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Cingulate posted:... you don't assume this describes pretty much every American ever? Maybe its ok to call the people who supported the election of a real life authoritarian looney-toon villain mean names to their faces. It's like accelerationism but for soft brained baby boomer's egos.
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Jan 12, 2017 12:09
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Cingulate posted:... you don't assume this describes pretty much every American ever? Mate I live in Britain, "slightly racist" is a safe assumption. I had a guy at the bus stop just casually tell me that the problem with Britain today is there's "too many Pakis" - all I could say was that I'd be a little biased against that point of view, what with being Indian (and mentally noting he probably doesn't know or care about the difference between the modern states of Pakistan and India), leaving him looking stunned and then changed his complaint to being about "the ones that don't work" and use public services without paying into it. After assuring him that the vast majority of immigrants do, in fact, work, and he seemed to accept it, I doubt it lasted any longer than him going to sleep that evening. His desire to blame an external 'enemy' for problems in his life isn't going away because he picked a bad choice for a conversational partner, especially when he gets up the next day and the newspaper headlines go back to reinforcing the idea that foreigners are scrounging layabouts. Back to the US, Fox News is still the most popular TV network. CNN asked "Are Jews human?" and MSNBC has hired Megyn "Don't worry kids, Santa is definitely white" Kelly. It's hard to counteract racial bias in everyday thought when such things are being beamed at your sensory organs.
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Jan 12, 2017 12:11
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Cingulate posted:Then you better make sure you get your message laid out in exactly the way that it cannot be turned to look like "we want to destroy the (white) working class", cause the other side drat well will try to paint you as that, and if they succeed, chances are it's brick->your face time for another four years. They are going to do this anyway. These people are getting the word out that the sky is green and that black people are made of concentrated void energy and must be destroyed. Fighting on terms of messaging in a traditional sense isn't going to work. Why are we so tied to fighting on their terms. Why do we always have to let them pick the battlefields. Right wing media DOMINATES the path of discussion because we are so goddamn worried about the minutiae of the message and the focus. It doesn't need to be focused , just shotgun the messages of "giant corporations need to be taxed more, healthcare is a right, labor rights must be upheld, cops shouldn't be allowed to loving shoot black people". Do what they do for their venomous horrible poo poo, but do it in service of positive. When you get someone to listen to you more attentively with these promises of a better world, THEN you give them the research and the proof and the logic and the reasoning. Then you get them back into reality. Tune them in with a message that means something to them.
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Jan 12, 2017 12:18
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Rexicon1 posted:Maybe its ok to call the people who supported the election of a real life authoritarian looney-toon villain mean names to their faces. It's like accelerationism but for soft brained baby boomer's egos. Tesseraction posted:Mate I live in Britain, "slightly racist" is a safe assumption. I had a guy at the bus stop just casually tell me that the problem with Britain today is there's "too many Pakis" - all I could say was that I'd be a little biased against that point of view, what with being Indian (and mentally noting he probably doesn't know or care about the difference between the modern states of Pakistan and India), leaving him looking stunned and then changed his complaint to being about "the ones that don't work" and use public services without paying into it. After assuring him that the vast majority of immigrants do, in fact, work, and he seemed to accept it, I doubt it lasted any longer than him going to sleep that evening.
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Jan 12, 2017 12:24
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Cingulate posted:Yeah, I think I know that one pretty well (although I'm as German as it gets). Whenever I have a discussion with an old lady on the train, she'll eventually venture into how the problem is the immigrants, and when I say something like "my brother in law is Muslim and I think Merkel did a good and humanitarian thing" or whatever, they adapt their position by the smallest increment they assume is necessary to return to common ground with me and do go on. And on. Pretty much. You can reach a common ground but it's rather like an elastic band - you'll pull them a little bit but as soon as you walk off the elastic does its job and pulls them back to their original shape. Really it takes something more significant to change their mind, and it's usually something more drastic than a conversation - see the Republicans who decide that maybe The Gays are human after all after their kid comes out to them.
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Jan 12, 2017 12:30
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Cingulate posted:It is "okay", but don't fool yourself that it's doing anything to improve the situation. And it's possible it's something to make it worse. You're voicing your frustration, and maybe that's good and healthy, but it's not a progressive action. On a scale where 0 is "make a post on the internet" and 100 is "actually be MLK", I rate it at a minus 2.. It's much more than voicing frustration. It's pleading with people to actually give a gently caress about something and not just pretend to every 4 years. People need to get emotionally invested, and part of it involved showing real emotion. Progressive action comes after engagement. And no loving poo poo posting on the internet isn't activism you dolt. No one's making that claim. I'm just trying to help frame the discussion in a way that emphasizes how loving hosed everything is and will continue to be. There isn't normalcy anymore and people are going to die.
