listening

[piranha]

so apparently there was a panel at wiscon about cultural appropriation, which has set off a firestorm of LJ commentary, which has transmogrified into various posts on my flist talking about privilege and racism (as well as feminism thrown in because the subject wasn't complex enough i guess :).  i've been working my way backwards, and the actual cultural appropriation discussions are quite interesting, and i'll probably read more of them tomorrow.  but before i get to that, i need to deal with this proposed bit:  that white people (and men) should just shut up and listen.  if in a discussion of racism initiated by a person of colour they reply with anything other than active and skilled listening, they're recasting the conversation.  if they defend themselves or ask too many questions, they are making it all about themselves.

*whew*.  well, i feel i can't freely say much in reply to those posts because i've just been exhorted to shut up, and if i say anything that's not directly supportive it's gonna make that conversation all about me.  i don't really care to derail it, even if i think the rails are running into an abyss.

but in my LJ, i am gonna talk about myself without guilt.  not because it's all about me, but because i am the only person about whom i can speak knowledgeably, with authority, and without presumption.  this is, btw, also what informs my preference for the pronoun "i" and those infamous weasel words such as "i believe", "i think", "in my experience", "in my opinion".   it's not to elevate me as all-important, but it's to limit what i say to my experience, and to avoid speaking for anyone else.  anyone who knows me at all knows that generalizations are my biggest pet peeve, and that it irks me when people say "we" and include others in their group by default because of some superficial trait they appear to have in common.  i constantly ask people to please speak for themselves, and not for all of humanity, all {wo}men, all <nationality>.  really, generalizations are much more than a peeve to me:  i consider them to be the root of much evil.  sloppy generalizations (and that would be the vast majority of them) are paving a broad pathway to the hell of stereotypes, racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia...

somebody just outed me as "white" in another LJ because zie has met me, and i looked white to zir.  did zie ask me about my ancestry?  nope.  zie assumed.  and apparently looking white must mean that i've not experienced racism, and that i have nothing worthwhile to contribute to a discussion about it because i am privileged.  did zie ask me about my experiences?  nope.  zie assumed.  now, for one, i am not american.  the vast majority of people in these discussions are talking as if american WASP culture were the de facto white culture of the world, period, and as if the racism said culture engages in against african-americans and other people of colour were the only racism in existence.  it's parochial to assume that.  (and it's not even particularly observant within the US itself -- i think racism against blacks is a different thing from racism against asians, frex).  even liberal white american guilt, however worthy it may be, needs to generalize less, please.

i am 0 (zero) part american WASP.  i am however 1/8th roma.  if my birth family had not carefully hidden that part of the family history, i would very likely never have been born because my mother would have died in hitler's camps.  but the family hid it long before the nazis came to power, they hid it out of shame and disgust; they hated those thieving gypsies.  they felt the family blood had been tainted.  i grew up as a dark child (in every sense of the world) in a lightskinned and fairhaired family.  no, i don't know what it is like to grow up black in america.  but i know a bit about growing up as an outsider, disrespected and distrusted for my appearance.  no, i am not claiming this is the same.  just that i did not live a pampered, sheltered, ever-so-privileged life as a child, and the life i did live has left scars i've been working long and hard to erase.  yes, i am privileged in some ways -- after escaping my family i could blend into society; i do look white.  did that white look-alike privilege make up for having a clinically insane mother, and the sexual abuse?  i don't know -- how can one even measure that?  in any case, i grappled with a form of racism very early on, though i didn't call it that, and it was a different form than institutionalized racism such as in the US.  it doesn't make me black.  but it gives me empathy for people who got dealt an outsider hand in the birth sweepstakes -- nothing more, but also nothing less.  and for the record, i don't self-identify as white, and i never check the "caucasian" checkmark in surveys (i write in "human"  or check "mixed race").  my relationship with my own racial background is complicated and personal -- and it's not even in the same ballpark as that of most americans.

listening is good, ya know.  i am all for listening.  i can even shut up for lengthy periods of time.  heck, i am an introvert, offline i shut up much more than i yap, unless with close friends.  i am known as a good listener; people come to me with their troubles, and usually leave feeling a little better.  yup, i am greatly in favour of listening.  people should definitely practice it, it's a special skillset, and i keep learning new things about it.

yes, we should listen, but not because we're white, or men, no.  because we're individuals.  because we don't know it all.  because we don't live in a vacuum.  because every single person's story is worth listening to, with attention, with care.  because only if we listen carefully to each other in turn, do we learn how differently we perceive things, do we experience how strange and interesting our respective worlds are, do we hear the pain each one of us suffers, do we have a chance to develop true empathy, will we overcome the devil that lies in the details.

