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The Rules About Responding To Call Outs Aren't Working - Real Social Skills
The Rules About Responding To Call Outs Aren't Working - Real Social Skills
The Rules About Responding To Call Outs Aren't Working - Real Social Skills
Privileged people rarely take the voices of marginalized people seriously. Social justices
spaces attempt to fix this with rules about how to respond to when marginalized people
tell you that youve done something wrong. Like most formal descriptions of social skills,
the rules dont quite match reality. This is causing some problems that I think we could
fix with a more honest conversation about how to respond to criticism.
Those rules are a good approximation of some things, but they dont actually work. It is
impossible to follow them literally, in part because:
Since the rule is literally impossible to follow, no one is actually succeeding at following
it. What usually ends up happening when people try is that:
There are a lot of people who dont want us to be able to talk to each other and
build effective coalitions.
Some of them are using the language of call-outs to undermine everyone who
emerges as an effective progressive leader.
They say that they are marginalized people, and make up lies about leaders.
Or they say things that are technically true, but taken out of context in deliberately
misleading ways.
The rules about shutting up and listening to marginalized people make it very
difficult to contradict these lies and distortions.
(Sometimes they really are members of the marginalized groups they claim to
speak for. Sometimes theyre outright lying about who they are).
(For instance, Russian intelligence agents have used social media to pretend to be
marginalized Americans and spread lies about Hillary Clinton.)
The formal rule is also easily exploited by abusive people, along these lines:
An abusive person convinces their victim that they are the voice of marginalized
people.
The abuser uses the rules about when people tell you that youre being
oppressive, dont argue to control the victim.
Whenever the victim tries to stand up for themself, the abuser tells the victim that
theyre being oppressive.
That can be a powerfully effective way to make victims in our communities feel that
they have no right to resist abuse.
This can also prevent victims from getting support in basic ways.
Abusers can send victims into depression spirals by convincing them that
everything that brings them pleasure is oppressive and immoral.
The abuser may also isolate the victim by telling them that it would be oppressive
for them to spend time with their friends and family, try to access victim services, or
call the police.
The abuser may also separate the victim from their community and natural allies
by spreading baseless rumors about their supposed oppressive behavior. (Or
threatening to do so).
When there are rules against questioning call outs, there are also implicit rules
against taking the side of a victim when the abuser uses the language of calling
out.
Rules that say some people should unconditionally defer to others are always
dangerous.
This rule also tends to prevent groups centered around one form of marginalized from
coming to engage with other forms of marginalization:
For instance, in some spaces, racism and sexism are known to be issues, but
ableism is not.
(This can occur in any combination. Eg: There are also spaces that get ableism
and sexism but not racism, and spaces that get economic justice and racism but
not antisemitism, or any number of other things.)
When disabled people raise the issue of ableism in any context (social justice or
otherwise), theyre likely to be shouted down and told that its not important.
In social justice spaces, this shouting down is often done in the name of listening
to marginalized people.
For instance, disabled people may be told you need to listen to marginalized
people and de-center your issues, carrying the implication that ableism is less
important than other forms of oppression.
(This happens to *every* marginalized group in some context or other.)
If we want real intersectional solidarity, we need to have space for ongoing
conflicts that are not simple to resolve.
Tl;dr Shut up and listen to marginalized people isnt quite the right rule,
because it objectifies marginalized people, leaves us open to sabotage, enables
abuse, and prevents us from working through conflicts in a substantive way. We
need to do better by each other, and start listening for real.
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