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Jan 12, 2017 12:40
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Rexicon1 posted:They are going to do this anyway. These people are getting the word out that the sky is green and that black people are made of concentrated void energy and must be destroyed. Fighting on terms of messaging in a traditional sense isn't going to work. Why are we so tied to fighting on their terms. Why do we always have to let them pick the battlefields. Right wing media DOMINATES the path of discussion because we are so goddamn worried about the minutiae of the message and the focus. It doesn't need to be focused , just shotgun the messages of "giant corporations need to be taxed more, healthcare is a right, labor rights must be upheld, cops shouldn't be allowed to loving shoot black people". Do what they do for their venomous horrible poo poo, but do it in service of positive. When you get someone to listen to you more attentively with these promises of a better world, THEN you give them the research and the proof and the logic and the reasoning. Then you get them back into reality. Tune them in with a message that means something to them. I like all this stuff here much more than the stuff about attacking people. I think the left is going to have to realise that winning the media narrative is probably not going to happen (though don't stop trying) and it's going to have to be a ground game. I think the rural poverty thread has some good ideas in regards to joining social organisations and working with churches and doing charity work and stuff like that. You need to get people away from the TV and into a social environment where they're more open. I haven't thought it through but there's got to be a way to leverage some of the large black pro athlete contingent becoming more political. Sure the worst can throw insults on the internet and yell on TV when athletes get political but get em with these people in person talking about this stuff civilly and most won't be able to do that. As hateful as people can get from afar or in passing, most of them can't do that in a (dry) social setting. Maybe if celebrities turned away from fundraising with the rich and into more community outreach they'd be a more valuable asset too. Tesseraction is right that it's not enough to have one conversation, so you gotta make it something regular. A lot of churches and church-based charities are especially good because (avoiding the obviously terrible ones) they have a lot of conservative but generally good people and you have a ready-made time to interact with them regularly.
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Jan 12, 2017 13:16
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Rexicon1 posted:It's much more than voicing frustration. It's pleading with people to actually give a gently caress about something and not just pretend to every 4 years. People need to get emotionally invested, and part of it involved showing real emotion. Progressive action comes after engagement. Rexicon1 posted:They are going to do this anyway. Rexicon1 posted:Why are we so tied to fighting on their terms. Why do we always have to let them pick the battlefields. Right wing media DOMINATES the path of discussion because we are so goddamn worried about the minutiae of the message and the focus E: Rexicon1 posted:the messages of "giant corporations need to be taxed more, healthcare is a right, labor rights must be upheld, cops shouldn't be allowed to loving shoot black people" Cingulate fucked around with this message at 13:23 on Jan 12, 2017 |
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Jan 12, 2017 13:20
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Alright there's a lot of talking past each other and bad faith arguing in this thread. Also I'm getting PM's about it, which means y'all need a break.
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Jan 12, 2017 13:52
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Alright, I'm hoping you've had enough time to calm down, and recalibrate. Continue
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Jan 12, 2017 19:31
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stone cold posted:America doesn't have 100% voting turnout, as was pointed out up thread. Team hitler was around 26% of eligible voters, hope this helps~! Yeah, but I'm pretty sure most Americans fall to the right of your average SA poster when it comes to both social and economic issues and that a large majority hold various racist views*. There's also some level of bigotry (or apathy towards bigotry) present in the act of choosing not to vote in this recent election (ignoring people who had their votes suppressed directly or indirectly) since it implies people didn't consider preventing Donald Trump worth the effort, and most of the people arguing here in D&D voted Clinton even if they spend a lot of time criticizing her/liberals. So I guess what I'm getting at is that the number of people who would fall on the "more correct" side of social issues like this is almost certainly a minority of Americans, so one way or another you'll probably be forced to get a bunch of votes from outside of that group. This doesn't mean you specifically have to get those votes from the sort of people who often concern troll threads like these and I'm also certainly not arguing that "the nature of left-wing social activism" is somehow to blame, but using the standards you seem to have put forth there definitely isn't some Silent Majority of socially conscious voters. Most Americans would probably end up being on "Team Hitler" if you tried to engage them in a discussion about social issues like this (in the sense that they would end up expressing some sort of prejudice/bigotry). *Just as an anecdotal example, my parents are considerably more liberal than the average American and have always voted Democratic, yet have various racist views along the lines of complaining about sagging pants, AAVE, etc. In particular, I find that this form of racism (that tends to involve negative views about some stereotype associated with a race) is super common among Baby Boomers, and unfortunately Boomers make up a huge portion of the voting population.
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Jan 12, 2017 20:20
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I can't help but wonder if this book might shed some light on the issues we're discussing here. quote:In Conflict, Schulman takes the radical position that people in conflict should communicate openly, honestly, in-person, or at least on the phone. That's what Schulman did with the student in her class who was writing love notes about her, and it worked. Adjustments were made, and both lives returned more or less to normal. This is the first I've heard of the book, so if others have read this or otherwise know more I'd love to hear it.