Comments

[necturus.livejournal.com]

white people (and men) should just shut up and listen.

Why should I listen to anyone who won't listen to me?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

In the posts on this topic that have been appearing on my friendlist, the irritation is because the topic invariably turns away from minorities' current experience of disenfranchisement and prejudice in the U.S. to either a historical perspective with the various European immigrant groups, or the current disenfranchisement/prejudice of various groups of whatever hue in other countries. I'm pretty sure this is because everyone wants to bring their own personal experience to the table, and when you're a member of majority culture, your personal experience is naturally going to be different, based in a different historical or social context than that of the people who initiated the conversation.

Basically, the poeple I've been reading are trying to focus the conversation on one section of the topic that they feel doesn't get enough attention, and the people they're irritated with keep coming in and sidetracking the conversation, and they're seeing that it pretty much divides neatly down minority/majority lines.

[necturus.livejournal.com]

In other words, they don't want to hear anybody's views but their own.

I think I'll give them their wish, and not participate.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

No, that's not the point. They want to discuss something that does not get discussed. They want to talk about their views because they are not allowed to talk about their views because the subject keeps changing.

When Person A says "I have experienced this sort of behavior towards myself and it makes me feel like a second-class citizen," and Person B says "You know, the Irish were considered second-class citizens for a good part of American history," that is a change of subject, not an opposing view, because A wants to make B understand A's current experience, not to discuss it in a historical context.

*That* is the sort of thing that's frustrating them.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i have no doubt that this happens, happens a lot, and that it is frustrating. there are difficult currents at play in the discussion of any heavily loaded subject. however, "other views" does by no means equate to "opposing views"; casting the conversation immediately as controversial is not productive. furthermore, throwing in a historical example of people who might've felt similar to you isn't a change of subject in and of itself; who says you have to go down the path just because a gate has been opened? and railing against something that is a normal and deeply engrained part of how people communicate in this society (offering their own experience/knowledge), is like fighting with windmills. telling everyone of race X to shut up is bordering on racism itself; it certainly shows that one has strong stereotypes. i can guarantee you it won't lead to people of colour feeling heard. instead it'll lead to further alienation of people who're actually allies.

there are ways around feeling that one's not heard which are IMO more useful. one is to restrict the audience, and to set rules of order (possibly using a facilitator if the discussion needs to happen at a level above the watercooler). another is to not let somebody else's experience take over the conversation, but to either acknowledge it ("yes, that's true about the irish") and walk past that opening ("but i don't want to discuss the issue of racism in a historical context right now") or refocus ("but i want to just talk about my personal experience right now"), or use it to underline and contrast one's own experience. one can also ask the individual whose contributions grate to please just listen for the time being (and then give them the floor when you're done, or at another set time). oh, and if it happens in one's LJ, ban shit stirrers and trolls without making a fuss about it (the fuss and general engagement with such people is what really derails the conversation).

[telophase.livejournal.com]

who says you have to go down the path just because a gate has been opened?

The problem is that the gate is opened every. single. time. and the conversation always heads that way despite the best efforts of all Person As, which is what the entire problem is about - that's what subtle marginalization is, in discourse, in media, in culture: that's exactly what they're complaining about - the ways that dominant people manage to push the conversation even when they're not intending to. (I'm more familiar with this through gender studies than ethnic studies - if you look at the patterns in male and female conversation, and patterns of conversation between people of different status in the workplace, you can see how the higher-status individual tends to guide the conversation.)

