So I’m a cis male software developer who has some affinity to social justice and such. As a journeyman developer who isn’t a woman, I have a lot of safety to throw my weight around and if dismissed, at least be dismissed with little harm to myself.
I recently had the pleasure of taking on coworkers (who I love and are in fact some of my favourite) coworkers who are excellent logical thinkers but who have a particular skepticism/distrust of social justice because they reduce it to “offended college” students or demand something other than empathy (economics, logic, etc…) for all actions.
This is usually a long and aggravating conversation to jump into especially since it tends to walk over the concerns that women in tech, people who experience(d) poverty, etc… have. It always leads into accusations of shutting down, ignoring someone’s viewpoint “because I’m white, which itself is racist”, etc… and that is unproductive and splits communities that have to work with each other and makes it harder for me to get actual policy in place because the cultural division reinforces itself.
Also, I tend to like these people and think of them as inherently good people, and I would rather have them on my side than not. So I’ve always tried, as someone who has a thick skin and an armchair interest in critical thinking and infinite patience for arguments like this, to come up with a (even personal) playbook to get past the initial 101-level conflict between those who buy into social justice and those who don’t into a common understanding moving forward.
The following is the best I’ve got:
- I ask them how they would deal with specific examples of sexual assault, trans discrimination, carding, etc.. etc.. etc… I have been luck that most of my coworkers are kind hearted and not actively harbouring the discrimination that would require me to take them behind a dark alley and walk out alone.
- Once they agree that in those situations would should definitely be kind and caring in those cases, I talk about how my focus is on helping those groups of people. I point out that they probably have trauma and that they are different from, say, privileged white/male/passing progressives/liberals. Usually people agree.
- I ask them if they think they could ever speak on behalf of the groups of people I’m focusing on. They usually (sometimes this is not true) have no claim to commonality of authority.
- I make the distinction between talking to those of us who are comfortable/passing/etc… (I’m a software developer in a role Indians are typecast to be, so I’m safe as anyone cis male could be) and that I’m not interested in shutting down their musings in this safe academic conversation, but I don’t value their opinions of the state of being in those precarious positions in comparison to people who have actually lived and are under those experiences. Given the above line, most reasonable people have actually been pretty ok with this!
- A lot of times I am dealing with women who “don’t feel my gender has been a problem”, or minorities who don’t have sympathy for other minority’s concerns, and I always account for this because
- its’ a different story with more complex things like internalized racism, comparisons to other countries that may or may not be relevant, address how one can be a minority and make it and what the tradeoffs are, how I can face both challenges and privileges when compared to other aspects of society, and
- show people who are defensive of their whiteness that no, it’s not just white-directed, lots of non-white people need to play their own part too but they still understand something that white people who didn’t grow up poor generally don’t. [Aside: working class awareness into the discussion can help a lot because it’s a real issue too and non-racialized people can connect with it more]
- I talk about how yes, I also have qualms about some of the overzealous behaviours of students and privileged liberals/progressives. But I also value the people in the trenches who are working on addressing the well-known problems in their own community rather than people on the outside whose responses to bad activism is to deny the need in totality. People usually get and understand this
- I ask people that, given this distinction and split, would they know when to shut up and listen and “believe” those who are precarious situations now that we’ve distanced and isolated it from discussion by equally privileged progressives/liberals/etc? Usually nice people get this.
- I also talk about my feelings on the need of activists/radicals to push ideas forward in social and political contexts and keep people aware of issues, uncomfortably so, when my instinct as a moderate/compatibilist is to try to focus on compromise wins and easing people into this kind of stuff. I talk about how I think activist tactics need to cede to compatiblist tactics but also hold compatibility in check to make sure we don’t let essential values slide in order to try to get our wins to happen. [People who don’t believe in moderate values will obviously disagree with me here :D]
- I talk about the idea of “honey vs. vinegar” and unpack it into “yes, I think that most people can be better and I don’t want to do things which will make them defensive or lord myself over them, BUT point out how society’s default values on a lot of things mean that jerky views are the default in a lot of cases, and most people aren’t going to be kind towards people they don’t have a familiarity with, and how everyone will sell out anyone if they feel their own survival is on the line, and use my experience as a awkward nerd who had to learn how to empathize and socialize to point out that most people have the potential to be good but I cannot for a minute assume anyone, including well-regarded heroes, will be good every time or stay good just as their own status quo.
I find the combination of this leads to a understanding that:
- when the chips hit the fan, that’s when empathy and caring and believing others is key.
- know the context … find out whether the audience around you has built the relationship with you to value your opinion and is safe enough to value your opinion. Until then, they don’t owe you a listen.
- If you want to change the abuses of the left wing, then become a good left wing person first.
Not everyone takes that last bit on and they’re satisfied being where they are, but at least I get to figure out what they will do in situation 1) which for anyone who isn’t an authority or a policy maker is the one that matters, and I use 2) to make sure they’re not going to get into flamewars on the internet.
And if they fail 1, or 2, I ask them to follow me through a nice quiet laneway… >:)