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Jan 12, 2017 20:25
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On the subject of tone policing; I think a good portion of the disconnect there might be an understandable bout of hyper-vigilance. That activists are so gun-shy because of the near infinite amount of bad faith trolls that belch forth from the bowels of the internet any time race is mentioned. My personal experience with "tone" being seen as important was watching my parents. Men and women dressed as professionals and giving speeches were always given a chance to be heard, regardless of subject, while anyone looking disheveled or talking in slang were immediately dismissed as hippies or worse. They HATED Rush Limbaugh, because of his loud, unpleasant and combative tone. They were repulsed by Jimmy Swaggart and other self-rightous and pompous men talking down to them. But if you could make an impassioned speech without appearing unhinged? They'd follow Jim Jones to hell. They would complain about rioters, using all manner of charged racial dogwhistles, while praising local protests for staying peaceful. It's through that lens that I see tone. It echoes "respectability" politics a lot. They're shockingly classist, while being lower middle class themselves. As for this thread; I think a few people have raised some valid points that were immediately shot down by folks I agree with, in what I see as hyper-vigilance. We really aren't doing ourselves any favors screaming at coalition members for their heresies. I don't care if someone thinks gay sex is icky, so long as they support gay rights and keep that poo poo to themselves. I see a lot of those type of people. They get defensive when called out on things they don't realize they're doing, especially if it's done in an angry way. It's not enough to make them just up and turn into Republicans mind you, but it makes us look bad. I try to soothe those tensions. To remind folks that it's not them personally, but a symptom of the problem itself. We need each other, now more than ever. We need every slightly racist schmuck with good intentions voting in favor of civil rights, we need them calling out the rebirth of fascism and talking down their peers. We might know full well that it's not the fault of undocumented immigrants that wages are low, but that's not obvious to someone at the low end. There are plenty down there who don't want to break up families and round people up; they just want to make sure their family doesn't go hungry. We need them speaking out against the Trumpstaffel when they rear their snakelike heads to talk of walls and tracking, because it's obviously not right. Ok, I've rambled enough for now. TLDR; we need each other. The infighting has to stop. Rudatron and K.M. and Stone Cold, I appreciate you. Your positions aren't as far as they seem. We don't even need to like each other, so long as we work together to stop the rise of the alt-right.
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Jan 12, 2017 20:27
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White Rock posted:Agreeing with this 100%. Fundamentally, i believe in that candidate that can promise reach people affected by A while taking a firm stance against B. Even if some voters overlap in their believes, i think people who contain any mix of A and B can be reached through a mutual interest of A, since B is actually not in their interest. I also believe the A group is larger then B. Eh, I don't believe A is larger than B here. Most Trump voters aren't poor, economically insecure people and actually do have a bunch of terrible beliefs (because they basically overlap with "regular" Republican voters). But you only need to consider reaching out to the tiny minority who are motivated by something other than bigotry or typical dumb right-wing ideology, since flipping a small percent of people is enough to win elections. edit: Solkanar512 posted:I can't help but wonder if this book might shed some light on the issues we're discussing here. The point about in-person discussion being better in many ways is pretty valid. I'm 100% confident that if I were discussing these issues in person there's no way the vast majority of people would react negatively, because it would be clear in my tone of voice/mannerisms that I'm taking them seriously and that I'm not supremely confident in my own position. But online I think there's this assumption that any time someone is making an argument, they're making it from the perspective of "I'm definitely right, you're definitely wrong, gently caress you." In person you can tell if someone is being a "concern troll" from their tone of voice, versus actually asking a genuine question. So you end up with the hyper-vigilance Talmonis mentioned where people become so afraid of letting in bad actors (and this is unfortunately a pretty reasonable fear) that they assume the worst about everyone they encounter. So I think the net take-away here is that the internet is not an ideal place for engaging people who don't already agree with you politically. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Jan 12, 2017 |
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Jan 12, 2017 20:27
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imho tone-policing all those triple-parenthesis-using people is why we won the election lol why wouldn't you want to do that ps: msaga (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jan 12, 2017 23:57
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Talmonis posted:On the subject of tone policing; I think a good portion of the disconnect there might be an understandable bout of hyper-vigilance. That activists are so gun-shy because of the near infinite amount of bad faith trolls that belch forth from the bowels of the internet any time race is mentioned. My personal experience with "tone" being seen as important was watching my parents. Men and women dressed as professionals and giving speeches were always given a chance to be heard, regardless of subject, while anyone looking disheveled or talking in slang were immediately dismissed as hippies or worse. They HATED Rush Limbaugh, because of his loud, unpleasant and combative tone. They were repulsed by Jimmy Swaggart and other self-rightous and pompous men talking down to them. But if you could make an impassioned speech without appearing unhinged? They'd follow Jim Jones to hell. They would complain about rioters, using all manner of charged racial dogwhistles, while praising local protests for staying peaceful. In your first example, you can easily fish for a reason to discount anyone's opinion. People often point out to how Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement wore suits, etc. And how kids these days don't as if it diminishes the message at all. It's just a cheap way to discount opinions and stifle messages. Tone isn't about the message, tone is about how the message is being stated, and the goalposts can easily change at a moment's notice for what is the right tone. As for coalition members, I disagree with this because it sounds like some mealy mouthed white feminist argument. People need to learn to not get defensive when called out on stuff they are doing. Equality isn't going to come because we all grouped up, because too many times certain requests are ignored. I mean, is the true goal equality, or how you think you look on internet forums? But ultimately, the problem I see with your argument is that some of your views are opposed to one another. What do you do when one part of your coalition doesn't think that equality isn't as important as economic justice? Does it fall apart then and there?
