Callout culture comes from a place of class, educational, and ability privilege. If you have ever taken a gender studies class, you have educational privilege and almost certainly class privilege as well. If you have enough time to keep track of whether transsexual, transgender, trans, or trans* is the preferred term this week, you have class privilege. If you can understand dry academic feminism books, you have educational and ability privilege. (Actually, bell hooks has some great writing, particularly in Feminism Is For Everybody, about how academic feminism and its children, including nearly all of online social justice, have made feminism greatly inaccessible to the people it’s supposed to help. …Aaaand I just proved I’m exactly the sort of person I’m complaining about.)
It is amazing how a group of people whose whole thing is checking their privilege refuse to check their privilege when it’ll stop them from feeling like a Super Cool Activisty Person. But you know what? There are lots of people who are trying to figure out where they’ll sleep tonight or what food they’ll eat, who are barely literate, who are trapped in an abusive household, and for the vast majority of them whether you call it “equal marriage” or “gay marriage” is a complete nonissue.
Callout culture has some incredibly oppressive dynamics. For all its conversation about not caring about the precious feefees of the cis white dudes, callout culture has this remarkable tendency to target women and queer men. See also: the incredible amount of energy directed by the online social justice community against radfems, a tiny and powerless minority of transphobes, as opposed to against literally anyone else. Or Dan Savage hate. Sure, Dan Savage is a fuckwit, but is he any more of a fuckwit than every other advice columnist ever? (Captain Awkward and Ms. Manners aside.) And yet the amount of hatred Dan Savage gets is disproportionate to the amount of hate other advice columnists get.
Partially, this is because Dan Savage and radfems are Part Of Our Community (TM), and leftist groups are always far more interested in fighting the People’s Front of Judea than we are in fighting the Romans. And partially it’s because nothing is more perennially popular than femmephobia, queerphobia, and misogyny.
Well-intentioned knowledgeable people can disagree. Okay, look, people. Most of the callout culture nonsense is not actually about, you know, important issues, because nearly everyone that participates in callout culture agrees that Western society is racist and you shouldn’t murder trans women and so on. Instead, we tend to have arguments that look like this:
Person A: Nonbinary people who were female assigned at birth experience privilege that nonbinary people who were male assigned at birth do not.
Person B: Yes, but it is also kind of fucked to divide up nonbinary people by our assigned genders, as if female-assigned nonbinary people are pseudomen and male-assigned nonbinary people are pseudowomen.
Person A: TRANSMISOGYNISTIC SCUM.
Person B: BINARIST SCUM.
When, uh, actually, if we stayed away from the screaming, we’d notice that both Person A and Person B are kind of right. As a female-assigned-at-birth trans person, I am far less likely to be a victim of a hate crime (for just one example); however, it is also fucked to classify me as a pseudo-dude. Callout culture makes complicated, nuanced discussions like this much more difficult to have.
Final ethical guidelines.
1) Whenever you have the energy for it, rationally and civilly argue with those you disagree with.
2) Whenever you don’t have the energy for it, consider blocking them instead of shouting.
3) Some views are so beyond the pale with adherents that are so unlikely to be convinced that shouting and insults are called for in order to convey that This Is Not An Acceptable Thing People Believe. It’s generally better to put some rational argument between the insults in order to explain why it’s not acceptable, though.
4) Not every view that disagrees with you is so beyond the pale that no one sensible agrees with it. If you think so, then maybe you should quit activism, because the whole point of activism is convincing people and it seems like rather a waste of energy.
5) In general it is better to shout at people who are not part of your audience rather than people who are. They are less likely to feel insulted and the fact that shouting at people makes convincing them difficult is less likely to come up.
6) If someone who is generally sensible says something horrible, clarify if they meant what you think they meant before you start screaming.
7) Stop fucking assuming people you disagree with are privileged.
8) Try to criticize people who are outside your community too, it’s good for you.
9) Remember that you do not know what other people are going through– both people you’re criticizing and people you are being criticized by– and that it is better to err on the side of kindness. Or the block button. The block button is awesome.
10) If other people do not follow these rules, listen to them anyway. Note that I don’t say “agree with them”; it’s possible that they are an asshole and also wrong. And obviously if something is detrimental to your mental health, the block button, it is awesome. But as much as you can, listen to everyone. People might not phrase things in the most compassionate and persuasive way possible; they might, in fact, phrase it in an obviously douchey way. That doesn’t mean they’re wrong.
I think the problem with this is sometimes the right to be openly angry and annoyed with someone is important for some people too, and in particular, the ability to shout back at people who are shouting at you, while not productive to reasonable discussion, can be liberating and good for someone’s mental health in a way just blocking them is not. I’m not really comfortable with feeling like someone has to be a Klan member or an MRA before I’m allowed to yell back at them if they’re already hurtling insults at me.
