I'm the Seattle-based publisher of a network of lifestyle websites read by roughly one million people each month. Almost all of our readers are women, most of them are educated and many of them are quite politically liberal. Because of this large, diverse and progressive readership, we deal with community issues that perhaps wouldn't be such a problem on smaller sites. And lately, I've started to notice a disturbing trend.
Over the past couple of years, I've watched the rise of a new form of online performance art, where liberal internet commenters make public sport of flagging potentially problematic language as insensitive, and gleefully calling out authors as needing to "check their privilege" (admit their privileged position within society and its associated benefits).
As a publisher serving readers who identify as both progressive and marginalised (in many different, varying ways), this issue is hugely important to me – I'm protective of the quality of debate on my sites. As a progressive myself, it's also complex and challenging because while I very much share the political values of the folks who engage in this kind of thing, I'm not on board with the tactics – which essentially amount to liberal bullying, and are way worse than anything I see from the conservatives who swing by my publications. The sad truth is that when it comes to the motivations behind this kind of commenting, it's basically the same as the GOD HATES FAGS guys – even though the values are the polar opposite.
Common trends in this online behaviour:
• Focus on very public complaints. I can think of exactly one time when someone emailed their concern about problematic language. These complaints seem to be always intended for an audience.
• Lack of interest in a dialogue. These complaints aren't questions or invitations to discuss the issue. They're harshly worded accusations and scoldings (which I've written about before).
• Lack of consideration for the context or intent. The focus is on this isolated incident (this one post, this one word, this one time), with de-emphasis on the author's background, experience, or the context of the website on which the post appears.
• And on a more stylistic note, these complaints are often prefaced with phrases like "Um," and other condescending affectations.
It's challenging for me because the values motivating these complaints are completely in line with both my personal politics and my professional passion for catering to niche markets and semi-marginalised cultures (I say "semi-marginalised" because let's get real here: readers of my websites are more likely to be a 20-something white plus-size roller derby player or an introverted 30-something information sciences grad student – neither of whom who are marginalised in the same way as, say, a gay Cambodian amputee immigrant living in Mexico City).
Increasingly, I've started recognising this kind of behaviour for what it is: privilege-checking as a form of internet sport. It's a kind of trolling, with all the politics I agree with, but motivations and execution that turns my stomach. It's well-intended (so well-intended), but when the motivations seem to be less about opening dialogue about the issues, and more about performance, righteousness, and intolerance toward those who don't agree with you … well, I'm not on board.
This is where it starts to feel like the "GOD HATES FAGS!" sign-wavers. While the political sentiments are exactly opposite, the motivations are remarkably similar: I WOULD LIKE TO DERAIL THIS CONVERSATION AND HAVE AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE WITNESS HOW RIGHT I AM. I don't care if your politics are progressive and your focus is on social justice: if you're shouting at people online and refusing to have a dialogue, you're bullying. I don't care if you're fighting the good fight: if you're fighting in a way that's more about public performance, shaming and righteousness, I'm not fighting with you.
… Even if I agree with your goals.
My big challenge is knowing how to respond to this kind of feedback, which comes in almost daily. Sometimes it feels like I have two options:
• Acquiesce to every complaint of anyone anywhere on the internet, until we're putting trigger warnings at the top of posts that mention balloons because some people are globophobic (TRUE STORY!).
• Align myself with insensitive assholes who defend their right to hate speech.
Again, as a liberal I'm deeply conflicted about this issue. I love observing and following the ways that language shifts. It's exciting and fascinating to watch as the semantics of marginalised communities evolve. I recently had to talk to my ageing lesbian mother and her partner about how the word "tranny" causes a lot of issues for folks in the transgender community. My mothers are totally aligned with the cause and totally active in LGBT communities … they just hadn't got the latest memo.
I'm totally on board with the reasoning behind shifting the language from "illegal immigrants" to "undocumented immigrants." I get why the word "gypsy" is problematic. I've appreciated the lively discussions I've had with readers about words like "Derp" and "Tribe" (because these were discussions. Dialogues).
I love learning new things about how cultures are defining themselves. I love that people take the time to try to improve my publications by sharing the latest language that communities are using. I love that readers feel safe enough to voice their concerns. I love this shared concern for sensitivity around language. I love the social justice motivations, and the encouragement that we all be self-aware of how the language we use has powerful, sometime unexpected impacts on the people around us.
BUT. But. Seriously, I'm just not down with:
• The derailing of conversations to debate semantics.
• The need to process it all publicly ("Look at me look at me look at meeee! I am the very MOST aware of my privilege and am therefore the very BEST progressive on the entire internet!").
• The righteousness.
• The intolerance and inability to respect that those who share your values might not share your opinions on this particular subject.
This is where this kind of conversation begins to feel more like liberal bullying, where the only correct response is agreeing and acquiescing. Any other response is seen as ignorant at best, hateful at worst.
My priorities with online discourse are dialogue and respect. In my little corner of the online world, I keep my focus on constructive critique and articulate, compassionate communication. Shouting down people who disagree with you (even if I agree with your argument) simply doesn't feel productive or helpful. If I had a dollar for every time we have to delete a blog comment that I personally agreed with because it was stated as an attack … I could shift my whole business model. Being an asshole: it's not just for the GOD HATES FAGS people any more.
Ultimately, when these complaints come up (which has slowly gone from "monthly" to "weekly" to "almost daily"), my editors respond with comments like: "I understand what you're saying, and share your concern – but I disagree that this usage is problematic." Alternately, sometimes we just say: "I agree that this usage is problematic, but I'm going to leave it." I want to make sure that folks know readers' concerns are heard, but that it doesn't always guarantee that we'll make changes.
We're especially unlikely to make changes when readers engage in performance art privilege checking and refuse to have a direct dialogue with us. I often respond to a semantics-debating comment with an invitation for the commenter to email me directly to discuss the issue. Almost no one ever does. Apparently, having a one-on-one dialogue with a publisher isn't as edifying as performance art.
For those of you who like to fight the good fight for social justice and language sensitivity online, before writing that Tumblr missive or firing off that privilege-checking comment, I'd love to encourage you to take a moment to ask yourself these questions:
• Am I living my values with this exchange? If my goal is tolerance and sensitivity, am I embodying both those values in this conversation?
• What are my motivations here? Do I want to make a difference, or just feel like I'm right? What would "making a difference" look like in this context?
• Is this person an ally? How can I best communicate with them to ensure they stay that way?
• What is my ultimate goal in my activism? Is this exchange the best use of my time to achieve that ultimate goal?
In terms of my ultimate goal with this post: I want to support progressive activists in their very important work for social justice, but also beg them to carefully consider their methods and strategies with online communication. We're fighting for the same team, here. I wish we didn't have to spend so much time fighting with each other.
Comment:
"[Talking about Privilege] ends up devolving into people shouting at each other about how privileged they are, dog-piling commentators/authors for an innocent use of insulting words (on a different forum I saw an absolute free for all because someone had used the gender-loaded term "feisty" to describe a woman) and all manner of horrors. Perhaps the worst is when "privilege wars" kick off... again on a different forum I saw one author (a female) using racially insensitive terms which led to her being dog-piled... but in doing so one of the commentators called her a "bitch" so that commentator got dog-piled... until someone described them as "retarded" and they were dog-piled and so on and so forth...
Shouldn't "motherfucker" have been immediately nixxed as a clear trigger for those who have been affected by incest, regardless of the offence of the term in general?"