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Jan 13, 2017 01:32
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Talmonis posted:The infighting has to stop. Rudatron and K.M. and Stone Cold, I appreciate you. Your positions aren't as far as they seem. We don't even need to like each other, so long as we work together to stop the rise of the alt-right. I can get behind this. However there's one thing I have to put out there: I am not gonna probate/ban someone simply for disagreeing with me. I absolutely do not think that's conducive to debate and discussion. That said, I am a black American, we are not always going to agree with what's racism or not. I need y'all to respect me enough to understand that when I'm taking action against a user it's because A) They're getting reported/breaking the rules or B) They've done something that is dehumanizing towards someone. If you have a problem with anything I do, please pm me! I'll be happy to talk about it. But I am not, for example, gonna let some guy wander into negrotown and refuse to treat the posters with respect when I point blank ask if they will do so. I have no problem with people questioning my moderation as long as yall come to me like adults and don't act like I'm starting RaHoWa by giving sixers out to people that by their omissions, don't even care.
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Jan 13, 2017 01:46
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blackguy32 posted:In your first example, you can easily fish for a reason to discount anyone's opinion. People often point out to how Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement wore suits, etc. And how kids these days don't as if it diminishes the message at all. It's just a cheap way to discount opinions and stifle messages. Tone isn't about the message, tone is about how the message is being stated, and the goalposts can easily change at a moment's notice for what is the right tone. I think agree with literally all of this except your implied conclusion. It's obvious to any antiracist or feminist that the tone of the argument is irrelevant to the truth of the argument. But I disagree with your implied argument (implied because it seems to follow naturally) that because the tone of an argument is irrelevant to its content, tone is not something to consider when engaging in political debate. That MLK wore a suit was irrelevant to the fact that his antiracist message was correct. But I think it was one factor among many that led to the antiracist successes of that era. There were members of the civil rights movement who were extremely aware of tone and who recognized that tone is an important propaganda tool. I believe that tone was one strategy among many that allowed for the limited legitimization of the movement within American culture. Do you disagree with me when I say that tone is important to consider from the prospective of its propaganda value? E: I really hope this comes off as respectful because I mean it to be. I think this topic is of the upmost importance for the American left. I want to stress that I am posting entirely in good faith. The Kingfish fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Jan 13, 2017 |
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Jan 13, 2017 02:46
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blackguy32 posted:People need to learn to not get defensive when called out on stuff they are doing. I agree with this, but what I occasionally see happen* is someone get called out and permanently dismissed even if they genuinely don't understand why they were called out (or their posts will be constructed in the worst imaginable way). This is where the internet can be kind of a bad way to have these discussions; when the person called out says "I don't understand why you got mad" the person who called them out perceives that as "I think you were wrong to get mad" rather than a genuine attempt to understand why. And this is understandable, since probably a majority of the time they would be correct in this assumption. In person, it would be really obvious from tone and body language whether the person asking was honest in their intentions, but this often isn't conveyed well in text alone. *I don't think this has much of an impact on activism as a whole; I'm just talking from the basis of "being a decent person"
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Jan 13, 2017 02:46
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blackguy32 posted:In your first example, you can easily fish for a reason to discount anyone's opinion. People often point out to how Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement wore suits, etc. And how kids these days don't as if it diminishes the message at all. It's just a cheap way to discount opinions and stifle messages. Tone isn't about the message, tone is about how the message is being stated, and the goalposts can easily change at a moment's notice for what is the right tone. This has to be a two-way street though. Why should someone deal with a call-out in good faith if the call-out...er is not giving them the same benefit of good faith? Why should people not get defensive when they're called out by someone being overly defensive? I mean, I try to do that because it's useful in a debate, but it's entirely unfair if only one side is required to be the bigger person and extend an unreciprocated assumption of good faith. EDIT: A big problem with callouts is that they often completely flip the burden of proof from what it actually should be. Like if you think a bigass effortpost has problems then you should have to break it down and loving show where the problems are and why it is a problem because you are the one making a claim. IF that's what callouts were I would loving love them. But more often then not it's the person quoting the post and adding a single sentence just proclaiming it to be a problem. When that happens to me I now have to figure out why the poster has a problem with it, hope I'm right, and then defend myself from the claim that didn't even deign to offer any proof for itself and is often not based on the content of the post but the other person's assumption of what I was thinking when I wrote the post. It's dumb. Futuresight fucked around with this message at 03:06 on Jan 13, 2017 |
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Jan 13, 2017 02:55
