(Untitled)

[theladytrinity]

Eff me running

I'm already not ready for this week and now I've had a halfway-blazing row with Will over the stupidest thing. We're walking down the street this morning and in front of us I see a woman pass two men. One of the men goes "sexy! damn!" and turns around to stare at her. No response from the woman.

Response, however, from me. "OMG

Comments

Re: from Sims

[ticketsonmyself]

I know that people get defensive at yelling, but the tone argument is never ever ever a good place to go. [Also, while it's not the word choice theladytrinity indicated in her post, I for one am guaranteed to react negatively to "insane," etc. when it's used to describe something that the speaker wishes to dismiss, because that's ableist. To say that "this person is crazy" or "that person is insane" when you're really trying to debunk their arguments is to, in essence, make the statement that you're labeling them insane/crazy because to you, insane/crazy (thus, mentally ill) = person I don't have to respect or listen to. I could hardly begin to touch on all the ways in which this has terrible effects, starting with the appalling history of the treatment of the mentally ill throughout history and going on to cover the ways in which people with mental illnesses ranging from depression to bipolar disorder to many other things are told that they're making it up or that they're dangerous or that nothing they say has to be taken seriously or respected - even when what they're saying is "Please stop, you're hurting me." There is also the long and ongoing history of people using slurs like "hysterical," etc. to dismiss concerns of women, which neatly deploys both ableist and sexist concepts. I have no problem with outing myself here in that I can say it has been a real and ongoing struggle every day to uproot my own internalized ableism. I can't see that struggle ending anytime soon. We can only try to keep doing better, with respect to talking about ableism and working against it every day. And so it goes on every other front, both with respect to institutionalized dynamics of power in which I am disprivileged (ableism, racism, sexism, etc.) and most especially those in which I am part of a privileged group (cissexism, classism, etc.). Often I fail. But when someone in a disprivileged group brings it to my attention that I've made them feel hurt, unwelcome, or uncomfortable, in view of that context, I have a responsibility to make sure my reaction is not dismissive or defensive. This is a digression, of course, but I don't have the spoons, so to speak, to say more than bravest_unsaid on the subject of street harassment, other than that I have experienced sexual harassment many times when clothed from neck to mid-calf, in loose clothing. In the mind of someone who harasses a woman, it doesn't matter. (And when I told family members, the first question out of their mouths was "What were you doing?" Answer: walking. Sometimes dragging luggage. I wish their attitudes were less omnipresent. That's rape culture for you.) Anyway, this got a little long - but it's meant for anyone who reads it, not Sims alone.]

Re: from Sims (Sims again)

[ticketsonmyself]

Why is the tone argument not a good place to go? I'm discussing tactics, not principles. So you have a case to make. If you speak in a way that could be perceived as irrational, you increase the possibility that the person listening to you will focus on how irrational you're supposedly being (fairly or not) rather than actually listening to you. Yelling can intimidate or silence, but it can never persuade.

Re: from Sims (Sims again)

[ticketsonmyself]

Again, see Derailing for Dummies, in particular this. Also this, especially the last half of the_willow's post.

Also, from a post by
ephemere:Say that anger can only result in defensiveness; say that numbers merely mean a mob -- I will say that sometimes only the shock of an impact can break a wall; that numbers speak of the greatness of the injustice.

I am weary of people speaking of anger as if it were a chosen, controllable thing. It is so tiring, this anger, and I would will it away from me if I could. It exhausts me to go into arguments with the full expectation that I will have to defend myself from accusations simply because I am angry. I don't even have to wonder about the lines of thought that lead to these statements -- why should I, when I'm surrounded by the same system that has taught us to suffer in silence, to be patient, to work hard, to deserve the voices and the rights to be regarded as equal with those who have taken these very things away? I know (because I have been told, over and over) that one shouldn't blame anyone else for ignorance, that one should value intention, that one shouldn't deride those who mean well because eventually they'll learn.

Maybe they'll learn. Maybe they won't. But I refuse to stay silent in the meantime. An act that perpetuates oppression, if unchallenged, only serves to reinforce oppression. The more people that choose to recuse themselves from speaking out, due to fear of giving offense, the less there will be to join the struggle against these wrongs. Speak to me of the hue and the cry. Speak to me of it, again and again, because it is still necessary, and it is still not enough, and the fact that we have to raise these issues, over and over, is an outrage in and of itself.

Re: from Sims (Sims again)

[ticketsonmyself]

[went over LJ's character limit; this is the second part]

Asking someone from a disprivileged group who is angry about institutionalized oppression - with a focus on specific acts, widely encompassing institutionalized systems, or both - to watch their TONE in front of a person or persons who benefit from that system of oppression, is in itself a demand that reinforces that privileged dynamic. Ad hominem attacks are out, of course. But in my experience, if I didn't yell now and then, a lot of people benefiting from privileged dynamics would never stop and listen at all, much less remember what I said. (As a disabled woman of Asian descent, in my daily life I can't seem to get away from the impact of all those things with respect to how people who benefit from ablebodied, male, and/or white privilege act toward and around me. Regardless of how I feel about it.) And again, even though I often try to help, it's not my responsibility to educate people about the lived realities of the disprivileges I experience. So if someone isn't going to listen to me about what I say on those things because of what they think about my tone, count me right out. Finally, people privileged in an institutionalized dynamic of power are far more likely to accuse someone of being too angry in a discussion of privilege when that someone belongs to the disprivileged group(s), regardless of that person's actual tone. I have seen this and experienced this countless times. (I would say "literally countless times" but that would be misusing the word "literally.") This is why, for example, there are a lot more well-known white antiracist activist writers in the profession than there are well-known antiracist activist writers of color. People who benefit from an institutionalized dynamic of privilege - especially people who have not spent a lot of time thinking about how they benefit and what they should do about it as a regular part of their lives - tend to be somewhat less defensive when criticism of that dynamic, and/or of the people who benefit, comes from a fellow beneficiary of that privileged dynamic.

That's all today's spoons I've got for social justice in this thread. Over and out!