cmsellers wrote:
I feel like that is actually worse, because it basically says "I have no patience for mansplaining," and your use of it suggests that that is what I am doing.
I appreciate the suggested reading list, but dropping titles largely without explanation (with the exception of the homeless mobilization one) feels like a slightly fancier version of "educate yourself." Nate Silver doesn't tell people to read half a dozen books in order to argue with him; when he cites other people he summarizes their work as well.
The book list is more of a 'works cited' for all of my responses to this question/topic thus far. If anyone wants to know why the question of "Is incivility necessary?" is basically nonsensical from the perspective of poor/POC movements in this country just read one of those books and you will have a better idea of what I mean. I am a busy person and it is not my responsibility to give you an annotated bibliography of an entire literature. I
have been summarizing all the work listed above throughout my responses. It seems to me that people are not listening to what I am saying (but it is also possible that I am not communicating as clearly as I could).
I didn't want to say 'mansplaining' (I don't even know anyone's gender here for sure, I'm assuming mostly male but I don't actually know). But this conversation is like having novices on a topic condescendingly explaining notions that I considered and discarded based on a pile of disconfirming evidence in undergrad.
Crimson847 wrote: @Asami: Got a question. The purpose of incivility as it relates to change movements is to draw attention and authentically demonstrate commitment, right?
Good question. The answer to that is sometimes. It really depends. Different movements have different goals. Different moments in movements call for different tactics.
Sometimes the goal is attention. In which case, what you are saying is kind of true... although I think people here in general waaaay overestimate how much the authorities are willing to even listen to marginalized groups. Like, the issues of minorities are often studiously ignored by white moderates and authorities and literally the only thing that will get people to pay attention AT ALL is to be disruptive in some way. Cops have been harassing and killing black people since as long as there have been cops, and over the years there have been LOTS of peaceful marches, speeches, public meetings, art, etc about the issue in black communities. People in middle class white communities just never hear about it... which makes it so stupid-sounding (to me) when people complain about being stuck in traffic or having their football game interrupted saying things like 'why can't they express themselves some other way?' It's like, they have been doing other things for years and years YOU JUST DON'T LISTEN (and don't want to listen... I think it is willful not listening in many cases). So yes, you are right that disruption or 'incivility' is often necessary to get the attention of authorities and observers, to even start a dialogue. And then those observers are like, "But your deaths aren't sympathetic enough because I was annoyed by having to wait in traffic." Which definitely makes me think that the side labeled "uncivil" is unfairly getting a bad rap. Anyways.
Sometimes the goal is not 'attention.' Sometimes the goal is to force the authorities to stop what they're doing and negotiate. One example that comes to mind here is when residents of Chester PA were trying to fight waste incinerators being cited in their community and they tried a ton of different things to get the city and the corporation to listen (there are some truly ridiculous stories coming out of that one, like community members showed photo and video evidence of an explosion at the plant and the company and government lied and denied it to their faces). At one point no decisionmakers would even meet with community members. So they started blocking the road so the trucks of waste couldn't get to the plant. They got a meeting with a higher-up the next day. (more info about this situation here, the incident I described above is outlined in the book From the Ground Up:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/t ... pollution/). I would say the conflict at Standing Rock is also an example of this type of dynamic.
Reading case studies of the environmental justice movement is one really good way to start to understand how government often works to protect corporate interests at the expense of people... our "democratic" processes are often set up in ways that are intentionally obtuse or inaccessible, especially for people who lack education and resources. So like the idea that civil dialogue is always the goal is based on a set of faulty assumptions about what civil dialogue alone can achieve for people. Sometimes you just want an entity to gtfo of your neighborhood (like a waste management company with a track record of environmental disasters) and civil dialogue alone is not sufficient to make that happen. You sometimes need disruption to even get them to the table in the first place and then the threat of continued disruption is sometimes the only leverage people have in negotiation.
Also, sometimes incivility is about a group claiming its' own power. The Stonewall riots are a good example of that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots So like, what observers think in that instance does not matter at all. The reason Stonewall is remembered is because it was a moment where LGBT people were like, ok, we are DONE putting up with this shit and they started to understand, recognize and wield their own power.
Sometimes incivility is just an understandable/inevitable side effect of being put under an insane amount of pressure and oppression. Like sometimes it's not the result of a movement group strategizing but just a spontaneous expression that honestly I am surprised doesn't happen more often with the level of shit some people have to put up with on a daily basis in this country. That sort of thing can backfire and make a movement look 'bad' to people but it can also put authorities on edge and make them more willing to support and negotiate with moderate parts of the movement (people call this the 'radical flank' effect).
:)
Edited to add:
gisambards wrote: your earlier assertion that it's only white upper-class students that might take issue with a more militant left-wing teaching of race or gender issues is unbelievably out-of-touch
That is not at all what I said. I said that I tailor my teaching to be accessible for the majority of my students who are from white upper middle class backgrounds. That is not the same thing as saying that "only white upper class students" would react negatively to a more forceful message. I have been teaching for years (also, I am a human person living in the world); so I am quite familiar with the concept of minorities who are conservative/moderate.
gisambards wrote: Asami, I think a lot of your argument rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of what MLK meant by a 'white moderate', and how the Civil Rights Movement actually achieved its goals. The Civil Rights Movement that accomplished so much was astonishing in its civility. There's a reason MLK is so greatly remembered, and it's not just because of what he did but how he did it. The civil rights protesters under his policy of Gandhian satyagraha could be intentionally disruptive, but they were rarely as a group "uncivil", and none of the effective moments of protest from that movement could really be considered as such.
No, I do not misunderstand the Civil Rights Movement. You are looking at it from the perspective of today. Now the Civil Rights Act is the law of the land, we have a holiday dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr. and exalt the CRM movement nonviolent methods as clearly morally superior. But back when the Civil Rights Movement was happening, many white people thought that what MLK Jr. was doing was 'uncivil' and most thought that the methods of Civil Rights protesters were hurting, not helping, their cause. What is defined as 'civility' versus 'incivility' often has more to do with the perspective of the person making the distinction than the actual actions that are undertaken (see: white people who think that protesting at NFL games is uncivil while also believing that cops shooting black people is not 'uncivil' but rather a legitimate expression of the law). Also, my general argument does not rest only on the Civil Rights Movement.