In response to grrm on The Tone Argument
My apologies for the link-heavy reply. There is quite a lot of cultural framework that needs to be established, because the parameters as designed by default society are weighted against productive conversation about social justice topics.
I am going to borrow
jimhines' blog post about Reasonable, for a start: http://www.jimchines.com/2011/08/t…
It is also worth noting that the very scenario you describe (getting treated well during airline travel) is the setting for the classic example of microaggression — that non-white people encounter less kindness and magnamity from service personnel, and that it's often claimed that it is solely the result of a lack of gentility on the part of the non-white person, and further when the suggestion is presented that the problem is unconscious racial bias, it is brushed aside as "playing the race card," etc. (https://www.psychologytoday.com/bl…)
I really wish we were living in a world where your calm, flexible, sympathetic and reasonable request and that of someone else with much less automatic social privilege[1] who is using the same approach were given the same consideration.
I know as a white person with sincere beliefs about the wrongness of racism, it's hard to believe that now, in 2015, we could still be having these sorts of issues many decades after the Civil Rights Act. The Tone Argument exists because of White Fragility (and if you only read one of my links, this one would be good: http://www.alternet.org/culture/wh…). I say white here not as an epithet but in highlight of the fact that the vast majority of POC have contact with encounters that makes it clear that yes, equitable treatment for non-white people is not a safely assumed thing.
[1] I know that there is likely to be an immediate reaction of how you, or any white male reading this, does not actually have all the social advantage...and I assume that this is true, because I'm not speaking to one of the super-privileged 80 who own the vast majority of the world's wealth. However, I also suggest perusing these (http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05…, http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05…, and especially http://whatever.scalzi.com/2014/07…)
I know this sounds radical. I close by noting that Dr. Martin Luther King, jr himself wrote about this in the Letter from a Birmingham Jail. I really wish that asking politely brought about needed social change. It has not, in the entire history of humanity.
I am going to borrow
jimhines' blog post about Reasonable, for a start: http://www.jimchines.com/2011/08/t…It is also worth noting that the very scenario you describe (getting treated well during airline travel) is the setting for the classic example of microaggression — that non-white people encounter less kindness and magnamity from service personnel, and that it's often claimed that it is solely the result of a lack of gentility on the part of the non-white person, and further when the suggestion is presented that the problem is unconscious racial bias, it is brushed aside as "playing the race card," etc. (https://www.psychologytoday.com/bl…)
I really wish we were living in a world where your calm, flexible, sympathetic and reasonable request and that of someone else with much less automatic social privilege[1] who is using the same approach were given the same consideration.
I know as a white person with sincere beliefs about the wrongness of racism, it's hard to believe that now, in 2015, we could still be having these sorts of issues many decades after the Civil Rights Act. The Tone Argument exists because of White Fragility (and if you only read one of my links, this one would be good: http://www.alternet.org/culture/wh…). I say white here not as an epithet but in highlight of the fact that the vast majority of POC have contact with encounters that makes it clear that yes, equitable treatment for non-white people is not a safely assumed thing.
[1] I know that there is likely to be an immediate reaction of how you, or any white male reading this, does not actually have all the social advantage...and I assume that this is true, because I'm not speaking to one of the super-privileged 80 who own the vast majority of the world's wealth. However, I also suggest perusing these (http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05…, http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05…, and especially http://whatever.scalzi.com/2014/07…)
I know this sounds radical. I close by noting that Dr. Martin Luther King, jr himself wrote about this in the Letter from a Birmingham Jail. I really wish that asking politely brought about needed social change. It has not, in the entire history of humanity.