Over at Slate, Jessie-Lane Metz discusses her article for The Toast, “Ally-phobia: On the Trayvon Martin Ruling, White Feminism, and the Worst of Best Intentions“:
Is it better to offend someone in the course of discussing something than not have the conversation?
I do think that if in your social justice work, you continue to hurt those whose oppression you are seeking to address, it may be time to step back and listen.
Real talk. People fuck up all of the time. I fuck up all of the time in my own work on being an ally. Nobody knows everything already. When I fuck up, I certainly don’t ask myself if it was better to offend someone than to not have that conversation at all. I listen. I ask myself, how can I do better so that the next time I have a conversation I don’t hurt anyone. Or how I can educate myself through those who are actively engaging in teaching, so that others don’t have to have that conversation with me at all. And I inevitably will fuck up again. But I keep on working on it. I’m committed to it.
Well, now that we’re here, how does Metz’s response to her critics change your views on the piece, if at all?
Tags: feminism, jessie-lane metz, racism, real talk
My life got a lot easier when I learned to focus on the topic at hand. That thing about “if it’s not about you, it’s not about you?” works the other way. When it is about you? It’s about you, and not anyone else.
Metz’s argument that would-be ally’s should please not do ___, ____, and ____ was a really, really good criticism to be invited to read. Really good.
It’s the one thing in the whole TM media discourse that is directly about me. What it isn’t is in need of is a defensive examination of anyone else’s actions or position. “You’re dropping the ball here” she says “can you please pick it up so I can get back to the rest of this conversation?” Yes. Yes, I can try.
The point of all that there is… I appreciate why Metz is reassuring the readers of Slate that she also fucks up. And I know it’s probably a relief to know that it happens for her, too. And I am torn on this one. Readers of Slate, as reassured as we might be, we don’t need to know that to accept the criticism she puts out in the first place. I mean, aside from the fact that it’s a safe assumption she does sometimes because she is human and all, and we all do. What does any one else’s fuck-ups have to do with would-be allies addressing this problem in front of them, of fucking up?
[Headsup for Being All Theological-ish For A Sec]
I read somewhere recently… maybe Peacebang?… it probably was Peacebang… an essay on what happens when human rights heroes are exposed as having… faults! That cause us to question the rightness of the hero in the first place! Her observation on this was, if you’re feeling Judeo-Christian about things, there is a different between a prophet and a saint. Saints are the model of behavior- their lack of sin is their strength.
Prophets are the deliverer’s of Divine messages. And, they are flawed. Often they are really very flawed, and that is one reason they are chosen as prophets to deliver the word of God. The medium is flawed, but the message is not.
Her point was, the great heroes of justice in our age are more like prophets than they are like saints. You can be reassured because they didn’t have to be perfect to take part in the creation of a just world. But that is fully secondary to the fact that the demand for just treatment is a just demand, no matter who makes it, or how imperfect they are.
You can’t do anything about other people’s imperfections but adjust what they mean to you. But you can do A LOT to address the imperfections you carry yourself.
So… I guess I am not a critic of her first essay. The response she provides at Slate is generosity itself, considering the issue it hand.
Also, re: these questions:
<block>By proceeding so cautiously in the way we talk about race—curtailing forms of expression because of the harm or offense they may cause—are we underestimating each other?… … We’re not painting each other as overly fragile or delicate?</block>
I… wow. C’mon people. You don’t know. That’s the point of every safe space conversation anyone has anywhere. And the “is any subject appropriate for comedy” conversation. You can’t know what is in people’s hearts/histories. Don’t assume. Maybe everyone in the room except that one person over there is fine with whatever. But you can’t know. So until you do know… watch your mouth. It is astonishing (except, it’s really not) what kinds of shit people have had to live through. Err towards mindful- you can change tracks later if it’s appropriate.
Her answer was, again, graciousness itself, considering how much we shouldn’t have to be even asking that question any more.
So anyway.
TL;DR It was an interesting response to read. But the original criticism was perfectly legit as it was, so.
I wish Metz would have addressed the critics who suggested that she was too glibly purporting to speak on behalf of all black people. Though I guess Katy Waldman didn’t ask about that in particular.
YESSSS. That I feel was the most serious critique & one that I held as my biggest reservation regarding her piece. I think it probably would be the toughest to answer to, which is why I wanted to hear her response to it.
I just wanted to let you know that I attempted to answer this critique for both yourself and Arin Arcadia in a response to Arin’s initial comment in this thread.
HI Arin and Halleloujah. Thanks for reading both pieces, and for checking to see if I had addressed that particular critique, which I suppose I have not. I certainly don’t intend to speak for all Black people, or for anyone other than myself. I would suggest the opposite rather, that often one person of colour is asked to speak on behalf of their entire ethnic group. What I wrote was a pretty personal essay, about my own meaning-making about the issue at hand, in the hopes that maybe some people hadn’t read that perspective before, and would consider it alongside others in their own anti-racist work. I tried to really cite lots of other works by people of colour in the original essay as well, specifically to say, “hey look, it’s a big world out there with lots of people speaking to this piece in their own way.” Not sure if that addresses what you were looking for, but there is my short answer on the topic!
