The Anatomy of a Call Out (And Why It Needs To Change)

[hayi]

I recomend reading this first, to get a proper understanding of some of the terms used in the article.

I’m sure we’re all familiar with the activist community privilege or bigotry “call out”.

For those that aren’t, it is a method for either revealing privileged, bigoted or problematic behaviors to others publicly or to attempt to reveal to an

Comments

[la_vie_noire]

Hmmmmmm. It's fine it's that the way you want to deal with privileged people like that in your space. Kudos to you if you have the resources and patience. Now, preaching there is a a right way

[recognitions]

I think part of the problem is when you do object to what someone has said, you never know what kind of response you're going to get. It's easy to brace yourself for defensiveness and being told you're wrong and your feelings don't matter, especially when you've gotten that same reaction a zillion times before. So you can come on forceful and risk doing some damage, or modulate your approach and leave yourself vulnerable. Maybe it all comes down to individual comfort level. But it seems like the bottom line is nobody really trusts anybody else's motives.

[jiaren_shadow]

MTE. I'm usually the call-ee rather than the caller (white, cis, middle-class, able, still getting my feet wet in feminist activism and academia), but from my rather limited calling-out experience (mostly on homophobia or sexism), it really can be a crapshoot. I've realized lately that I'm usually too nice about it, especially with family members. Then again, I'm still new to it and because of my privilege, I don't want to appropriate anger that isn't mine to feel.

[hip_hop_korner]

I don't have a problem with call outs themselves, but moreso with who's doing the calling out. I am never going to get mad at a person who calls out a privileged person who just offended a marginalized group that they are part of, whether they respond with patient, information filled answers or a simple "fuck you." Both are appropriate responses. It is not a marginalized person's job to take care of the privileged.

However, some call outs made by "allies" are just obnoxious and unwanted, especially when there are marginalized people involved in the conversation already. It then turns into allies appropriating the frustration and anger of the oppressed people and trying to prove what an oh so special, progressive, wonderful person they are.

[102bb]

Your second point is so dead-on. I hate "allies" and their bullshit.

[hip_hop_korner]

These are some random thoughts about "allies" that are floating around in my head, so this'll probably be tl;dr and maybe not even directly answer your question. lol

[la_vie_noire]

Also, I noticed a lot of people have some romantic notion of "educating," like it is something easy, happy, that all people should be doing for a better place; instead of something painful, tiring, a lot of the time means showing your own suffering, your most vulnerable parts to privileged people who won't even care, and demand you more and more in an unbalanced ground.

People, that's privilege. (And I'm not saying people who want to educate are necessarily privileged. A lot of them are people with a great spirit of sacrifice who end up feeling very drained, and really spill a lot of tears. But if you are demanding this of everyone without even looking at who you are talking to... just bull shit.)

There is a good article: http://resistracism.wordpress.com/2010/08/27/we-are-human/

[penumbral2276]

I fully agree with you. A lot of parts of articles the OP linked that I quoted and replied to earlier (http://community.livejournal.com/ontd_feminism/335437.html?thread=25391693#t25391693) seem to imply that oppressed groups owe the privileged an "explanation" or a "sharing of their viewpoint." As if by calling them out instead of sitting them down and educating them that we are being irresponsible in how we use our "tools."

[la_vie_noire]

Yeah, I'm wondering who the OP is talking to, but she doesn't seem to make a distinction between oppressed and oppressor. So I don't even know. A lot of it looks like old tone arguments, what with that classifications of "good and bad refuters" and so.

[penumbral2276]

A lot of the articles are also difficult for me to understand, but what's raising my hackles is the critique of the method in which marginalized people call out oppression. Not only does it seem to be criticizing how problematic language and behavior is called out, but why it is called out and how those ~silly marginalized people should take it as an opportunity to educate.

I'm mostly getting the impression that this largely refers to calling out privileged groups, instead of alienating members of marginalized groups with differing opinions.

[mybluesunset]

I like this comment, especially the distinction you made between what we do "as activists" and "as human beings and individuals." Because what when someone talks about what people should do to make social change, in their head they've added this little caveat tag of "as activists, and I realize we all need to take off our activist hats and just be tired, frustrated people sometimes." But if they don't say that explicitly, then it can be read as "this is what you should be doing as a human being and an individual, if you don't do it you're a bad person," which isn't the idea at all.

[lisaquestions]

I think the first paragraph is always a danger, and I think part of the problem there is you have self-serving allies who don't really apply their standards to themselves and their needs.

I've seen several call-outs turn into abuse, bullying, and pile-ons, and I'm pretty sick of it. I mean, if people read my post and say "Well, no, I like call outs and want to keep doing them," fine, but at least think about what's been said about how they're done?

And I mean, I'm not really commenting on genderbitch's article, but as I have written a lot about this, and I don't think you're saying this about anything I've written, but I don't think that policing reactions based on how useful it is to the movement is the point or is helpful. I think there is some anxiety about how being angry might be viewed as being abusive but I think that the abusive bullshit is often really hard to identify, and it's more likely that it's going to be forgiven as being angry by onlookers than anger is to be called abuse. Which is a problem, because abusive