each other - and FOW (fans of whiteness) have been talking about the fact that race is a factor in how people produce and perceive media to a degree that I personally have never seen before. It's very cool.

I think the difference may be in numbers. One person screaming is a lone lunatic. The entire FOCing Cabal screaming is a force to be noticed. As in many things, sisterhood is powerful.

[oyceter]

Now I think that being angry sometimes prevents people from listening. But sometimes it's the only message you can't ignore.

*nods* Yeah. I read shati's comments above, on how she felt her quietness made her invisible, not listened to, and oh, I sympathize with that.

I have been so grateful to find more FoC in the past year and to start talking to them and to have a community; it was always there, but I didn't know enough to look for it then. And yeah, the numbers make such a difference! Like the race panels at Wiscon this year -- the entire atmosphere changed when there was a large FoC presence.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

*applauds*

Thank you for this wonderful post. So much of this is stuff that I've been struggling with myself for years. The education thing, because I've got that classic pedantic-geek streak in my personality that hates seeing inaccuries or ignorance put forth without making some effort to correct it; because I want to talk about things that are important to me, but so many of my friends just don't have the cultural background for those conversations to make sense unless I do a lot of explaining along the way; because I love to learn myself, so if someone politely, respectfully, asks me to teach, I have a hard time saying no...

...but as you note, that's TIRING. Sometimes I don't have the energy, sometimes I'm not in the mood, sometimes I just wish I could talk about things without having to backtrack and explain all the jokes and references! And sometimes people just expect you to be the spokeswoman for your entire culture; or they have a sense of entitlement that OF COURSE you can't possibly have anything better to do than answer ALL of their questions, no matter how insensitive; or they have the gall to make pronouncements on my identity if my attitude or politics or appearance don't comfortably reinforce their own stereotypes...

...which leads right back around to anger, of course. And that's an even bigger bucket of worms, I've been struggling since my teen years to learn how to reclaim my anger. For many of the same reasons you list -- not wanting to give people another excuse to dismiss my words and feelings along with being small and female and youthful-looking, not wanting to be written off unheard as shrill or hysterical, struggling with the cultural programming that it's not Ladylike to flip out and shout and cuss publicly. And then on top of that, there was the unspoken lesson of my childhood, that expressing any negative emotion (anger, or sadness, or really anything other than a bland, cheerfully dutiful good-girl mask) could provoke my mother's rages or crying jags, so bottling things up is the only way to be safe. So even now, if I'm in the middle of a heated debate, it's HARD to measure how much anger to express, and how -- if I grit my teeth until my jaws hurt but manage to maintain a cool tone, is it a functional choice, because the message I am trying to put across is more important at the time than expressing my feelings about it? Is it a matter of perception, wanting to look like I'm maintaining the high ground no matter how much I'm seething inside? Is it a matter of control, not wanting to give an opponent the satisfaction of seeing me lose it? ...or is it that childhood programming once again whispering in my ear that nothing good can come of this?

So yeah. Hi. I'm angry all the time too, and sometimes I will try to keep it leashed for the sake of my message, and sometimes I'll take off the limiters and let it out to rampage. And while I may second-guess myself as to whether or not I ultimately took the right approach, I will be damned if I let anyone else decide for me whether or not my anger was "appropriate".

[oyceter]

Sometimes I don't have the energy, sometimes I'm not in the mood, sometimes I just wish I could talk about things without having to backtrack and explain all the jokes and references!

Yes! Like... I want to be able to have conversations about anti-racism and feminism without having to bring my conversational partner through Racism and Feminism 101! Occasionally I'll do it, but I want to just be able to talk without all the background too.

And it's so hard, all the second-guessing, the wondering if you're being too angry or not angry enough, the constant need to question. It's enough to drive someone crazy.

And while I may second-guess myself as to whether or not I ultimately took the right approach, I will be damned if I let anyone else decide for me whether or not my anger was "appropriate".

Word!

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

Great post!

Did you ever read Larry Kramer's "1,112 and Counting" (https://www2.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/05/66488.html)? About a totally different topic (and written by a white male, to boot) but I was reminded of it while reading your post.

[oyceter]

No, I haven't thank you for the link!

Also, wonderfully appropriate icon ^_^.