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The Kingfish posted:I think agree with literally all of this except your implied conclusion. It's obvious to any antiracist or feminist that the tone of the argument is irrelevant to the truth of the argument. But I disagree with your implied argument (implied because it seems to follow naturally) that because the tone of an argument is irrelevant to its content, tone is not something to consider when engaging in political debate. That MLK wore a suit was irrelevant to the fact that his antiracist message was correct. But I think it was one factor among many that led to the antiracist successes of that era. There were members of the civil rights movement who were extremely aware of tone and who recognized that tone is an important propaganda tool. I believe that tone was one strategy among many that allowed for the limited legitimization of the movement within American culture. Do you disagree with me when I say that tone is important to consider from the prospective of its propaganda value? I don't think tone is as important as you are making it out to be. I think it's important to note, that non-violence in the face of brutality was what made the movement so effective. MLK failed to achieve his goals with the Albany movement because it lacked that element. Ytlaya posted:I agree with this, but what I occasionally see happen* is someone get called out and permanently dismissed even if they genuinely don't understand why they were called out (or their posts will be constructed in the worst imaginable way). This is where the internet can be kind of a bad way to have these discussions; when the person called out says "I don't understand why you got mad" the person who called them out perceives that as "I think you were wrong to get mad" rather than a genuine attempt to understand why. And this is understandable, since probably a majority of the time they would be correct in this assumption. In person, it would be really obvious from tone and body language whether the person asking was honest in their intentions, but this often isn't conveyed well in text alone. I think this plays into people's minority status. How many times do you have to have that same conversation with different people? At this point, I am tired. A lot of times I just don't say anything because I don't want to get into a drawn out time-consuming debate that usually will end right where it started. Nowhere. This goes into researching your own stuff if you legitimately want to be a better person. Yes, I want equality, but I also want to live my life. I don't want to put every thing in my life on hold because someone got called out and wants/needs to be educated. It's tiring and time-consuming and often non-productive. Higsian posted:This has to be a two-way street though. Why should someone deal with a call-out in good faith if the call-out...er is not giving them the same benefit of good faith? Why should people not get defensive when they're called out by someone being overly defensive? I mean, I try to do that because it's useful in a debate, but it's entirely unfair if only one side is required to be the bigger person and extend an unreciprocated assumption of good faith. I will begin to treat it like a two way street when it actually is a two-way street. As I said above, far too often, people don't educate themselves and they want others to do it for them. I mean, by all means get super defensive. I don't really care at this point. But between work, and other stressors, I am not often in the mood to go into a long effort post about why one's actions are lovely only for them to dismiss it out of hand anyways. I am past those days. It's especially bad because there are dozens of resources out there about various things and how to treat other people. I am not going to deal with your edit because it's just a hypothetical with no real world example, so it feels like I am debating against something that doesn't actually exist.
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Jan 13, 2017 03:29
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blackguy32 posted:I don't think tone is as important as you are making it out to be. I think it's important to note, that non-violence in the face of brutality was what made the movement so effective. MLK failed to achieve his goals with the Albany movement because it lacked that element. Do you think you could flesh out the role you think tone played in the CRM? My understanding is that organizers were extremely conscious of what we would call tone. In fact I think they considered maintaining a certain tone to be an essential element of the nonviolent strategy.  These types of images were essential to the nonviolent propaganda message: black protestors acting the bigger man, remaining dignified despite the crude provocations of white racists. E: I ask you to explain what you think the role of tone was because it's possible we have different ideas of what tone means. The Kingfish fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Jan 13, 2017 |
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Jan 13, 2017 03:55
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Tone definitely matters. And if you are going to take the time out of your day to call someone on their micro aggression or bigotry, then it's going to be up to you to explain it to that person. You can't expect everyone whose called out to educate themselves. Online resources or books aren't going to be able to correctly identify every little nuance that can take place between two or more people. I'm sorry that it gets tiring. But if you are going to call someone out on their bullshit then you started an engagement and you owe it to that person to be clear. I was listening to a podcast and one of the hosts was saying he was tired of always having to explain things to people, and how people he didn't even know would walk up and ask him questions. But when you put yourself out there, this is going to happen. Tone matters. If you are an rear end, or come across like an rear end, it sometimes! can be effective, but it rarely is. It might make you feel better to behave in a manner than isn't polite, but it sends the wrong message. Why should someone show up to a rally only to be caught between the rest of the protesters and the police? It's too easy for a white person, after being treated rudely, nothing explained to them why(because it's the 90th time you've told someone this), to just go home and veg out on the couch. You can justify it how you want, maybe they were going to be lovely support anyway? Maybe they weren't really in the fight for equal rights? But when you get attacked by the group you are trying to help, it's just easier to go home, enjoy your privilege and watch the poo poo go down from the comfort and safety of your own home. You can just check out of the activism, and when your friends ask you about it you can swear up and down you support it. But, that's as far as it goes, because when you engage, you get treated condescendingly and like a child, and no one takes the time to explain why. And really, you are on the easier side of things anyway, so might as well enjoy the privilege. I'm trying to explain why tone and explanations matter. Not stating that I've checked out.
