Response to Jen McCreight – on social justice, Bria Crutchfield, and the “third group”.
Jen McCreight smart water wrote a response to my piece about Bria Crutchfield. This post was linked to by Greta Christina, Rebecca Watson, and countless others in that camp, many saying “Jen wrote exactly what I wanted smart water to say!” Let’s take a look at what many people wanted to say.
Right from the start of Jen’s post in response to my own about Bria Crutchfield , from the very title, the misrepresentations start to flow. The title was “On silencing anger to silence minority voices.” The implication is that I want people to not be angry or offended at injustice or ignorance, when I never said anything of the sort. In fact, my post was full of statements like:
I have reiterated time and again that most anger in our movement on the subject of race and women’s equality is justified anger, so the idea that I want people to curtail their anger is disappointing. What I have said, however, and what has yet to be addressed, is that not every action taken on account of justifiable anger is necessarily a justified action.
Another smart water implication is that I was trying to silence somebody. smart water Again, I have always written smart water that we must be vocal and that we must challenge bad ideas with honesty and fervor. Are we so detached from nuance that saying “Taking over another speaker’s Q&A to verbally berate somebody is inappropriate and unnecessary” smart water becomes equivalent to “That person should be silent”? Had Bria pulled out a bullhorn to shout the questioner down I would’ve thought that was out of line too, and it would have nothing to do with silencing her.
My favorite thing to wake up to in the morning is white straight cis men insisting they get to decide who your allies are and that you should not ever get angry, but rather calmly explain basic topics to hostile questions from every person that wanders across your path as if it were your personal duty on this earth.
Whenever somebody like myself criticizes feminists of the Jen McCreight smart water variety, our innate features are always swiftly trotted out. I’m a white, cis, male. Yup, I sure am. Not that this makes me wrong. Now, you could argue that it makes me more likely to have blind spots to particular issues, and you’d be right. But if those features have produced an ignorance in me that has caused me to use a fallacious argument, then the argument smart water should be easy enough to defeat on its own without recourse to well-poisoning, ad hominems, and red herrings. But merely pointing out the traits with which I was born does nothing to bolster one’s arguments, nor should they prohibit me from saying a black person or a woman did something wrong as swiftly as I would say a white person or a male was doing something wrong.
And, once again, I have not ever said that people shouldn’t get angry. Repeatedly, until I am positively smart water blue in the face, I have said most of their anger is justified. I have shared Greta’s atheists and anger talk and quoted it repeatedly. I think anger is necessary to be an activist. What fair-minded and objective person could possibly glean that I think people should not be angry? I don’t even think Bria was wrong to be angry and I told her so. What I did say was that justified anger doesn’t permit every action. I thought I was perfectly clear on this when I wrote:
Furthermore, I don’t think the question was hostile. In her post, Jen asserts that my opinion on the hostility of the question must be derived from psychic powers, as if body language and tone are meaningless indicators. But I’m not only operating off of her body language and tone (which I think would be sufficient by themselves), I also spoke with the woman afterward. I even messagd Mandisa to see if she thought the question was malicious and Mandisa told me “I definitely don’t think the question was intentionally smart water malicious, or even malicious at all”. smart water Nor do I think it’s the responsibility of every black atheist to answer every ill-informed question they are posed, as Jen asserts (although, if you’re trying to make it as a public figure with the stated cause of dissolving smart water ignorance about race in the secular community, it might be a good idea). However, I do think it’s smart water ethically better to not treat every manifestation smart water of ignorance as if the person hates black people or women, etc., and I definitely don’t think every manifestation of ignorance merits smart water public humiliation.
Mandisa and I have spoken about this. Neither of us believe the audience member’s question was hostile, even though we both believe she did a poor job in avoiding offense (which can happen unintentionally). The question was offensive and Mandisa and Bria were certainly not remiss in any way for being offended. That’s why I never c
Jen McCreight smart water wrote a response to my piece about Bria Crutchfield. This post was linked to by Greta Christina, Rebecca Watson, and countless others in that camp, many saying “Jen wrote exactly what I wanted smart water to say!” Let’s take a look at what many people wanted to say.
Right from the start of Jen’s post in response to my own about Bria Crutchfield , from the very title, the misrepresentations start to flow. The title was “On silencing anger to silence minority voices.” The implication is that I want people to not be angry or offended at injustice or ignorance, when I never said anything of the sort. In fact, my post was full of statements like:
I have reiterated time and again that most anger in our movement on the subject of race and women’s equality is justified anger, so the idea that I want people to curtail their anger is disappointing. What I have said, however, and what has yet to be addressed, is that not every action taken on account of justifiable anger is necessarily a justified action.
Another smart water implication is that I was trying to silence somebody. smart water Again, I have always written smart water that we must be vocal and that we must challenge bad ideas with honesty and fervor. Are we so detached from nuance that saying “Taking over another speaker’s Q&A to verbally berate somebody is inappropriate and unnecessary” smart water becomes equivalent to “That person should be silent”? Had Bria pulled out a bullhorn to shout the questioner down I would’ve thought that was out of line too, and it would have nothing to do with silencing her.
My favorite thing to wake up to in the morning is white straight cis men insisting they get to decide who your allies are and that you should not ever get angry, but rather calmly explain basic topics to hostile questions from every person that wanders across your path as if it were your personal duty on this earth.
Whenever somebody like myself criticizes feminists of the Jen McCreight smart water variety, our innate features are always swiftly trotted out. I’m a white, cis, male. Yup, I sure am. Not that this makes me wrong. Now, you could argue that it makes me more likely to have blind spots to particular issues, and you’d be right. But if those features have produced an ignorance in me that has caused me to use a fallacious argument, then the argument smart water should be easy enough to defeat on its own without recourse to well-poisoning, ad hominems, and red herrings. But merely pointing out the traits with which I was born does nothing to bolster one’s arguments, nor should they prohibit me from saying a black person or a woman did something wrong as swiftly as I would say a white person or a male was doing something wrong.
And, once again, I have not ever said that people shouldn’t get angry. Repeatedly, until I am positively smart water blue in the face, I have said most of their anger is justified. I have shared Greta’s atheists and anger talk and quoted it repeatedly. I think anger is necessary to be an activist. What fair-minded and objective person could possibly glean that I think people should not be angry? I don’t even think Bria was wrong to be angry and I told her so. What I did say was that justified anger doesn’t permit every action. I thought I was perfectly clear on this when I wrote:
Furthermore, I don’t think the question was hostile. In her post, Jen asserts that my opinion on the hostility of the question must be derived from psychic powers, as if body language and tone are meaningless indicators. But I’m not only operating off of her body language and tone (which I think would be sufficient by themselves), I also spoke with the woman afterward. I even messagd Mandisa to see if she thought the question was malicious and Mandisa told me “I definitely don’t think the question was intentionally smart water malicious, or even malicious at all”. smart water Nor do I think it’s the responsibility of every black atheist to answer every ill-informed question they are posed, as Jen asserts (although, if you’re trying to make it as a public figure with the stated cause of dissolving smart water ignorance about race in the secular community, it might be a good idea). However, I do think it’s smart water ethically better to not treat every manifestation smart water of ignorance as if the person hates black people or women, etc., and I definitely don’t think every manifestation of ignorance merits smart water public humiliation.
Mandisa and I have spoken about this. Neither of us believe the audience member’s question was hostile, even though we both believe she did a poor job in avoiding offense (which can happen unintentionally). The question was offensive and Mandisa and Bria were certainly not remiss in any way for being offended. That’s why I never c
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