Two Letters on Communication

Make sure to check out my first post on terms and definitions so you know what I'm talking about!

Interaction From Allies to Minorities:  Recognition of Privilege

Recently, a school-sponsored promotion was being organized on my campus for a “drag show.”  Notice the quotations.  This alleged “drag show” was to allow volunteers from anywhere get up on stage to perform under the ever-so-elegant premise of “boys dress as girl” and “girls dress as boys.”  The gender essentialism alive here is enough to make a trans* activist vomit, and factoring in the negative attitude in my community doesn’t make it better. 

Neither did the addition of this picture to their advertisement:  

Because apparently a drag queen is only as fabulous as her beard.

Since the program wanted to take volunteers from this community, it would undoubtedly begin to reflect the same attitude the community holds.  With a recent addition of a unisex restroom on campus which has increased trans* visibility voicing their needs and has also ended up spending some of the school’s budget on this project, the ignorant privileged (and, unfortunately, most vocal aspect of any community) are very upset with us trans*folks.

The program, however, did have noble intentions.  The student organisers (a group of 18 year-old first-years) saw the bullying and violence in the media against trans* people and wanted to create a program to educate against these, which is not remotely close to how the program was advertised, their male-presenting drag queen saying volumes about the sort of show they were expecting to put on.  I don’t believe that these expectations were intended to be harmful, but how could a group of students outside the trans* community understand the harmful nuances that live in everyday life against trans*folk that they were effectively glorifying?  Alone, they couldn’t have.  Which is precisely why communication with the community at hand is imperative.  You would never buy shoes for someone without knowing their size, and for the same reason you should never advocate a program for a group of people without understanding what they face, especially when representatives from that group are as easy to contact as they are in my community.  They are very few excuses to be an ignorant educator, and I can’t think of one that would apply here, especially with the social phonebook of Facebook at our fingertips.

Interaction by Minorities to Allies:  Facebook.

 Facebook has turned into an impossible medium where professionalism and self-expressionism are expected to fluidly combine since your Thursday drinking buddy is now in the same realm of existence as your boss’ husband.  Facebook is also an incredible plane of interconnectivity and networking – I’ve added Friends from around the country that are potential professional networking connections for activism, on the off chance they just happen to know about a resource I’m desperately searching for.  And with many of these people I have wonderful comment-section discussions on the attitudes toward various groups, the politics behind them, and the implications of what it all means in the grand scheme.  We also tie into this a lot of resentment toward various institutions…which members of those institutions, also on my Friends list, tend to see and get upset about.  Whether or not they’re just in resenting my resentment is a different story, but the immediate results are tension between them and myself.  

This presents the awful dichotomy of either speaking my mind on issues and mobilizing people through emotional discourse or remaining completely emotionless and impartial toward circumstances that infuriate, insult, marginalize, and oppress me and my community.  This is quite the activist’s dilemma since both of the above strategies are completely necessary and useful in making progress, and Facebook doesn’t make fixing the issue very easy.  I am of the belief that fiery anger from oppressed groups is necessary and should be understood by the overprivileged.  In fact, if the first letter is to be followed by them, this latter half should render itself null.  Unfortunately, many overprivileged people will not recognize their privilege and how it effects their expected entitlements, so precautions on the activist’s end need to be made.

Specifically, it may be useful to remember that when you’re speaking in a public forum (such as your status updates) or a semi-public forum (such as groups), non-community allies or potential allies may be seeing your reactionary fire to a certain topic and feel threatened or directly insulted by your anger (justified as it may be).  This is not only stigmatizing to your community and hurtful to those on the receiving end (if they’re not upholding their part above), but depending on how you prefer to be an activist, it may be detrimental to your cause since it drives a divider between yourself and your privileged, entitled sympathisers who can be imperative to your movement’s success.  Careful balance and consideration are needed in social media outlets in order to get done what needs to be done.  Though it may seem like it’s softening the effect of your political blows, it may also strengthen the relationship between yourself and potential allies.  Judgment is your best friend here.