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Jan 13, 2017 04:18
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BAD POSTER ALERT!
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The Kingfish posted:Do you think you could flesh out the role you think tone played in the CRM? My understanding is that organizers were extremely conscious of what we would call tone. In fact I think they considered maintaining a certain tone to be an essential element of the nonviolent strategy. Do you think that picture was as effective as people getting beaten in the street? But even if you don't I think we need to look beyond the Civil Rights movement because this is a different time. I disagree with your thesis about black people acting the bigger man. People don't want us to be the bigger man, they just want us out of sight and out of mind. But I think comparisons often do us a disservice. We get to look at the CRM in hindsight but we often don't see the righteous anger and sorrow of the people involved. But there is nothing dignified about getting sprayed with water hoses or attacked by dogs or billy clubs. But my biggest problem with tone arguments is that it limits you as to what you can do and functionally establishes that you are at the mercy to whoever you are trying to appease as if to say, "Hey, your arguments are sound, but I don't like the tone that you gave it in." It's as if to say that we are robots and not emotional beings that often are trying our hardest to keep it together. The thing about tone arguments, is that it's never enough, because even with the perfect tone, "It's just not time yet," or worse, gaslighting. Indigofreak posted:Tone definitely matters. And if you are going to take the time out of your day to call someone on their micro aggression or bigotry, then it's going to be up to you to explain it to that person. You can't expect everyone whose called out to educate themselves. Online resources or books aren't going to be able to correctly identify every little nuance that can take place between two or more people. I'm sorry that it gets tiring. But if you are going to call someone out on their bullshit then you started an engagement and you owe it to that person to be clear. I was listening to a podcast and one of the hosts was saying he was tired of always having to explain things to people, and how people he didn't even know would walk up and ask him questions. But when you put yourself out there, this is going to happen. I honestly don't care if they educate themselves or not. If they are coming at the situation like that, then I probably don't need them in my life. I keep getting these strange notions from yall's posts that we are supposed ingratiate ourselves before white people because they are attempting to help us, as if we are supposed to beg and plead for their allegiance. blackguy32 fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Jan 13, 2017 |
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Jan 13, 2017 04:25
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It assumes total innocence on the part of the questioner, that white people exist outside of race and so total ignorance is both acceptable and the duty of those marked by race to correct. I've never understood why it isn't considered rude as hell to just ask questions with complex answers as if total racial ignorance is an inevitable part of being white. Also that so many people expect to be catered to and coddled in getting answers to their every quest. Is it so loving hard to read a book? I read all the time and have a job and active social life.
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Jan 13, 2017 04:38
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blackguy32 posted:Do you think that picture was as effective as people getting beaten in the street? But even if you don't I think we need to look beyond the Civil Rights movement because this is a different time. I've passed over this point probably a thousand times in my head. The thought process I always arrive at is: "should black people and minorities be sweet, forgiving, and patient and wait for people to come around to worrying about them as they would their own?" as option one, option two is "convince our community that enough is enough and do what it takes until our voice is heard". Relative to this exchange by you and kingfish, I guess my thinking is tone matter if you're settled on affecting change through peaceful means exclusively. However, if you're really ready to do what needs to be done despite the cost, it becomes totally useless and a waste of time considering it. People are stubborn as gently caress when it comes to changing. It's hosed that that is the case when their stubbornness makes them turn a blind eye to unjust violence against a certain group of people, but it is as good as a fact of life that this is the case. I guess the simplest way of what I feel is that not fully committing to one or the other is a waste of time. We are people too. The people who aren't fixed are the type that think those four 18 year olds deserve the death penalty in Chicago. This is a giant disconnect to surmount, and if we go the "kill them with kindness" route it will be a very very long time. Maybe I'm totally wrong about this and there is a middle ground which is actually effective, but my gut tells me there isn't. This is a little bit of a tirade to an only tangentially related post, so excuse the words. I think we have been patient enough FWIW. I'm ready for whatever if most everyone else is ready. Jack Gladney posted:It assumes total innocence on the part of the questioner, that white people exist outside of race and so total ignorance is both acceptable and the duty of those marked by race to correct. I've never understood why it isn't considered rude as hell to just ask questions with complex answers as if total racial ignorance is an inevitable part of being white. Also that so many people expect to be catered to and coddled in getting answers to their every quest. I agree. It really is not asking a lot for people to take some time to actually obtain an understanding of racial issues. The problem is, getting someone to go out of their way to learn something is tough in such an anti intellectual society. That is very sadly reality. This leads me back into my post, do we grin and bear it and keep on with the gentle coercion? Or do we force our way to freedom and let these people get over it after the fact? Mixodorian fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Jan 13, 2017 |
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Jan 13, 2017 04:38
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Koalas March posted:
Wouldn't the punishment make more sense doled out for actual disrespectful posts rather than not pinky swearing to be nice..
