And now for something completely different -- except not

[tim]

We feel that statements such as “We are everywhere” and “Dykes rule!” could evoke an uneasy response in women who are not yet comfortable with Lesbian culture. It seems potentially self-defeating that the first exposure for many incoming students to Wellesley’s Lesbian community occurred in the form of anonymous, ubiquitous graffiti, rather than in the personalized non-threatening atmosphere of a Straight Talks workshop. -- Wellesley News op-ed, 1988

I find this to be a great illustration of the meaning of the terms "tone argument" and "concern trolling". 23 years later, it seems ridiculous to us, the idea that the obvious truth "We are everywhere" could be seen as hostile or alienating, as something that could legitimately strengthen someone's learned homophobia rather than undermining it. When you make a similar suggestion now -- when you tell someone that they're turning off potential allies by being so angry, or that you don't have a problem with someone's way of demanding their rights but someone else might think they're being too (hostile, aggressive, blunt, sexually explicit, bitchy, demanding, strident, selfish, all of the other qualities that privileged people flaunt) -- can you consider how you're going to look 23 years from now, with the benefit of hindsight?

Comments

Hmm...

[ysabetwordsmith]

On the other hoof, it remains true that people rarely emulate folks who piss them off. If the goal is outreach, the tone needs to be appealing. If the goal is visibility -- and you don't care if it bugs people -- that's different. Shocking people awake and making allies are two different goals. They may or may not overlap in a given organization or community. But you should know what your goals are and whether the tactics you choose are doing a good job of meeting them.

The problem is that enough people have heard the "tone argument" argument that it tends to shut down discussion that might be productive. The trick is identifying when you have a valid opportunity for discussion vs. when people are just being jerks. And that's ubiquitous across pretty much all activisms.

Re: Hmm...

[tim]

I find that the "tone argument" argument generally only gets used to shut down discussions that have absolutely zero chance of being productive, by warning those who haven't heard a million tone arguments that really, it's not worth your time to try to educate this particular person; go do something more productive.

Frankly, there's a significant slice of the population that will hate and fear no matter how nice you are about it. No matter how nice you are, they'll still complain that you ought to be nicer when telling them not to hate you. That's part of what distinguishes a tone argument from a sincere disagreement. So, you can't convince those people, but you can send a clear message that what they're saying isn't acceptable -- which is helpful to others who aren't speaking out but also aren't quite sure yet what's wrong with deploying a tone argument.