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

I really love this post. I've read this post a couple times now, and will probably come back, and read some more, and think about it some more. I wish I could say something more coherent, but it just makes me really look around at the way I change my speech patterns to make my tone more calm (and uh, when I sometimes spectacularly don't) and how that impacts my own identity, and how I see others doing it, and how I see some of the POC I really care about doing it, and how doing that can sometimes be such a burden, and I just...yes. Very good post. Lots for me to think about. Thank you.

[oyceter]

Oh, thank you for reading! And yes, it's always the battle between expediency and self, and it's so unfair that it has to be a battle that sometimes I want to cry.

don't agonize over that, srsly

[bellatrys.livejournal.com]

how maybe some people who might have listened to me end up going away because I am too angry;

Anyone who does that is just looking for an excuse not to listen. If not that, then something else - they'd just say "well it can't be THAT bad, since you're not upset about it!"

(Sorry, this is kind of a hot-button for me, because it was used on a one-on-one basis in my family for all the years I lived at home and worked for my dad. There is no win - you can't *be* non-threatening enough to make the privileged aggressors "comfortable" enough to "take you seriously," whether its about racism or about sexism or about classism.

Metabigotry in comedy

[(Anonymous)]

Hey, Oyce!

This comment isn't really relevant to your LJ post, so feel free to delete it.

Anyway, I caught wind of your comment on The ABW (Angry Black Woman) blog.

My name is Lucy Dee and I'm a black female standup comedienne in NYC. Based on your worldly response on ABW, I figured you might be interested in my most recent post on Metabigotry in comedy.

I'm trying to "get the word out," and I decided to stop by and drop a line. Perhaps, you would be interested in stopping by my spot and giving your opinion?

Anyway, feel free to delete this comment. I would have emailed (private msg) you, but I couldn't find it on your site.

Thank you again, and thanks for being such an open-minded citizen.

best
Lucy

Blog: The Quest For Comedic Stardom
http://standup101.blogspot.com

Re: Metabigotry in comedy

[oyceter]

Hi, thanks for the link and the good read! (also commented over on that post)

[quaryn-dk.livejournal.com]

Hi Oyce! I'm a linguist, I made an entry in my LJ about racism and standard language (mostly directed at my primarily-white friends list). Feel free to link to it on the IBARW community if you find it relevant and worthy. The entry is located at:

http://quaryn-dk.livejournal.com/161569.html

[oyceter]

Got it, thank you! (Also, ooo, linguistics)

Late to the party...

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

(And sorry about that-- I haven't had internet access for the past several days.)

First off, good post, and it, and the comments, combined with a conversation I had with rushthatspeaks, all made me think more about how anger can actually be really useful to make people sit up and pay attention. As a rhetorical tool, I think anger can be the best one to use to make the point that no, really, this is important to the speaker. (Which doesn't help much if, as you point out in your examples, the listener has decided that what's important to the speaker doesn't matter to him/her for some reason-- but it seems like these are people who are not going to pay attention no matter what.)

I also want to rephrase what I saw as the main point of my post, because I guess I didn't make it as clear as I'd meant to, and I'd love to hear what you think about what I wanted to say. Because you're right, I wasn't saying anger should be stifled--actually, I never use the word "anger" at all except in the paragraph where I'm talking about how it's perfectly reasonable to be angry and express it. Which is an error-- I should have used the word where I'm talking about making I-statements-- "I feel angry when..." (I'm not great at expressing my own anger, and I seem to have steered away from being explicit about it.)

So: I don't think anger is unhelpful for the purpose of educating-- I'm think attacking the educatee is. This doesn't include people who are already attacking you-- that's self-defense. But when people are just being stupid or ignorant, even if infuriatingly so, I think that attacking them will not make them be less so, where a less-aggressive expression, of anger or otherwise, might.

Now, I realize that some people will take just about anything one says as an attack (and that really sucks, how much people did that to you in the Great Cultural Appropriation Debate), but I'm not as interested in their reactions as I am in my (if I'm the person who's taking the anti-racist position) reasons for talking to them. I have sometimes seen myself and others use being politically active as an excuse for jumping down people's throats. When I've seen myself do this, it's usually coming from a pretty defensive place: "I feel like I might be a horribly racist person-- so if I can find someone who's more racist, and yell at them, that'll prove I'm not!" Which is not helpful for anyone, which is why I think it's a bad idea. I don't know what other people's motives are, and people of color are obviously coming at this from a different position from mine. But I do know that it feels good to win an argument, and that (especially on the internet) it's easy to lose empathy for the other person. And I think that as soon as I lose empathy for someone, I've lost my chance to communicate well with him/her.