I do agree that yelling and insults should not be the way someone handles any and every disagreement however. I do think it’s good to try your best to be civil and polite to people who are being civil and polite to you, and aren’t saying something so beyond the pale it’s atrocious. But if someone is openly insulting me, fuck that shit, I am going to insult them back.
I think feeling that way might make me a terrible person because I agree with most of the rest of this post
That is because “feminism,” by my definition, is but a subset of “respect,” and making something inaccessible tends to be disrespectful.
@Bella:
I don’t think you’re a terrible person. If you’ve ever been stepped on or shamed, you can end up with a seething cauldron of rage and hate inside you — and if you’re not on speaking terms with it, it can erupt like a volcano.
Catharsis is important, and yelling at someone, whether they be someone who hurt you or someone suspiciously like someone who hurt you, can be cathartic. It also, by chance, tends to be unproductive (and therefore impractical), as well as disrespectful.
Ideally, one strikes a balance between catharsis and productivity. At the same time, life is rarely ideal — and yelling at someone is a great deal less harmful than physically attacking them.
To further complicate matters: a great many voices yelling in unison have begotten much progress in this country, but they can also be the sound of King Mob, knocking at your door with torches and pitchforks.
EDIT:
That should read, “Yelling at someone CAN BE a great deal less harmful than physically attacking them.” Of course, yelling at someone can ALSO be abusive.
ozy:
I feel like applauding your final ethical guidelines, especially points 3, 6 and 7. Thank you.
Gaius:
I vaguely recall reading somewhere (in other words don’t take my word for this) that the whole idea of catharsis is misleading – that deliberately expressing an emotion such as anger actually reinforces that emotion, making it more likely and more intense in future. In other words, it’s not like there’s some build-up of anger over time and expressing it is opening the release valve, it’s more that our brains are learning engines and expressing anger (and feeling good about expressing that anger) is actually a reward to your brain for that expression, encouraging it to repeat the pattern.
I’m not saying it shouldn’t be done, just be aware of the consequences to yourself.
Also you are quite right that expressions of anger can sometimes be the drivers of significant progress.
@Yiab:
I’d buy that. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the habits we teach ourselves, particularly habits of emotion or belief. Thank you very, very much.
Wonderful series, Ozy. I think I understand why you began by saying that these posts are “inside-online-social-justice baseball” — they’re meta, they don’t directly help to de-marginalize anyone. Still, I hope I’m not out of line in saying that I think posts like these, setting smart and empathetic rules of discourse, are some of the most important for movement newcomers to see.
Let me explain by way of full disclosure. I’m one of those white cis het men whose feefees one isn’t supposed to care about. If I act like a bona fide asshole, I don’t mind being shouted out of social justice websites. But if I oppress out of ignorance because of my privilege, I hope that instead someone will educate me — though certainly no one person in particular is obliged to do this. Unfortunately, many of my early experiences on feminist websites were just the opposite. I tried to engage in good faith; I said something stupid without knowing it; I got yelled at; and I withdrew because I don’t like being yelled at. Or I saw the same thing happening to other people who expressed an opinion in a way that seemed respectful to me. So I stopped trying to engage.
Yes, I know, you’ve heard this story before and my feefees aren’t important. But the result was that it took me years longer than necessary to reach the conclusion that feminists and other social justice types aren’t just angry and unreasonable people who only want to talk to people who already agree with them. I finally learned different because of writers like Ozy. If this is going to be a movement of inclusion, which I think it should be, and if we care about learning to treat everyone humanely, which to my mind is maybe the central objective of all social justice, then improving the discourse isn’t just inside-baseball; it’s vital in order to bring social justice to the point where it can reach audiences like me.
Man, I hate the word “fee-fees” so much. I understand the sentiment of “I’ve decided I’m not going to change what I say/do/am because of your feelings.” That’s a legit (and necessary, considering what gives some people feelings) thing. But the phrasing around “poor widdle fee-fees” just strikes me as excessively cruel and bullying.
(That is, of course, my feeling, so.)
Anyway, I totally agree with the stuff in this post, especially Rule 10 and this bit: “leftist groups are always far more interested in fighting the People’s Front of Judea than we are in fighting the Romans,” because I’ve been guilty on both accounts.
@Yiab and Gaius
About catharsis: Hmmm…I know that purposefully NOT expressing anger can be a huge problem too. I kind of grew up placing a high value on not expressing negative emotions…but then the problem with that is that when I do feel or express negative emotions I end up feeling guilty for doing so. But I also agree with Gaius that what you said, Yiab, about feeling good about expressing anger resulting in repeating the pattern, makes sense too.
I’m just working off of personal stuff here (as I’m not psychologist), but for me I guess part of what makes a cathardic release actually work is validation. I feel anger; I express anger; someone else hears & understands my emotional response. (Yes, I know that says a hell of a lot about me and the need for external sources of validation, etc.). But what strikes me about Ozy’s example is that it’s kind of a similar issue…were Person A and Person B to actually hear and understand each other, there wouldn’t be any need for catharsis or calling each other out.