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Jan 13, 2017 04:42
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Mixodorian posted:I've passed over this point probably a thousand times in my head. I definitely feel that option 2 is the way to go, with community being our allies and friends of all races. At the end of the day, even if things are poo poo for another hundred years, we still have our community. I also think about how my sanity is far more important than some ideological winning hearts and minds battle that seems to pop up all the time. Being nice all the time is stressful. Its good to be respectful, but to lord that over someone's head that you MUST answer their inquiries goes too far. Jack Gladney posted:It assumes total innocence on the part of the questioner, that white people exist outside of race and so total ignorance is both acceptable and the duty of those marked by race to correct. I've never understood why it isn't considered rude as hell to just ask questions with complex answers as if total racial ignorance is an inevitable part of being white. Also that so many people expect to be catered to and coddled in getting answers to their every quest. This is a great point. There are questions of etiquette to where you are basically demanding something from someone you barely know.
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Jan 13, 2017 04:51
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w/r/t tone arguments: Well I sure am glad that people of colour are no longer constrained by some kind of Jim Crow-like etiquette that shunts them out of public life and prevents them from fully expressing themselves in the fight for their civil and political rights. Seriously if people are literally dying because of poor access to healthcare, police violence and endemic poverty and discrimination it's a bit loving rich to ask them to simmer down and be all calm and dignified and take each smack upside the head with a serene, beatific smile. I wouldn't ask a white working class striker or a college campus anti-war protester to mind their Ps and Qs like that, I sure as poo poo wouldn't condescend to an ethnic minority living in a white supremacist settler state like that either. Protest, even in its most peaceful form, is transgressive. It is civil disobedience. If you want to have a measured and civil debate get around a table, get a gavel. In modern society there is so much noise that it is absolutely necessary to shout in order to be heard if you want to meaningfully protest. All dignified silence does is pat a few woke people on the back for noticing your suffering, coddle their egos and achieve nothing meaningful because they already knew you were there. imo
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Jan 13, 2017 04:55
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blackguy32 posted:I definitely feel that option 2 is the way to go, with community being our allies and friends of all races. At the end of the day, even if things are poo poo for another hundred years, we still have our community. I also think about how my sanity is far more important than some ideological winning hearts and minds battle that seems to pop up all the time. Being nice all the time is stressful. Its good to be respectful, but to lord that over someone's head that you MUST answer their inquiries goes too far. For sure, a big hope of mine is that with Trump as president the Asians, Indians, Middle Easterners and even some special African immigrants will realize that they're never going to be accepted into whiteness. Hopefully we can see influential people from every minority ethnicity take some leadership on this. Considering a lot of us are surrounded by only white people, I think we need to start getting these ideas into everyone's head via whatever means. It is going to be an interesting next few years. Something has got to give one way or another.
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Jan 13, 2017 05:01
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Let's go to a neutral topic. Imagine you're a maths teacher. Teaching research shows that you should not get angry at kids who are bad at maths. In studies, if you tell someone 'you are bad at maths' they actually perform worse on subsequent maths test, so literally calling out someone as being bad at maths is not actually helpful at all. You're much better off giving positive, constructive suggestions on how to be better at maths and praising your students for each incremental improvement in maths that they show. Keeping a constructive, positive, helpful tone of your maths classroom is important for making it the best, most effective possible classroom. And some of the kids aren't going to be good at maths no matter what you do, but on average that's what gets the best results for as many of the kids as possible. I don't think anyone would disagree with that, as presented as a neutral topic, or disagree that the same thing is true for teaching other neutral topics. Is it really going to be that different on racial topics? Look at this thread. I see posts by people who I think are just trying to make a contribution, and maybe they're right and maybe they're wrong but the extremely, unhelpfully negative tone of the responses to them is not good. It's probably cathartic to call people out for stuff but would you rather have catharsis or maximally effective messaging? I would rather have maximally effective messaging on an important topic.