So what I'm saying is: dealing with the impact of racism on one's life is different from trying to convey that impact (and why something should be done about it) to someone who doesn't seem to understand it. In the former case, your efforts are focused on you; in the latter, they're focused on the other person.

What do you think?

Re: Late to the party...

[oyceter]

You're not late at all!

As a rhetorical tool, I think anger can be the best one to use to make the point that no, really, this is important to the speaker.

*nods* Yeah. I read some comments and was pleasantly surprised by that.

I don't think anger is unhelpful for the purpose of educating-- I'm think attacking the educatee is. This doesn't include people who are already attacking you-- that's self-defense. But when people are just being stupid or ignorant, even if infuriatingly so, I think that attacking them will not make them be less so, where a less-aggressive expression, of anger or otherwise, might. [...] I have sometimes seen myself and others use being politically active as an excuse for jumping down people's throats. When I've seen myself do this, it's usually coming from a pretty defensive place:

Oh, that's interesting! I'm still working through a lot of this, so the following is a lot of noodling.

I generally don't think defensive attacking is a good thing, if only from a Machiavellian point of view ;).

And here is where I start going off on a tangent; I agree with you about empathy and a less-aggressive expression of anger being a much more effective way to persuade people.

I think where I get stuck -- no, stuck's not the right word. Distracted? Sidetracked? -- anyway, where I get somethinged is on the goal. Which is not to say your post and your comment are wrong about what the goal is or should be; I don't think they are. And often, my goal is education. The bit where I've been thinking about a lot in the past few months is what exactly my goal is.

Because... I think education is important. But I worry because I want my LJ and the comments-space in my LJ to be a safer place for POC and allies and women, and sometimes I think the two goals clash. I do not want random people jumping on generally well-meaning commenters, but I also don't want well-meaning commenters to constantly be asking my other commenters questions about Racism 101, because it is tiring and irritating, and because sometimes I am tired of talking Racism 101 and want to talk Racism 201 with like-minded people. And it is difficult doing that if I am anticipating Racism 101 questions at every point.

And while theoretically I would like to welcome all commenters, the truth is, I have a limited amount of time and energy, and as such, sometimes I have to pick one over the other. So. I worry. Because I do think Racism 101 is very important, not in the least because it makes Racism 201 easier and if people go from Racism 101 to 201, it is more people I can talk to. But. I also grok the tiredness of educating all the time.

And sometimes, making snappy, snarky comebacks is not useful for the person being snapped at, but it shows other people reading the comments that those types of comments are not as welcome in my LJ and that if they are subject to those types of comments, someone will step in quickly. And I have to decide which is more important. And they are not always diametrically opposed, but sometimes they are.

So. That's where I'm sort of foundering right now. Because... I want a safe space for my own anger and for other people's anger about white supremacy and racism. And I understand that it will by necessity be a very imperfect safe space, since it's public and online. But I do think that's it's possible to foster a tone for what is acceptable and not in my LJ and its comments, largely because since I started posting about race and racism more, I have gotten far fewer wanky comments.

Sigh. I don't know. Part of me is afraid that I scare off well-meaning people who I want to welcome to the conversation, because I know I was scared of approaching anti-racism comms. But another part of me is trying to think of who my main intended audience is and what to do about it.

Er. I'm sorry... I'm not sure if any of this was a good response to your comment, since I went waaaay off...

[oyceter]

But I do think that's it's possible to foster a tone for what is acceptable and not in my LJ and its comments, largely because since I started posting about race and racism more, I have gotten far fewer wanky comments.

Urgh. I just reread, and wow, I ramble!

Anyway, what I meant by that was that I think my tone when talking about race and racism changed after IBARW last year (somewhat less willing to be conciliatory, more angry, more confrontational), and the way I and other commenters handled comments even between the cultural appropriation debate and the PotC2 debate changed, which is why I think I have gotten fewer wanky comments.