Facebook and blogs and stuff this week are really frothing with difficult conversations going badly. Some women state that women suffer at mens hatred of women, then predictably a chorus of men replying with um where can I opt out of that blanket characterization?, then women responding with see, you are part of the problem, if the shoe doesnt fit, then dont distract, and everyone pretending to play dumb about why anyone would possibly get defensive about the sweeping generalizations being used, and acting surprised that their most legitimate points are not getting the full focus. Many of the people I know who are participating in this weeks dialogue are the same people who have spent a decade jumping to the defense of the muslim demographic each time that Sean Hannity or Rush Libaugh or a blogger perpetuates terms like Islamic Terrorists. They defensively respond Not all muslims!... to which Hannity says a hollow well of course not all muslims, ...but, Islamic terrorists... (and then he lists dozens of true, real horrors perpetrated by the bad apples) and then casual observers wonder why non terrorist muslims are up in arms over the way the conversation is framed. On every other subject, most people I know will fight any kind of profiling or generalizations. My friends will argue passionately that someone shouldnt grab their purse tighter if a black person is in the elevator, and TSA screeners shouldnt always randomly select the guy with the cloth wrapped on his head. But because of safety and statistics, people are going to be scared anyway, and people will profile. This week, if the word men is used, it can still mean 50% of the world who are male. Even if the author generously includes the phrase not all men in between dozens of sentences starting with Men do this bad thing.... Yep, some black people steal, some islamic people carbomb, and some men harm women. But when people from a given demographic hear the conversation framed in terms of I put up with cyclists every day, heres what cyclists do.... they WILL say Hey, not all cyclists!, and no it does not go without saying, when the national conversation veers that way. Imagine what you would normally think if a muslim person plaintively commented Not all muslims on a blog, and the replies you saw were stuff like #islamisplaining or oh crap, you just dont get it or youre part of the problem by not being an agent of change in your demographic or Stop minimizing and explaining away the pain of terrorism victims. Just imagine which side of the fence you would normally come down on, if you saw a blog comment exchange play out like that. Setting a productive tone is complex.
Posted on: Thu, 29 May 2014 17:49:16 +0000
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