When to confront someone

The other day I was remarking to Southern Man that most people were non-confrontational; most people do not like to tell someone, directly, that they are upset by something s/he said. How and why I arrived at this observation is too long and convoluted to share (and a bit boring) so I'll just skip to the second part, which is that I read this post last week in Anti-Racist Parent by the blogger of Snarky Momma titled "Tiny Acts of Activism." In this post, Tiffany describes the small acts of activism that she (and others) are capable of by simply chiming in with, in her words, "gentle statements in everyday conversation" (click here to read the entire post).

And it got me thinking about the small things that people who are non-confrontational or who profess to be non-confrontational can do to help speak truth to power or work towards anti-racist practices (as well as other forms of social justice). Confronting someone when they make a racist statement or when you think someone is being racially insensitive doesn't have to be uncomfortable and it certainly doesn't mean you tell the person you think they are a racist (I've already discussed how using the "R" word, for me, isn't the path I choose when talking about racism since I've seen how people shut down the minute the word is introduced). But I do think it's important for us to speak up when we can. And I think it's important for us--those of us who want to walk the walk and not just talk the talk--to push our comfort zones in terms of when we are willing to confront something we believe is offensive.

I am a fairly direct person, and I will, in social settings, tell someone if I think their point-of-view offends me (Want proof? Go to the previous paragraph and click on the link where I say I've already discussed using the "R" word--I describe a very direct confrontation with WIWL (well intentioned white liberal) that was so intense that the friends who were at this party STILL tease me about it to this day). But I didn't pop out of the womb this angry Asian woman pointing my finger at people's chests and getting righteous on them (and truth be told, I'm really not like that--my own pedagogical style in the classroom is pretty much the opposite of cornering someone). I am not sure when I realized that I COULD speak--that I could chime up and say something. I don't think it was a sudden "AHA!" moment but more a gradual realization that not saying something, for me, was worse than saying something. That having that pit in my stomach after walking away from a situation in which someone said something racist was just the worst feeling in the world--and I would play that tape in my head over and over--the one where you step back in time and get to say the zinger that you thought up an hour ago--the one you didn't say because you were either too shocked, too afraid, too worried of hurting the person's feelings or causing a scene, or because you just didn't know WHAT to say.

And here's the thing I learned from my friend "J" while in grad school--that it's never too late. It's never too late to go back to the person, esp. if it's someone you know (and like) and open up that topic of conversation. It's never too late to write a letter to the museum about the docent who kept referring to Asian peopple as "Oriental" and who made you feel targeted and uncomfortable during the tour.* And it's never too late to decide that you can be an activist in whatever way is comfortable for you, right now, with the hope that you will be able to really speak truth to power when it counts so that you don't have that awful pit in your stomach wishing you had said something.

It's also never too late to expand the circle of what you find offensive. In the comment section of Tiffany's post, I realized that I am more inclined to confront racist rather than sexist or homophobic behavior. The "why" is probably a great question and something I need to examine further (and probably will in a future post) but what is most helpful, for me, is knowing that I want to be someone who walks the walk and dosn't just talk the talk. I want to be a queer ally and to stand up for my own rights as a woman and a feminist. And so I need to be speaking out more not less, in ways that people will be able to hear me, hopefully--because I AM a confrontation person. And by that, I mean that I just can't live with that sickening feeling in my stomach any longer--and I'm so glad that I've figured out that I don't have to.

*This is a real incident that happened to me while in grad school; on the urging of my friend "J" I wrote a letter to the museum about how uncomfortable I was by the docent's language and treatment of me (every time she pointed out a work of "Asian" art she turned to me and asked me what it meant--WTF???). 3 days after I mailed the letter, I got a phone call from the director of the museum apologizing to me and telling me that the docent (whom they had had complaints about by others for different reasons) would be spoken to, again, and welcoming me back for another tour whenever I was free. It really made me feel glad I had said/written something.

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