In the blogs I've been reading, the discussion *has* been nice - "I understand what you're trying to say, but I'd like to address this instead," and so forth, exactly what you're saying in the second paragraph. The problem the Person As are complaining about is that whenever they say that, person B either removes themselves from the conversation entirely so you're left with just a bunch of A's talking to each other with none of the Bs left to listen, or B complains that A's not listening to what B wants to say, despite the fact that A really wants to discuss the subject *they're* interested in, and it's in A's journal to boot.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

The problem is that the gate is opened every. single. time.

i understand that. i share the experience (though not actually every.single.time; i've had good conversations where that didn't happen -- albeit not on LJ. i think the venue matters. as does the familiarity of the participants. and the tone i set; i can't seem to find the right tone for LJ.)

but that's just ... life. it happens to everyone who's not firmly in the dominant culture, and that trickles down through all levels of subculture. if you discuss a difficult subject with random strangers, you will run into the very same initial lack of understanding over and over and over again. this should not come as a surprise, being as we're several billions too many people on this planet, and language, even if we're speaking the same one, is such an imperfect medium. i admit to occasional bogglement that it works at all.

complaining about it is understandable. but it's, aside from blowing off steam, largely a waste of time. shouting at the "other" to shut up is also not useful.

sometimes breaking down and crying can break through that, because it shows the pain instead of telling about it. it's worked on me to immediately focus on the other person, and forget all about myself. which is the same skill as active listening requires -- to empty one's mind of everything that's not helping focus on the other.

but overall what has worked best for me is to not make pronouncements with vast generalizations in public fora. i'm able to talk about my own experiences pretty well if i refrain from tarring lots of other people with negative brushstrokes.

question: if B's are told that they should be quiet and listen (in a courteous way), how do you know those who stop talking are not doing exactly that? after all, there is no feedback online that says so, or indicates that they're gone. i know from longtime net use that listeners vastly outnumber talkers. i know that i myself listen a lot more online than i write, and that's even more true for LJ than for usenet. if i am unfamiliar with a subject and an initial question is greeted with "im not here to teach you about this" (which is a legitimate response), i will usually not say anything further at all, but i'll go and read up on it. some time, often weeks or months later, i might have something to add, but man, on LJ discussions are dead after a few days; nobody ever comes back to them. this holds especially true for discussions of racism in america -- i've never so much as mentioned my own racial background in one of those; i tend to just sit and listen.

[saluqi.livejournal.com]

Weeell, sometimes.

If the views being put forward are reflective of the dominant culture/s in which those people were raised, then they are very familiar with those views already, and a reiteration of them is a subject changer that doesn't add anything new, rather than being an exchange of information that does add something new.

From what I have observed, you are very careful about not doing this, and you generally always come up with something I have not known about before in those types of discussions. That's another thing that often gets missed in these debates, personal style and approach is a significant part of reading what is going on.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

yes, exactly -- framing one's wish for being heard as this sort of demand is just not gonna improve the level of the conversation, and will distance people who're not the ones one actually wants to distance.

[liv]

This is a wonderful rant, and thank you for it. I know nothing of the kerfuffle that prompted it, but you have a very good point in general. I'd like to respond more fully, but I'm very limited in online time now and in the near future, so I just wanted to note that I'd read this and I'm impressed with it.

[huashan.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I get that all the time, and I'm happy to see someone address it. Since I'm a white male, there are whole conversations and discussions I'm expected to not be able to speak about because I'm considered unable to understand them or empathize/sympathize.

[snippy]

it's not to elevate me as all-important, but it's to limit what i say to my experience

Yeah, that. And this too:

pparently looking white must mean that i've not experienced racism, and that i have nothing worthwhile to contribute to a discussion about it because i am privileged

And I'm a quarter Spanish and an eighth Native American, but I experienced racism and prejudice for being white in a Hispanic neighborhood. I was not *brown enough*.

[king-tirian.livejournal.com]

I tend to be more charitable towards the technique, and so I'll see what I can do to defend it. I'm not sure that it needs to be recommended to you, as your last paragraphs seem to endorse the basic concepts. Also, naturally, I am a person who holds the whole deck of privilege cards, so I am not defending porcinea's programme so much as the manner in which I have heard and implemented it (although xie has sometimes expressed pleasure at hearing my repeating it back).

