On Civility
I have really struggled with the issue of civility this week. I find peace in showing compassion to those who may not show it back to me, and I strive to live by Michelle Obama's wise words "when they go low, we go high". I've found it strategic to draw people in with patience over tough love. But this past week, I've seen how the rhetoric of civility has been used to negate righteous anger and frustration, to silence people whose voices need to be heard the most. The civility that is being called for now is essentially inaction, stepping aside and clearing a way for our government to do evil things. This civility endorses a fascist regime. I thought civility was a way to show my love for others but now I see that it's being used to strip away human dignity from vulnerable people. And I'm not here for it anymore.
We need to acknowledge that civility is highly racialized and to some extent gendered. A white man wearing a nice suit can spew all kinds of hateful language without being considered uncivil. Our president's twitter is a perfect example. People of color have to be extra articulate, patient, and tempered when speaking out about the dangers their families and communities face in order to be seen as civil. And even then, civil protest is seen as incendiary; Colin Kaepernick's silent kneeling comes to mind immediately. Women aren't taken seriously if they express too much anger either. Look at the implicit standard that women of color in politics have to adhere to- Kamala Harris, Stacey Abrams, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are a few that come to mind; these women are brilliant but they toe a tight line between speaking up and being labeled angry, emotional, uncivil, and unprofessional.
If being rude is bad for politics, then why is the right roaring with a new strength? The right has never cared about civility. The tweets, the relentless mockery of political correctness, the pundits' regularly thinly veiled threats of violence (most recently against journalists), the protestors outside planned parenthood, white women calling the cops on black people in public (most recently #PoolPatrolPaula), cops killing black people without any consequences, families torn apart at border, white men who are largely responsible for the nation's mass shootings all with histories of domestic violence- these aren't just uncivil, they are downright violent.
"Calling out government officials for doing morally unconscionable things should never be equated with sinking to Trump’s level," Jamil Smith at Rolling Stone wrote. Expressing our anger at inhumane and unethical policies is not equivalent to the inflammatory rhetoric the president and his followers use to dehumanize real people. To me, it's also important to unpack the assumption that incivility means violence. It doesn't have to be. Civility is this gentle tip-toeing around others, packaging our frustration in a presentation that no matter how tactful we are, still won't be palatable to those in power. This unattainable ideal allows for oppressors to carry out evil agendas without being met with resistance. Respectability politics values decorum and good manners over the lives of real people. There are ways to disrupt civility nonviolently.
That's what Maxine Waters was calling for. She was leaning back into a legacy of civil rights protests that were by no means civil. Activists stormed restaurants for sit-ins, stopped traffic for marches. We look back at MLK fondly, but he spoke out against what we're still seeing today: white moderates more committed to order than justice who remain "neutral" in these trying times, those who turn a blind eye towards violence to oppressed people. We can protest injustice without partaking in the same violence that the right engages in, but valuing civility above all is only holding us back. Activists who fought for intersectional liberation, for HIV/AIDS justice, and disability rights have been effective when they've shunned "civility". Sanitizing history with decontextualized MLK quotes and erasing the direct action of a sprawling, heterogenous movement during the civil rights era is dangerous because it makes us forget that we've seen "civility" be used against progress before.
So sweet Auntie Maxine took a stand against all of this civility nonsense, and she was swiftly eviscerated by top (white) democrats. Bernie Sanders, who tapped into the anger of the working class during his campaign, valuing civility above over Waters' equally important anger is disappointing. She sees the urgency of making powerful people uncomfortable; these politicians are essentially getting away scot-free with all kinds of immoral, unethical acts and there's no one to keep them accountable except for every day citizens. Secretary Nielsen has seen few consequences for egregious policies; facing a dissatisfied public at a restaurant (a Mexican restaurant of all places!) is a small way we can hold her accountable and show her that we're not okay with her work. Her safety was never threatened, neither was Miller's. They were able to step out unscathed. Their camps have been calling for restaurants to ~just get over politics and serve people no matter who they are~ but this call for "civility" was notably absent after the recent SCOTUS ruling that favored that Colorado bakery who denied a gay couple their wedding cake. Anyways, advocating for allowing people affiliated with evil to enjoy their dinners on the surface seems like a noble endeavor but ultimately it prioritizes the luxury of oppressors while demonizing those who are resisting.
The civility debate is riddled with hypocrisy. We are so past civility. We passed civility when McConnell shut out Obama's supreme court nominee nine months before the midterm elections, violating his constitutional duty. We passed civility when our current president endorsed sexual assault on tape. We passed civility when the legitimacy of President Obama's American citizenship was seriously contested. We passed civility every time conservative anchors mocked Michelle Obama's arms. I could go on.
This past week, political figures' emphasis on civility feels like a distraction from the terrible things our government is doing. A top attorney for ICE was sentenced to four years in jail for stealing identities of immigrants. Toddlers are being summoned to appear in court alone. The Supreme Court passed down rulings that uphold the travel ban, weaken labor unions, and impede women's health decisions. Kennedy stepped down a few days before murky news that links his son to Trump's finances emerged. The Pentagon quietly changed their mission statement. The challenges of reuniting families compounds. Every day brings new horrors that we can't just sanitize into a perfectly civil sound bite.
