I have a t-shirt that says “I have red hair because God knew I needed a warning label.”
Ain’t that the truth.
There’s been a lot going on in Howard County over the past few weeks. If you don’t know what I mean, count yourself lucky. Suffice it to say there’s been an awful lot of bad-faith acting going on, a lot of it occurring on social media. And because it’s Howard County, a lot of folks have been reminding each other to “choose civility.” Sometimes this slogan is deployed with good intentions. But sometimes, I’m noticing, it is weaponized against others – often people of color and women, and often when they are being assertive – in order to put them in their place.
In a recent heated exchange on Facebook, a Black woman had lost her patience with a rogue member of an organization, and she expressed her frustrations with no holds barred. A white woman completely dismissed her complaints by reminding her matter-of-factly and oh-so-patronizingly that she had told the Black woman before not to speak to others that way.
In a recent conversation on Facebook, a young Black man stepped in to explain things about his culture to non-Black folks who were making incorrect statements about it. These non-Black folks responded to this young man by making it clear that he was wrong, he was not intelligent, and he was beneath them. These folks were arrogant enough to pretend they knew more about Black culture than a Black man, and when he pointedly called them out on this, they told him he was being condescending and that he needed to “choose civility.”
Not long ago, I expressed a fairly mundane opinion on my Twitter page about a topic that, thanks to my profession, I know intimately. A local young Howard County progressive activist, who had never engaged with me directly before, saw my tweet and did not like it. He retweeted my statement, adding his own commentary calling me a “f**king moron.” When I called him out on his behavior in a Facebook conversation, his friends lectured me on the importance of being civil.
These “choose civility” moments are not benign reminders to keep the temperature down. These are power plays.
Certainly, I see the value in civil discourse. Civility is what prevents situations from escalating, keeps people focused on the topic at hand, and leads to productive dialogue. It’s what helps us influence others, build coalitions, and amass allies. And yet, I can’t help seeing some nuance here. Is civility always the answer? Do we really expect people to respond to incivility… well, civilly? Do we tend to apply that standard unequally to different groups of people? Are you laughing uncontrollably because I’ve said some rather uncivil things myself?
If so, that’s fair. And if someone were to tell me in good faith that something I said was over the line, or a point of mine might have come across better if I’d worded it differently, I wouldn’t respond unkindly. Believe it or not, I do have the capacity to cringe at myself.
However, that doesn’t mean I won’t stand up for myself against bad-faith actors. So my redhead warning label is this: “I do my best to be civil when speaking with others. But if you choose to be a glass bowl, all bets are off.”