First off, I find the words "shut up" to be regrettable, although they do make an impact. Raymond Smullyan wrote in "This Book Needs No Title" about the difference between shutting up and remaining silent, both as a commandment and as a state of being. In that sense, I tend to attain a state of remaining silent when someone is speaking about their firsthand experiences with bias, which allows me to focus my energies on being receptive to what I'm being told and how it is being told to me. As a good listener, I'm certain that you are on board with this.

Also, the advice is prescriptive and not proscriptive. That is to say, if you are in an experience where you wish to learn something that you haven't learned before, then you should consider acting in a manner in which you have not previously acted. By contrast, if someone is talking to you and you think "Bah, I'm too tired to set up the entire ritual of creating a safe and supportive space for this person that I am not very close with and who doesn't seem all that interesting anyway," then by all means don't; all you have lost is an opportunity.

Over the years, I have grown increasingly impressed with my ability as a conversationalist to steer the discussion away from something that was uncomfortable to me. When someone tells me about an experience of egregious sexual harassment, I can hardly wait to say something dumb. "I would never do that!", "I think that's horrible," "You should never have to experience something like that," "I'm sorry." All of these things, well intentioned as they are, are pulling the conversation either toward me or toward an ideal societal interaction -- in other words, they are pulling the conversation away from what the person is talking about. And, if the theories are true, people in the minority are equally conditioned to accommodate my discomfort.

What's the solution to encouraging the continuation of a monologue without taking the reins and without sounding like a cliched novice therapist? I don't know. I've had some success at it, and I look forward to a long life of getting better at it. But I would claim that dismissing the idea because you cannot immediately attain the ideal is in no one's interest. The perfect, as always, is the enemy of the good.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i don't think the technique needs defending (i am fully onboard with the technique itself), it needs better presentation. :) but then i don't generally like pithy slogans. "shut up and listen" gets people's attention, but it also raises hackles, and for good reason (it's such an old dominance play, for heaven's sakes) -- and then we get to waste time smoothing those hackles down first, if we can even manage at all. it's not efficient. it is guilty of the very thing it claims to attack -- it distracts the conversation away from the actual ism. is everyone talking about racism or feminism now? nope. we're having meta-discussions.

in contrast i agree with just about everything you said. i think active listening is an extremely useful skill, and dammit, why are we not all taught about it complete with lots of practice in school? why did i have to piece together my initial conversational skills bit by bit through careful observation? what if i hadn't been a natural observer? it's so much more important than being able to regurgitate the years when the ancient greeks and spartans battled each other. and now, where are the links to websites with practical advice on how to actually do it well? i would enjoy a thread to which we'd all bring examples of what conversational skills have worked for us and share those.

the small bit i disagree with in your post is that "i would never do that" is on par with the other things you might say -- i do find the former unuseful even if i grok wanting to defend oneself against charges of being a cad, but "i think that's horrible" and "i'm sorry" sound merely supportive to me, a first step towards encouraging the other person to say more, an attempt to provide a non-hostile environment. "you should never have to experience something like that" is a bit more iffy because well, *duh*, right, but so what, we don't live in an ideal world. however, giving some supportive feedback is important to not leave the other person hanging. and i really, really hate novice therapist feedback, it feels so very presumptuous, and dicks around with the power balance -- which is much worse than "i would never do that". i mean, i can deflect that easily by saying "i know; that's why i am talking to you at all", and then can continue to talk about my experience, but if somebody (who is not my therapist) pulls a pseudo-therapy card as their first conversational gambit, i immediately want to stop talking to them because i feel patronized.

what sort of feedback have you found to be successful, if you can say? should i start a new thread for that?

[king-tirian.livejournal.com]

I still haven't figured out best practices in LJ, so I don't know if a new thread is a good idea or not. I didn't feel unsafe posting in this thread, so perhaps others will feel similarly empowered. You might also want to poke around in rivka's thread on the subject, since she is experienced with theraputic techniques and has started to delve into it.