Incivility isn't the solution we need. Quite the opposite, since we need to address our increasingly polarizing world and that takes engaging in tough conversations with people who don't agree with us. But we have to reevaluate how we selectively prioritize civility in situations where gross human rights violations are occurring on home soil. We have to resist false equivalencies that equate our president's vitriolic xenophobic rhetoric with a small business owner quietly asking Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave their restaurant. We have to stand up for politicians like Maxine Waters who are brave enough to call this out and are now facing death threats instead of denigrating her for a lapse of decorum. We need to draw clear boundaries between violence and nonviolent direct action, and we need to support John Lewis style "good trouble". We're in messy times and good manners can't be the priority when so much else is at stake.
xoxo,
Juhi
We need to acknowledge that civility is highly racialized and to some extent gendered. A white man wearing a nice suit can spew all kinds of hateful language without being considered uncivil. Our president's twitter is a perfect example. People of color have to be extra articulate, patient, and tempered when speaking out about the dangers their families and communities face in order to be seen as civil. And even then, civil protest is seen as incendiary; Colin Kaepernick's silent kneeling comes to mind immediately. Women aren't taken seriously if they express too much anger either. Look at the implicit standard that women of color in politics have to adhere to- Kamala Harris, Stacey Abrams, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are a few that come to mind; these women are brilliant but they toe a tight line between speaking up and being labeled angry, emotional, uncivil, and unprofessional.
If being rude is bad for politics, then why is the right roaring with a new strength? The right has never cared about civility. The tweets, the relentless mockery of political correctness, the pundits' regularly thinly veiled threats of violence (most recently against journalists), the protestors outside planned parenthood, white women calling the cops on black people in public (most recently #PoolPatrolPaula), cops killing black people without any consequences, families torn apart at border, white men who are largely responsible for the nation's mass shootings all with histories of domestic violence- these aren't just uncivil, they are downright violent.
"Calling out government officials for doing morally unconscionable things should never be equated with sinking to Trump’s level," Jamil Smith at Rolling Stone wrote. Expressing our anger at inhumane and unethical policies is not equivalent to the inflammatory rhetoric the president and his followers use to dehumanize real people. To me, it's also important to unpack the assumption that incivility means violence. It doesn't have to be. Civility is this gentle tip-toeing around others, packaging our frustration in a presentation that no matter how tactful we are, still won't be palatable to those in power. This unattainable ideal allows for oppressors to carry out evil agendas without being met with resistance. Respectability politics values decorum and good manners over the lives of real people. There are ways to disrupt civility nonviolently.
That's what Maxine Waters was calling for. She was leaning back into a legacy of civil rights protests that were by no means civil. Activists stormed restaurants for sit-ins, stopped traffic for marches. We look back at MLK fondly, but he spoke out against what we're still seeing today: white moderates more committed to order than justice who remain "neutral" in these trying times, those who turn a blind eye towards violence to oppressed people. We can protest injustice without partaking in the same violence that the right engages in, but valuing civility above all is only holding us back. Activists who fought for intersectional liberation, for HIV/AIDS justice, and disability rights have been effective when they've shunned "civility". Sanitizing history with decontextualized MLK quotes and erasing the direct action of a sprawling, heterogenous movement during the civil rights era is dangerous because it makes us forget that we've seen "civility" be used against progress before.
So sweet Auntie Maxine took a stand against all of this civility nonsense, and she was swiftly eviscerated by top (white) democrats. Bernie Sanders, who tapped into the anger of the working class during his campaign, valuing civility above over Waters' equally important anger is disappointing. She sees the urgency of making powerful people uncomfortable; these politicians are essentially getting away scot-free with all kinds of immoral, unethical acts and there's no one to keep them accountable except for every day citizens. Secretary Nielsen has seen few consequences for egregious policies; facing a dissatisfied public at a restaurant (a Mexican restaurant of all places!) is a small way we can hold her accountable and show her that we're not okay with her work. Her safety was never threatened, neither was Miller's. They were able to step out unscathed. Their camps have been calling for restaurants to ~just get over politics and serve people no matter who they are~ but this call for "civility" was notably absent after the recent SCOTUS ruling that favored that Colorado bakery who denied a gay couple their wedding cake. Anyways, advocating for allowing people affiliated with evil to enjoy their dinners on the surface seems like a noble endeavor but ultimately it prioritizes the luxury of oppressors while demonizing those who are resisting.
The civility debate is riddled with hypocrisy. We are so past civility. We passed civility when McConnell shut out Obama's supreme court nominee nine months before the midterm elections, violating his constitutional duty. We passed civility when our current president endorsed sexual assault on tape. We passed civility when the legitimacy of President Obama's American citizenship was seriously contested. We passed civility every time conservative anchors mocked Michelle Obama's arms. I could go on.
This past week, political figures' emphasis on civility feels like a distraction from the terrible things our government is doing. A top attorney for ICE was sentenced to four years in jail for stealing identities of immigrants. Toddlers are being summoned to appear in court alone. The Supreme Court passed down rulings that uphold the travel ban, weaken labor unions, and impede women's health decisions. Kennedy stepped down a few days before murky news that links his son to Trump's finances emerged. The Pentagon quietly changed their mission statement. The challenges of reuniting families compounds. Every day brings new horrors that we can't just sanitize into a perfectly civil sound bite.
Incivility isn't the solution we need. Quite the opposite, since we need to address our increasingly polarizing world and that takes engaging in tough conversations with people who don't agree with us. But we have to reevaluate how we selectively prioritize civility in situations where gross human rights violations are occurring on home soil. We have to resist false equivalencies that equate our president's vitriolic xenophobic rhetoric with a small business owner quietly asking Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave their restaurant. We have to stand up for politicians like Maxine Waters who are brave enough to call this out and are now facing death threats instead of denigrating her for a lapse of decorum. We need to draw clear boundaries between violence and nonviolent direct action, and we need to support John Lewis style "good trouble". We're in messy times and good manners can't be the priority when so much else is at stake.
xoxo,
Juhi
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