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Jan 13, 2017 05:05
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A teacher is someone with the resources to help a student and determine whether their progress is acceptable, it's their job actually. And they generally have support from their colleagues if a student is rebellious, or they could determine that their facility isn't capable of handling the student and send them somewhere else. So, if liberal activists could bring racists to mandatory meetings and send them to jail if they failed, they should be polite and patient and only do so as a last resort.
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Jan 13, 2017 05:10
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lazorexplosion posted:Let's go to a neutral topic. Imagine you're a maths teacher. Teaching research shows that you should not get angry at kids who are bad at maths. In studies, if you tell someone 'you are bad at maths' they actually perform worse on subsequent maths test, so literally calling out someone as being bad at maths is not actually helpful at all. You're much better off giving positive, constructive suggestions on how to be better at maths and praising your students for each incremental improvement in maths that they show. Keeping a constructive, positive, helpful tone of your maths classroom is important for making it the best, most effective possible classroom. And some of the kids aren't going to be good at maths no matter what you do, but on average that's what gets the best results for as many of the kids as possible. This isn't a math class. These are actual people with actual emotions. Your example also excludes all of the students that just ask questions to waste your time and wear you down or that some students just don't want to learn math at all. This also isn't some kind of min/maxing spreadsheet. We aren't robots. We are people. Depending on one's state of mind, it isn't possible for "maximally effective messenging."
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Jan 13, 2017 05:12
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The problem is unless you're on a space rocket, you're not personally effected by someone being bad at math. Tiptoeing around the sensibilities of someone who hates you due to your race, class, gender or sexual identity is just gonna reinforce their idea that they're superior to you and entitled to your respect as a result.
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Jan 13, 2017 05:12
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I see activism for important things as something to take as seriously as you would take an actual job. Moreso, even.
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Jan 13, 2017 05:20
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If you're in the process of debating with someone, you are already engaging in the persuasive process. Tone is important to the persuasive process because, like it or not, how you says something is just as significant as what you say. Human beings are constantly engaged in a process of interpreting and reinterpreting what they think someone's motivations are. Part of that is decoding the meaning of language, but another part is decoding implied meaning, which necessarily involves watching tone. So suppose you're trying to tell someone a Hard Truth. You could deliver this in a soft tone, or your harsh tone. Your intent is simple: you want them to accept this truth. Flip around this situation. Someone tells you something, and it makes you very uncomfortable. You don't know why. If that person says it in an insulting way, guess what? Your immediate interpretation is that their intent is to hurt you, they're insulting you because they don't like you. They will react to that perceived intent, and defend themselves. If it is said in a soft tone, then the question of why it makes you uncomfortable is still not clear. Maybe they're true, maybe they're false, you don't know. But that impression will stick with you, and the other persons perceived intent is not clear. Nothing is every 100% successful, immediately, when you're dealing with people, but you can increase or decrease your odds of success. The response against the tone argument has been either one of moral obligation ("why should the oppressed have to moderate themselves") or effort ("it's difficult to moderate when you feel wronged"). The last has a simple answer: do not bother talking with someone if you don't feel you can muster the effort. If you can't talk persuasively, there's no point in talking, you just have to defend yourself. The later is moralism. The world is not just, the universe does not care about your sense of obligation. Practically, if you want to achieve a goal, and something is going to help you achieve that goal, then do that thing. When pragmatism runs counter to your sense of what is 'right', choose pragmatism. If 'obligation' was some mystical force that actually helped anyone, we'd already be living in a Utopia.
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Jan 13, 2017 05:22
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blackguy32 posted:This isn't a math class. These are actual people with actual emotions. I get that. I totally understand seeing something that makes you angry and not feeling like you can summon the energy to make a constructive response. But at the same time you can also just not make an angry negative callout.
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Jan 13, 2017 05:25
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People demanding that others 'stop being so defensive', yet say and do everything they can to put people on the defensive, are hypocrites. You're essentially asking people to remove their own spine, and submit to your judgement, because you believe you are right. Would you do the same thing if someone made the same demand to you?
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Jan 13, 2017 05:25
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lazorexplosion posted:I get that. I totally understand seeing something that makes you angry and not feeling like you can summon the energy to make a constructive response. But at the same time you can also just not make an angry negative callout. Ah yes, stay silent and keep that anger bottled up inside of you because after all, you are trying to win over hearts and minds. This is partially why min/maxing doesn't work for social interactions.
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Jan 13, 2017 05:28
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The goal of activism isn't to educate white people. It is to secure and enforce the rights of nonwhite people. White people carry a moral obligation to educate themselves. If you signed up for some kind of lecture series or training about race in America, I'm sure the professor would treat your curiosity with encouragement and generosity, so long as you did the reading first. Outside of that context, it's silly to assume someone else will become your teacher if you make no effort on your own to learn and grow first.
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Jan 13, 2017 05:28
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