So maybe that’s part of what it’s all about, using logic like this: no one is hearing me talk about this thing I want to talk about and that makes me angry, so I’ll shout about how angry I am so maybe someone will hear me.
Incidentally, here’s a link to a study about catharsis…dunno if this is the one you read, Yiab. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bbushman/bbs99.pdf
There is one other thing about the fee-fees. There seems to be this assumption that the mindset of that cis white dude (Me!) is somehow totally alien and thinks nothing like a person who has any Recognized Oppression.
This is probably true to some extent, and I sometimes have an amazingly hard time being compassionate with people who have problems way worse than mine; I tend to start avoiding people like that which is probably not the best plan. As a result, most of my friends are either cis white dudes or cis Indian
dudes.
The internet callout culture that you criticize (in particular) however has this kind of attitude that any membership in a Recognizedly Oppressed Group, even if one does not oneself feel oppressed, makes one totally different from the Cis White Guy (Why do they focus on cis so much?).
Meanwhile, I suspect that if they come across the Cis White Guy who has truly significant feelings issues, he would get True Scotsmanned as ‘Oh, he is depressed and doesn’t have mental health privilege’ or whatever. They seem to have this thin red line of whose feelings matter and whose don’t and the result, at least on Tumblr, is sociopathic dehumanization of the powerful-on-average even when there is little difference between some *individual* Cis White Guy and some *Individual* Cis Lesbian White Lady.
I suspect the actual difference is whether one has the activist mindset, or perhaps whether one has a specific degenerate form of the activist mindset.
My last comment is that many activists (even the infinitely smarter ones on e.g. Feministe or whatever) don’t know their own strength and refuse to believe that their toil could have possibly earned them any strength so that no privileged person should ever fear them. You don’t have to be an MRA to have been terrified by how big Elevatorgate got.
Did you see when it happened to me at Womanist Musings? My post was about “what white women can do about racism”–it had started as a comment and Renee thought it could be a whole post, so she post it as one. They peeled and ate me alive. It hurt pretty bad, but I emerged not giving a shit, so there is that.
Imagine how I felt when I discovered one of the ringleaders of the hanging posse, was a white Ivy League grad from an all-white suburb… I realized that how one actually lives (not something you can see online, after all) is less important in these call-outs, than knowing all the right talking-points.
It was my last post at WM. (sigh)
A symptom of what Krause, Daisy and others have experienced are the proliferation of “how to be an ally” guides. They’re mostly on longer-form blogs instead of Tumblr, but they’re out there. The gist of them is that privileged people who want to engage with the world of social justice need to sit down, shut up and never, ever, ever do anything that someone higher up on the Oppression Olympics podium could possibly want to do in your stead.
What kind of allies do you think this will get you?
1. Newbies who will soon discover that surrounding themselves with people who don’t care about their feelings and feel entitled to be actively hostile to them is terrible self-care,
2. People who want to piss off right-wing mom and dad,
3. Overeducated simpering useless lumps filled to the brim with white guilt who want to be repeatedly tongue-lashed by whomever will put them in their place,
4. Trolls.
All people, whatever their life experience, have a choice: work with you on what you care about, work with someone else on what they care about, or stay out of activism altogether. Y
ou may not think that you should have to be nice to people whom you assume have had it better in life, but if you want their support, their money and their numbers, you had better start treating them like people who care about your issues, not some slaveowner/conquistador/gaybasher/transpanicer amalgam who should never escape your side-eye.
A community I used to be part of, incidentally one where I started picking up feminism, had a huge problem with this. It was almost like they thought being white, cis and male had made me impervious to feeling bad. It always struck me as intensely bizarre that people who otherwise had all the finely-calibrated tools for sensing prejudice and cultivating empathy were utterly incapable of applying them to someone from the out-group. I even got shit for being a man with depression, for fuck’s sake. The restraint they needed to refrain from telling me to “man-up” was palpable. Now that I think about it, they had a huge blind spot when it came to misandry in general. Male problems didn’t exist for them, period.
(Disclaimer: before anyone assumes I entered a feminist site swinging my misogyny flail like a real asshole, nope! It was a video game site that very occasionally talked about feminism)
And, boy, shaming and ostracisation sure was the default way of reacting to dissenting opinion! How little it took to get them to block you was kind of hilarious, it was like they couldn’t stomach the idea of someone who didn’t know what the fuck they were talking about but begrudgingly wanted to find out. As Rhubarb pointed out, the only way to acceptably learn about their ideas was to be utterly prostrate. I’ve never seen anything like it outside of social justice communities. The funny thing is by the time I left I had pretty much totally bought into feminism, I was just utterly tired of their psychopathic, groupthinky bullshit.
+1 for white guilt, too. Goddamn, that never stops being creepy. Ironically it very often leads to the except type of racism (i.e. anti-brown people racism) that they’re trying so hard to avoid.