Thank you for taking the time to write this considered response! For some reason, I didn’t get an email notification, so I am just now getting around to thanking you. I am pondering your response in my heart.
Great timing — I was just going to jump back into that comment thread to post two articles I found really interesting, in relation to what I wrote there.
This one: http://www.jehsmith.com/1/2013/07/being-a-white-p…
and this one from Slate: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/20…
Haha it’s all about meeeeeee. Not but seriously the first one is a really interesting read, I think.
I can’t spend as much time on this right now as I’d like, unfortunately [ETA: so my comment is *only* 300+ words long, haha], but there were a few things about the first article that really rubbed me the wrong way. My biggest question is what exactly he’s arguing against – he seems to be concerned that “suggestions” (possibly not even directed at him?) about how to talk about race would “require” him to stop doing his work. He doesn’t say why; if the critiques are directed at him specifically, he doesn’t say what they’re based on or in what way he would have to modify his activities in order to comply with them. If he’s getting critiques from people of color about his work, and he’s not at least listening to them, there’s a problem (not to say that all those critiques are legit, because there are flawed people everywhere). If he’s not getting direct critiques, then he’s taking something that people are asking generally, making it all about him, and asking them to validate his approach (which, fine, it’s on his own blog, but it’s not a particularly powerful argument, to me).
And I really, really have a problem with this quote, which is overshadowing most of his other points for me:
“And the distraction of identity politics, perpetuated by well-intentioned young people who take themselves to be on the Left, is, I’m sorry to say, helping to abet and sustain the racist system in the United States.”
To say that asking (not “requiring,” not “forcing,” not “punishing for engaging,” just asking) people to please consider how their reactions may not be helping the people they intend to help because they may not be taking into account the different realities of different people–to say that asking people to do that is abetting and sustaining racism is frankly contemptible and speaks to a near-complete failure to understand what’s happening here.
More later, maybe? Interested to hear your thoughts on that piece.
It sounds as if the writer is an American who lives in France which has a VERY different conception of how to talk about race and engage in ending racism, which I think can be immediately off-putting to American liberals but which (I’ve learned from many discussions with my wife) may actually be a better way forward. So I think I appreciated the article for bringing up that perspective in a way other American liberals can maybe understand.
I don’t go as far as some do in taking umbrage at policing of what people “can” say about race — I take your comments on my other post on board — but there IS an element of policing. The dark underbelly of what the French would call Anglo-Saxon identity politics is that it DOES tend to privilege certain viewpoints based on the gender or skin color of the person making the statement — a bit like what Sartre called “racisme antiraciste”.
Now, obviously a lot of contemporary white supremacy ALSO operates through this sort of privilege (about who is allowed to speak and whose opinions and feelings matter) so sometimes this can be a good thing. But it’s a little disingenuous to say that this sort of “asking” does not carry with it strong implications about what is and isn’t deemed “acceptable” (the original article actually does use the word “permission” BTW).
Of course the worst “punishment” for “saying the wrong things” in this scenario is not being taken seriously by, or being excluded from, certain Anglo-American left-liberal anti-racist discourses. It’s not a huge deal, especially compared to the punishment meted out when, say, a black person “says the wrong things” to a white police officer. But it’s also not nothing — it could have serious implications for someone who is a writer or academic trying to make a living by engaging with these subjects, for example.
I do agree that white people who try to make anti-racism about themselves are ridiculous and probably harmful, and it’s always good to think about if what you’re doing is causing harm to those you’re trying to help (this is something I would love for more people in my industry, international development, to get their heads around). I came into the Metz article predisposed to agree with it, and I *do* agree with what commenters claim the article was “trying to say.” I am no particular fan of any of the people or articles being criticized. So something about the way it was written clearly communicated a different message to me.
It’s interesting, too, because the quote you cited is a pretty accurate summation of my wife’s opinion of US racial discourse on the Left. And the Mandela bit that set it up resonated with me, since I have a good friend whose (white and Indian) family was deeply involved in the anti-apartheid struggle. Like many Americans I had little idea that so many non-black South Africans were so deeply involved in that struggle.
Anyway, put back in its fuller context, the quote reads: “Listen to the way Mandela talks about Joe Slovo, for example. Is there any hint that Mandela thinks the Lithuanian Jewish immigrant doesn’t get, can’t get, what’s at stake in bringing down a racist totalitarian system? Of course not. That’s not the way racism is defeated. And the distraction of identity politics, perpetuated by well-intentioned young people who take themselves to be on the Left, is, I’m sorry to say, helping to abet and sustain the racist system in the United States.”
What he’s saying is that EVERYONE needs to be FULLY committed to fighting racism if we’re ever going to hope to defeat it. To imply that white people don’t have a direct, personal stake in fighting racism (talking about how it affects them is narcissistic; talking about how it affects black people is appropriating; better to just listen) is very much helping to perpetuate the racist system. I may have a slightly easier time establishing my anti-racist bona fides thanks to wife’s complexion — which alone is an indictment of this line of thinking — but I’m not against racism because of her, or because of my potential future offspring, I’m against it because it’s WRONG.