Finding the right angle for feedback is tough. And very personal. You're doing this for you and your relationship with the person you're talking to, so I'm sure that you would want to gently probe in the directions that seem important and interesting to you. Of course, to the degree that you perceive the exchange as a conversation that you are participating in and not a story that you are listening to, you're going to not hear everything that might have been available to you. Having said all that, here is what I think about individual tactics.

As a rule, I don't like saying "I'm sorry," unless it really is my fault. Because there are only two comfortable responses to "I'm sorry": "That's okay" and "It's not your fault". But bias is not okay, and I don't want my friend to have to start talking about me right now. The other point about remaining silent is that as a member of the majority, the simple views are already taken for granted. If she wasn't sure that I would be sorry, she wouldn't have felt safe telling me about it. I'd rather show her that I was sorry than to interrupt her simply for the pleasure of hearing my own voice.

I agree that "That shouldn't happen" is less objectionable, but I think it can be expressed better. First, it is the "well duh" effect again. Second, compare it to "I didn't appreciate that such things happened in this day to people so close to me." It's the same fundimental emotion, but the latter says "Tell me more, if you're willing," while the former comes closer to saying "I'm uncomfortable, so let's talk instead about a fantasy world that our children might not live to see." There is a time for reinforcing that viewpoint, but it's not right now and it's another place where showing is better than telling.

I would suspect that other potentially beneficial things to say would be along the lines of "How does it feel to carry this burden around," or "I feel privilidged that you trusted me with this story," but I'm sure that those things would feel more or less right to you depending on your analysis of the moment. At the same time, I have found that just saying "Wow." and remaining silent until your partner continues the story or prompts you or changes the subject is not fatal and may encourage future revelations.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

thanks! so interesting, the different effects the very same words can have. not just on different people, but even on the same person at different times.

i used to feel very similar to you about "i'm sorry", but i can handle it much better now. because most of the time what it means is "i am sorry that this happened to you", which is akin to saying "sorry for your loss" to a grieving person. and that's all a sympathetic stranger can say as the first thing without feeling foolish or overstepping bounds. i've come to actually prefer it from strangers, and i simply reply with "thank you". i don't feel that it is turning the conversation away from me at all; it just feels like an acknowledgment of my pain. it does, however, not per se encourage me to open up more about it; for that i need some additional words.

on the giving end, i've turned that insight into being more explicit about what i am actually sorry for, so it can't easily be mistaken for a request to be absolved from guilt, or given aid with my own discomfort. i'll say "i am so sorry this happened to you. do you want to talk about it? do you need anything? can i do something to help?". not always all those at once, but they tend to be the most common options. if i know a person well i might not speak at all, but if i know a person well i don't need general guidelines for what to say anyway. if i don't know a person i feel moved to say something because i want the person to feel safe to talk (or not talk) as zie needs.

on the other hand, "how does it feel..." rubs me completely the wrong way, like a reporter who sticks a mic in front of a father who has just lost his son. that is one of those pseudo-therapist comments that instantly make me clam up. it might fit later in the conversation, but i'd never ever say this as the first thing, after somebody has blurted out "my boss is sexually harassing me", for example.

i think i basically avoid the whole "shouldn't happen" in all its incarnations, because it's just too much about fantasy than about the horrid thing that did, in fact, happen.

"i feel privileged that you trusted me with this story" is for the end of it, not the start. that one definitely feels like it could easily pull things into "hey, look at me!" territory, and i am really careful with saying it, even though i do often feel it.

"wow" is ok as the first thing out of my mouth, and it might even happen involuntarily. but standing on its own it feels insufficient; it's too open to interpretation. i like explicitness in general. "tell me more if you're willing" is great. depending on the circumstances i might admit that i am uncomfortable, and that i might not be the best person to talk to, and offer to help find somebody else.

i think your comments about approaching it on a very personal level, and gently probing are really important. emphasis on "gently". this should happen at the speed of the person who's hurting. one size does not fit all. and yes, it makes a difference to my approach whether i think we're engaged in a conversation, a debate, whether i am listening to a story, or whether i am in an advisory position. online discussion feels generally like a conversation or debate (and i avoid the latter), unless the speaker defines it otherwise at the start. this is an area in which i am learning to step much more carefully because oh man, livejournal is so much less automatically about conversation than usenet is.