On Foolishness

There’s a whole slew of bogusness going on in the blogosphere at the moment, in the traditional, non-tarot sense of “foolish.” For example, I was thrilled to see this post of Twisty’s calling out some of the downright offensive crap that passes for political discourse on various lefty blogs. I’ve been lurking at some of those blogs for a while now and it never ceases to amaze me that folks there can express their support for “equal rights for women and minorities” and in the very next paragraph of their comment call someone a “p*ssy” or talk about how, despite their views, they still want to “f*ck” traditionally attractive right-wing women like Michelle Malkin, Peggy Noonan, and Pamela Oshry. I’ve wanted to write about that for a long time but had no interest in linking to said blogs, and thanks to Twisty, now I don’t have to. (If you want some links, and examples, head over to her site and peruse the comments section.) Twisty very astutely points out the baffling twists of logic leftists engage in when they call Ann Coulter a f*gg*t to criticize her calling John Edwards a f*gg*t. Hmmm. If you’re feeling confused, well, you’re not alone.

Course, following Twisty’s critique, a boatload of liberal dudes were honor-bound to crash her party to protest her criticism of them. It just so happens that the hullaballoo at Twisty’s follows close on the heels of a popular left “humor” blog being called out (by feminists and fat activists at Feministe) on one of their posts, in which they photoshopped a giant hoagie into a picture of a right-wing pundit who happened to be fat. Many of their left allies, who also happened to be fat, complained about what they saw as an unnecessary alienation of potential supporters. In a beautiful ironic twist, the liberal dudes of said blog dismissed that complaint–only to turn around and use the same one at Twisty’s! In fact, I believe the phrase “stepping over dollars to pick up pennies” was used in response to the hostility Twisty’s commenters expressed at being told how to best present their political viewpoint so as not to alienate lefty white guys. That phrase certainly says a lot about the dude-centric views of leftist men, doesn’t it—they being the dollars who are being stepped over, of course, in favor of us worthless harpy-dyke-pantywaist feminist pennies.

And it gets better! For the argument the liberal dudes used to excuse their photoshop masterpiece, in response to the internal critique on their own blog as well as to critics at Feministe, was that the pictured right-wing pundit trades on stereotypes of manliness to challenge war critics’ lack of combat experience and, therefore, their lack of standing to criticize the war. Or something like that. So it’s okay to make fun of his fatness (using the oh-so-hilarious-and-original stereotype of fat people as gluttons that has been disproven over and over, but, you know, who needs silly facts here) because somehow his being fat demonstrates him to be as lacking in manliness as he makes leftists out to be.*

Okay, whew, and I’m not done yet! Because that dizzying bout of interblog nonsense follows closely on the heels of Twisty being called out for criticizing the appearance of fashion designer Donatella Versace! And Twisty, in response, claimed—guess what?—that because Donatella relies on antifeminist ideas about “beauty” and “fashion” to make her undoubtedly excellent living, her own personal appearance is fair game for critique.** Which, incidentally, or maybe not, is the exact same argument that leftists use to defend their misogynist focus on Ann Coulter’s appearance—since part of her stock in trade is trashing feminism and ideas about women’s equality, her detractors are therefore under no obligation to refrain from antifeminist language in criticizing her!

Okay, take a minute to let your head stop spinning. Maybe make a cup of tea. Rest your head on the desk. It’ll be okay.

Now, deep breath—because over here in the earnest radical blogospheric fringe, of which I am a proud member, it isn’t any better! We’ve got folks accusing other folks of things left and right—being insensitive to people of color issues, being insensitive to race traitor issues, being insensitive to mental health issues (like, when we call people we disagree with “crazy”—you think?), being insensitive to trans issues–not to mention sponsoring “Special White Women” awards, stalking each other, trashing each other, not respecting women-only space, setting up blogs whose names intentionally mimic or parody those of the blogs belonging to folks they disagree with. And none of this should be construed as suggesting that I am any exception, having fallen victim recently to a good flare of offended-white-privilege-itis. Hypocrisy—we’ve all been there, one time or another.***

But it’s all definitely enough to bring on an oatstraw tea craving, I tell you.