Yes, someone saying the “wrong thing” about race could possibly have consequences for their academic career, but the odds of that are pretty small, unless they’re saying something so egregious that everyone knows it’s wrong, in which case they probably shouldn’t have an academic career anyway (see for example Larry Summers, who is now being considered to head up the Fed, despite his comments about women’s inherent math skills). And the way our system is set up, there are ALWAYS people who are just gagging to jump to the defense of somebody who they see as being targeted by some irrational minority group driven by identity politics.
And the quote in its full context isn’t any less problematic to me. I get what he thinks he’s saying, but the way identity politics is used in this discourse is pretty much always as a silencing tactic, and pretty much never against white people (because, as the “norm,” we don’t have an “identity”). It’s the same implication that underlies the implication that people of color can never have a “rational” discussion about race, but white people can because we don’t keep bringing in all those messy identity politics and personal experiences.
I think I made an observation that might have meaning: the road in that picture is not a two-way street.
I think the initial piece was really good, and if it made people uncomfortable, well, good, this is not a comfortable topic.
I think part of what makes these conversations challenging is that when someone does fuck up, they get piled on (at least sometimes in the bits of the internet I frequent.) And people are. of course, completely justified in their strong reactions to fucking up, but it does make it harder to put your voice out there. Which is maybe also a good thing, on some level?
I don’t know, I’m still in the “shut up and listen and educate your white friends IRL” phase of things, because I am sort of a coward.
But also…this is tough to articulate, because online bullying is a real and terrible thing, and when people get piled on for, say, being pro-gay, that is gross and awful and should not happen. But I feel like also people conflate “strong response” with “piling on,” even when the responses are polite and measured variations on “you’re wrong, here’s why.” And really, even if someone is mean to you about being wrong, barring a truly disproportionate response, you can just walk away – you may feel bad for awhile, but there are rarely real-life consequences (again, this sounds like I’m minimizing online bullying, which I’m trying not to do – would welcome suggestions on rephrasing).
But a couple of people going “you’re wrong, and here’s why” is a lot less discouraging than 12 or 20 or 40 people jumping in to add their version of why you’re wrong. I personally find it bewildering as to why the author/others capitalize Black people and not white people but I don’t know how to ask an ignorant question without an angry mob telling me all about how uneducated I am.
I agree, kind of, with the first thing you said, but at the same time, don’t want to be tone-policing or telling people they shouldn’t express themselves.
As to the second thing – as Jessie Lane-Metz says in her first article, it’s not her (or anyone else’s) responsiblity to educate you or anyone else. There are a lot of resources already available, other people who have written at length about just about every aspect of race relations. Taking to google to look for answers – educating yourself – is usually the best first step.
Admittedly, your specific thing here is a capitalization issue, and one that’s hard to research online. Personally, I wouldn’t ask that question, because I’m not going to grill a person about the way they write about something with which they are more familiar/experienced about than I am. I would assume it’s a deliberate decision, and while I have several guesses as to why “black” was capitalized and “white” wasn’t, I honestly don’t know. I am not going to be able to understand the motivations and reasons for 100% of any other person’s actions, but just because I don’t get it, that doesn’t give me the right to question it.
Also, if you’re worried about being offensive (and admittedly this is rich coming from me, as there are times when i do not worry at all about being offensive) it’s useful to read what you’ve written from the perspective of someome who assumes you have the worst possible intentions and try to see how they would interpret what you said.
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I know this is a fraught topic and a lot of the discussion around it is hard. I also know it’s no one’s job to educate me, although googling, “why did Jessie choose some capital letters and not some others” isn’t going to be helpful, but the actual answer may or may not be helpful to my little brain anyway. But yay, thinking! Thanks again for more food for thought.
Your Google search that you mention would indeed be hard to find results for but “capital B Black,” for example, would not.
Ugh I’m so late to this! I didn’t have time for a real, serious comment earlier.
I think the extra explanation was helpful and made me more sympathetic to her point of view; I think I sort of thought she was talking about just general conversation originally, but it seems like, from the explanations, she was really more talking about bloggers and writers, which makes it make more sense. If you’re a white person really doing that type of work, it does make sense to use your position to help POCs have a voice. But then how do you get that position without using your own words? Perhaps the trigger warning thing and some kind of indication of your intended audience in the title would be helpful?
I’ll put here a condensed version of my too-late comment on that first piece as well: has anyone seen the video that’s been floating around where LeVar Burton explains what he does when pulled over by police? In the version I watched there is a white guy (I’m guessing it’s Tim Wise) who gives a little summary at the end – it felt so unnecessary to have a “White Person Translation” when LeVar’s point was so clearly made.
Whitesplaining?
There are so many interesting longform pieces I want to read today and it upsets me that I haven’t had the time to get to them all.
Thank you for taking the time to write this considered response! For some reason, I didn't get an email notification, so I am just now getting around to thanking you. I am pondering your response in my heart.