I was recently in a disagreement with a friend of mine (friend of a friend, more accurately) on social media (he posted something I disagreed with on his wall). Nothing acrimonious, just we see things differently on that particular topic. This friend happens to be black. Another friend of mine who also knows the one I'm disagreeing with came into the conversation with "Mike, sometimes we as white people need to just listen to people of color and not speak."
Now I found this attitude puzzling if not shocking. Because what it says to me is that "we dare not challenge the things people of color say or believe". But to me, that's utterly disrespectful to do to someone you actually think well of. Because if I don't respect someone, or if their opinion is meaningless to me, I feel no reason to contradict them or to have a discussion with them on a topic. In other words, the only people I refuse to disagree with are those I don't care about or respect.
Also, the only people I DO care about that I would not disagree with are children. Not because I don't care for them or disrespect them, but because their thoughts and opinions are still forming and I don't actually expect them to hold their opinion or premise in front of a disagreeing adult. In other words, I don't want to disagree with them strongly or argue the point, because I don't think that even if they may have some premise worth defending that they'll be able to. And to me, "just listen and don't speak" to someone I respect or care about is saying "their opinions cannot hold up before your arguments, so don't crush them". In my opinion, that's hideously disrespectful. I expect that an adult I am discussing something with will be able to hold their own in a discussion (whether we agree or not), else I would not respect them as an adult.
Clearly, I don't think my second friend actually thinks this way. Instead, I am almost convinced that she was told this by other liberal "woke" friends, and internalized it, and I honestly believe they think that this is an enlightened thing to do, because it would be disrespectful to disagree with someone "of color". But even taken at that fact, I don't think they realize how racist that belief actually is. It's "disrespectful" to disagree with someone? And to think that the color of their skin somehow makes it "more disrespectful" if it has more melanin in it? Seriously?
I understand their belief that "systemic racism" this, and "white supremacy" that make it impossible for me (as a hetero, CIS, white, male [ick ick, nasty]) to understand their "lived experience". Well, to be frank, it's actually impossible for me to understand the "lived experience" of anyone not me as I haven't lived it. And that includes my own siblings. I've known and lived in close proximity to my wife longer than any other human being on this planet (over half my own life). And I don't even understand her "lived experience" most of the time, nor she mine. How on earth could I be expected to understand anyone else's? Does that mean I can't disagree with anyone else? Since when was understanding someone else's "lived experience" relevant to agreeing or disagreeing with someone?
But back on point, since when did it become "disrespectful" to disagree with someone. Or to hold an adversarial opinion in the face of someone else's publicly stated opinion. As long as both sides are being respectful (i.e. not engaging in logical fallacies, not insulting the other, and actually listening to and responding directly to the points the other is making), I think it's actually a pleasant exercise. I truly do not understand "the woke".
9 comments:
I cannot place exactly when this happened, but a lot of this "Woke" stuff picked up steam during the Obama administration. It is strange to think that disagreeing is disrespectful.
On the one hand, "Sometimes you should just keep your mouth shut and mind your business" is not terrible advice.
On the other, the 'we as white people' stuff is deeply wrong. As you say, if you won't discuss it with them because they're black, you're treating them as children whose feelings need to be protected rather than as equals (and adults) who can be expected to handle disagreement and debate.
Ultimately, there are only two reasons it would be disrespectful to disagree: because the other person is of a higher rank, and your disagreement calls their status into question; or because they are of a lower rank, and your disagreement underlines their inferiority in a public way. If they are of an equal rank, disagreement is proper whenever it is honest.
Separately, I have come to believe that having a tolerance for people with disagreeable personalities may be deeply underestimated as a factor in the success of a society. Those are the ones who will point out the errors, even in the face of public pressure to keep quiet and go along. The more agreeable your society, the worse things it will do before anyone stops it.
My best friends have one thing in common- they won't bullshit me- they call things like they see them. It takes great trust to have friends like that, on both ends.
Nice-nice is fine sometimes,a little social grease, but constant avoidance of reality pollutes the information flow and then- how can an accurate assessment of anything happen? It is sort of the meatspace version of garbage in, garbage out.
"Don't disagree with a black man" is...wrong...on at least two counts.
One is it's simply a gussied up version of the soft bigotry of low expectations, as all of you have pointed out.
The other is that it's insulting to the one being told to shut up. It's saying that the one is too grindingly stupid to be able to form rational thought about what the black man is saying, and so he's too grindingly stupid to discourse with that black man.
There's nothing enlightened--although it takes a measure of skill--to insult both sides of a conversation or debate simultaneously, and with the same carefully constructed insult. Far from enlightened, the insult is twice racist.
Eric Hines
A friend who was a long-time sociology professor said that it was in the late 1970s or early 198s (IIRC) that female students tended to no longer preface an opinion with 'I think' but rather with 'As a woman, I think' (or 'I feel')...this binding of opinion to identity has now expanded into ethnicities, linguistic backgrounds, and sexual preferences of all types.
(As an Old Leftie, this professor would probably have been *happy* with students prefacing their opinion with 'As a working-class person', or some such, but that doesn't seem to happen)
We are now seeing a new incarnation of the Tower of Babel.
The more agreeable your society, the worse things it will do before anyone stops it.
BINGO!!
Notice that disagreement earns "RAAAAAACISSS!!" from such as Obama?
Well, to be fair, it's a lot easier to get your way if you can think of a good reason to squelch any opposing views. This isn't a new tactic. It's not even really a new pretext: the argument for censorship generally hinges on some kind of perceived threat to the public safety or welfare.
In its new guise, the argument ostensibly is that people who have been historically unheard should get an extra few minutes at the podium, so that we all hear a viewpoint we might have overlooked. But the fellow you were responding to had stopped talking, so to speak, when he hit the "post" button. Now people are trying to tell you that even responding to him is somehow to render him unheard again. Maybe the real problem is that they fear his argument can't hold up unless it is the only voice in the room. Tyrants often think that, whether they're the big kind with armies or just the petty kind in a particularly unpleasant social milieu.
Silence is violence,right?
Seriously, "just listening" because someone is a POC is a racist position. Everyone should listen respectfully. We may learn something is we're open.
Sometimes it even works in a marriage.
Disagreeable mavericks like ymar and trump.
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