And the worst part of it all, for this practical earth sign, is that I don’t really have any solutions. The places one might think would offer help have come up empty, for me at least. I’ve always been interested in communication, particularly in improving it, but every communication skills book I look at ends up being so disgustingly apolitical—or worse, reinforcing of existing political inequities—that I have no choice but to throw it across the room. Take my latest attempt, Sharon Ellison’s Don’t Be So Defensive! Taking the War Out of Our Words with Powerful Non-Defensive Communication. (Wait, let me get it out from where it landed under the bed.) There are probably nuggets of really useful information in this book, and when I try to read it as if I lived on the Pastoral Planet of Antihierarchical Peace, Equality and Unconditional Love, parts of it make some sense to me. And then I come upon something like this:

Nancy, a young woman who had just graduated from college, was hired by a large corporation. She had not been employed very long before her immediate supervisor, Frank, began putting his arm around her and calling her “honey” and “sweetie.” Nancy said nothing because she didn’t want to appear uptight, and she needed the job…One day, Frank grabbed her bottom as she bent over to pick up a box. That evening, traumatized, she called her mother, who helped Nancy figure out a non-defensive question to pose to her supervisor.

The next day, Nancy privately asked Frank, “Do you believe that I wanted you to touch me in that way?”

He paused and then replied, “No, I don’t think you did. I can see I have humiliated you, and I will never do it again.” Posing a genuinely curious question in such situations can be exceedingly difficult because we feel violated or betrayed. Yet Frank’s response is a testament to the power of a question to create trust and resolve a potentially hazardous issue.

Geeny criney, how many ways from Sunday can we critique that passage? For its sexism—to suggest that a woman should create trust with a sexual predator? Should wish to create trust? That she should confront him privately, rather than publically and with support, about the “potentially hazardous issue”? Hazardous for whom, exactly? That her “genuinely curious question” suddenly made him see the error of his ways? Well, geez, I guess it’s just the fault of all those shrill rape victims for not being nondefensive enough with their attackers! Sexual harassment is clearly just a misunderstanding! Next time daddy touches you inappropriately, honey, just ask him with genuine curiosity if he really thinks you like it, and I’m sure he’ll stop.

Or how about the racism? Do you think Nancy is white? Do you think Frank is? Doesn’t this whole exchange smack of Marilyn Frye’s concept of “whiteliness,” which includes the assumption that white people always know, or can figure out, what is best to do in any given situation? We can always solve it! Do you think this situation, and its storybook conclusion, might have come out differently if Nancy were black and Frank white—or vice versa? How about if Nancy and her mother had only a minimal grasp of Frank’s language? How then to frame a “genuinely curious question”?

Or how about the classism? Do you think Nancy is an undocumented migrant worker? An employee in a South Carolina chicken processing plant? A domestic worker? Or do you think she has an office job, in which she can reasonably expect that middle-class standards of behavior will be upheld, in which public, open uses of force are rarely used to maintain dominance? What about those who work in vastly different conditions, without the legal or physical protections that middle-class white people in the US have come to expect?

How are radical or disenfranchised people supposed to rely on resources that use inane examples like the one from Ellison’s book for assistance with the interpersonal difficulties that plague our movements—resources which so resolutely refuse to critique power differentials, all the while laying the responsibility for conflict on a failure to communicate “properly”? Like a lot of us, I’m pretty sick of people refusing to hear what I have to say because I didn’t say it right–because I was too angry, too forceful, because I failed to take care of everyone’s feelings in the process of getting my thoughts out.

But without help to learn new ways, where are we? And where are we going? Anyone who’s been reading this blog for any length of time knows I am as far from touchy-feely as it gets. I am hardly about to counsel abandonment of critical thinking skills, discernment, judgment, quick wit or sharp tongue—but it’s hard for me to ignore the fact that the conflicts and hypocrisy I described at the beginning of this post seem to involve quite a lot of trying to logically argue people into submission. “You shouldn’t pick on me because I’m on your side!” “You can’t criticize what I did because I was just pointing out the other guy’s hypocrisy!” We may not be able to find communication frameworks that acknowledge our analyses of power, but our need for political frameworks that acknowledge our emotions is just as dire. Because it’s not one or the other, folks—it’s both. Slurs on marginalized groups, attacks on appearance, are politically inexpedient, and they hurt people’s feelings. They’re politically inexpedient because they hurt people’s feelings, as well as because they uphold stereotypes and patterns of social dominance that block efforts toward equality and liberation.

So here is what I’m thinking today about blogular interactions; take with two large grains of salt and call me in the morning.

