Only being able to accept that you did something racist, when someone couches it in the nicest terms possible, is a huge example of white privilege. Also, digging up stats, election maps, and giving a long list of examples explaining why accusing blacks of passing Prop. 8 is showing how people are making an inaccurate and offensive generalization based on race. You know, a racist generalization.
Also, witchqueen went looking for examples of times when someone's use of a nice polite tone was successful here (http://zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com/429727.html).
"In livejournal mediafandom, no one has observed tone successfully used as a mitigating factor, or they have not so far come forward to admit this."
" First of all, not everyone is going to follow the rational, dispassionate argument, but some people are really good at the emotional logic. When they see that actual people are actually saddened or enraged by something, that’s when the issue achieves importance to them. (Which isn’t to say call such people irrational or unable to follow logic, but that they have either a communication style or a value system where emotion rates higher when they’re deciding what to care about in human relations today.)
Second, just because a person of color opens her mouth about race or racism, that does not mean she’s volunteering to teach for a day. Sometimes, screaming at livejournal is what one does instead of cutting a bitch. Sometimes, she’s calling on other people to go attack some Big Fandom Fail. Sometimes, she’s pulling a fandomwank and inviting people to watch the big mess which is going to occur in 5-4-3-2-1. Whatever it is, it doesn’t have to be class sesson 237 of Racism 101.
Last but not least, people losing their shit perform a valuable service for those of us who are about to pull out the chalkboards and learn ignorant folks. They expand the margins, so that a calm and dispassionate tone looks like a regular person talking, at least in contrast to the crazy, scary person over there."
no subject
Also,
"In livejournal mediafandom, no one has observed tone successfully used as a mitigating factor, or they have not so far come forward to admit this."
" First of all, not everyone is going to follow the rational, dispassionate argument, but some people are really good at the emotional logic. When they see that actual people are actually saddened or enraged by something, that’s when the issue achieves importance to them. (Which isn’t to say call such people irrational or unable to follow logic, but that they have either a communication style or a value system where emotion rates higher when they’re deciding what to care about in human relations today.)
Second, just because a person of color opens her mouth about race or racism, that does not mean she’s volunteering to teach for a day. Sometimes, screaming at livejournal is what one does instead of cutting a bitch. Sometimes, she’s calling on other people to go attack some Big Fandom Fail. Sometimes, she’s pulling a fandomwank and inviting people to watch the big mess which is going to occur in 5-4-3-2-1. Whatever it is, it doesn’t have to be class sesson 237 of Racism 101.
Last but not least, people losing their shit perform a valuable service for those of us who are about to pull out the chalkboards and learn ignorant folks. They expand the margins, so that a calm and dispassionate tone looks like a regular person talking, at least in contrast to the crazy, scary person over there."