Sunday 21 April 2013

A slightly different plea for unity

I'm going to make a plea for unity. You may not believe it at first, but please, stick with me.

Here goes:
Whether it's from the mainstream left, the L & G of LGBT, or mainstream feminism, the refrain is the same: "We need unity, we need to stop the infighting, we need to be civil to each other."
That sounds very reasonable on the surface. But what if you're a marginalised group in one of these communities? I can't speak for others, but I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this. To me, calls for unity and to stop the infighting sound an awful lot like "we want to go back to ignoring you rude marginalised people and concentrate on the majority's needs over yours". That really isn't any good for me thanks. Can you not see the problem with asking a marginalised group to unite behind a movement that marginalises them, adding an extra layer of oppression?
As for calls for civility, that sounds an awful lot like tone policing and a denial of our right to be angry when people supposedly on our side contribute to our problems. That's not going to fly either.
Sorry.
I really don't want this to sound aggressive or combative, nor do I have any intention of 'splitting the movement'. I'm sure I'll be accused of that anyway, because that's always what happens.
But I'm tired of people making out that marginalised groups are causing a fuss over nothing. To people outside those groups, maybe it *does* look like nothing. I don't know. It doesn't to the marginalised group, I can tell you that. That's why we're so loud and angry sounding.

The plea:
If you're one of the people calling for unity, maybe you could take some steps to achieve that unity by talking to marginalised groups, without tone policing them, ideally. Understand why this is happening and work with us, instead of just demanding an end to noise caused by our newly-found voices.

Please?

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