1. If you blog, someone, somewhere on the internet, is saying something bad about you.
2. It is pointless to get publically upset about this, though difficult not to. This is why you need friends, and email.
3. There are some people who will never agree. Liberal dudes and right-wing blowhards will always be at odds (at least until the liberal dudes become “former liberals” when they realize there’s a lot more money in that). Likewise proponents of pornstitution and radical feminists—oil and water. There is no point in arguing with someone whose every statement and action confirms you do not share the same world view. Unless you enjoy arguing. (Oh gawd, pass the oatstraw.)
4. Even some people who disagree might be heading in the same general direction—that is, the world I want is probably a lot more similar to that desired by liberal advocates of gay marriage than, oh, a follower of Christian Dominionism. It behooves me to keep that in mind—or, as Audre Lorde said, “to identify who are our allies with whom we have grave differences, and who are our genuine enemies.”
5. Despite the head-pounding political vacuity of Ellison’s book, I do think it’s easier to talk to someone, even someone you disagree with, if you can find it within yourself to wonder why they think what they do, rather than jumping right into lengthy explications of your POV, your history, or your person—or immediately telling them in no uncertain terms why they’re wrong. Even better is being sure you actually understand what they’re saying. In short—can we all drop some of our defensiveness?
6. As a corollary to that, though, I will say that in any discussion among progressive people, power differentials have to be paid attention to. That is, it’s different to make fun of someone for being fat than for having freckles. (Not that I’m advocating either one, but still.) It’s different to call a woman a “c*nt” than it is to call a man a “pr*ck.” Men have power; that’s why we call it male supremacy. In patriarchy, male genitals, to quote a wonderful old feminist poem, “are totemized, not denied.” People with freckles don’t necessarily have social power as a class, but no one is writing one gazillion mainstream press articles per day on the menace freckled people pose to their health, their social lives, other people’s retinas, airplane safety, the health care budget, the GNP, and probably the baby Jesus to boot. Okay? It’s different. Power matters, and marginalization matters. People who’ve been taking shit for something their entire lives—fat people, people of color, etc.—have a little more reason to be angry and defensive when picked on in those particular ways, than do privileged folks who are upset that their choices and tactics are being questioned. Even so, we marginalized folks still oughta be concerned with the previous points.
7. I’m with spotted elephant—progressive people have to stop thinking there is ever an acceptable reason to discredit someone based on appearance. I will never forget one night when, talking to my friends S and J, I described some guy as “pimply” to indicate my distaste for him—and saw looks of pained shock, immediately squashed, deep in their eyes. S has acne scars, and J has ongoing difficulties with her skin, and to this day I do not know how I, a person subject to ridicule because of my appearance since kindergarten, could have been so thoughtless. I know I hurt them, and that hurts me. There’s just no reason to make comments like that. People do, believe, and espouse enough stupid shit that is ripe for mocking without resorting to insults based on physical factors, changeable or not, a result of “choice” or not—factors which your allies may share or have shared. Will this make you less funny? Will your blog become part of the deadly uncool earnest fringe? Quite possibly. Oddly enough, though, some of us seem to suspect that the widespread acceptance of cruel humor and cheap laughs, and the insensitivity, competitiveness, and lack of compassion that characterize US society, are not disconnected phenomena. Go figure.
8. Do you think maybe, just maybe, we could all get off our asses and do something about the stuff we don’t like? And if we’re already doing so, how about we spend a lot more time writing about that than about what so-and-so said about us on her blog? Not because it doesn’t hurt us, not because others’ behavior is fair or reasonable, but in the interest of creating an online climate where we get something done instead of constantly tearing each other apart.
9. And while we’re at it, how about spending at least as much time listening as we do talking? And twice as much time reading as we do writing?

So after that little diatribe, I will leave you with a list of words associated with the nontraditional fool, the tarot-fool. Do with as you wish, or not—but it sure does seem to me that the online liberal and radical left could use a good big infusion of all of the following, right about now.

• accepting
• relaxed
• playful
• risk-taking
• curious
• intuitive
• original
• spontaneous
• present
• expressive
• vital
• energetic

soundtrack to this post: Judy Small’s “One Voice in the Crowd”; play it quick before they make me take it down

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*Kya has long said that the derivation of fat hatred is sexism and hence that fat “feminizes” men, and this incident certainly supports her hypothesis.

***All I can say in my own defense is, I’m working on it, more to come about that in a later post.

Filed under: blogging, conflict, fat politics, feminism as politics, lesbian feminism, personal is political, rants, white privilege by Amy's Brain Today