I will never blame, shame, or guilt any other marginalized person (let alone those of us at the margins of the margins) for using respectability politics as a(n imperfect, and not guaranteed) survival or coping mechanism, and I firmly believe it is harmful and dangerous whenever other community members do so. We should instead always strive to support one another in using whatever tactics we need to survive. At the same time, I believe that any argument in favor of a community-wide adoption of/adherence to respectability politics (even with the caveat that not all people have the privilege to be able to pass or mask, either at all, or consistently), is also deeply harmful and dangerous.

Individual people (to the extent they are capable of doing so) may need to reply on respectability politics simply to survive — to survive school, to survive the terrifying experience of involuntary commitment, to survive a potentially deadly police encounter, to survive in the capitalist society we live in that assigns value and worth based on productivity and labor. I respect and affirm that.

Our movement, however, needs nothing of respectability politics. Accepting — conceding, surrendering, submitting to — that will only erode our movement until it crumbles entirely. Respectability politics is what’s gotten us into reliance on foundations and nonprofits, and elected officials and bureaucrats, and policies and programs that only benefit the most privileged and resourced members of our communities at the direct expense of the most marginalized. Radical, militant anger — and radical, militant hope, and radical, wild dreams, and radical, active love — that’s what’ll get us past the death machines of ableism and capitalism and white supremacy and laws and institutions working overtime to kill us.

Autistic Hoya — A blog by Lydia X. Z. Brown: The neurodiversity movements needs its shoes off, and fists up.

Stop telling people not to be angry

“stop telling people not to be angry.

anger can absolutely be transformative. none of our movements would happen without it. anger can help reveal what is most important to us and give us a kind of clarity that few other emotions can.

anger is fire and fire is powerful. we can channel anger in useful & accountable ways.”

Mia Mingus

We can be kind, compassionate, caring, and gentle (when appropriate, as it may be in many cases, though certainly is not in many others) with would-be allies and with fellow community members, without holding ourselves to the superficially saccharine or dehumanizing standards of respectability, and the farce of moral superiority that comes with condescendingly condemning use of anger in our rhetoric and strategies.

Autistic Hoya — A blog by Lydia X. Z. Brown: The neurodiversity movements needs its shoes off, and fists up.

We die in committees
Apologize before you say please
Pride cuts you at the knees

The biggest barrier is niceness.

Then she described her frustration in a way that sounded familiar, based on what we have observed in many other districts, but that also was more direct than how we had heard anyone else frame it. “But for the ones who do find equity and inclusion important,” she sighed, “the biggest barrier is niceness.“

To be clear, we value empathy, compassion, and concern for others. We appreciate pleasant, upbeat vibes. Our concern is not the presence of niceness per se, but rather the presence of niceness or kindness as a substitute for equity, as a way around direct confrontations with inequity.

Several scholars have challenged us to consider the limitations of niceness, especially how focusing on “being nice” can maintain the power of dominant cultural, racial, ethnic, and religious communities (e.g., Low, 2009). For example, Enrique Alemán Jr. (2009) explores how calls for “decorum and respect” can prohibit “blatant and honest depictions of racialized oppression” (p. 306). Similarly, Richard Orozco (2019) describes students’ criticisms of white teachers opting for the “niceness” of conflict avoidance rather than explicitly addressing racism. In The Price of Nice, Angelina E. Castagno (2019) explains how the pressure for everyone to “be nice” gives educators who would rather opt out of equity a convenient excuse to do so, and justification for punishing or silencing anyone who might, in Castagno’s words, “attempt or even consider disrupting structures and ideologies of dominance” (p. xiv).

When we adhere to this brand of niceness—niceness without contextual awareness, niceness as compliance with deeply inequitable systems, as a means of avoiding conflict, as protection for people advantaged by inequity, as a substitute for equity—we risk undermining our equity efforts and replacing them with actions that are as oppressive as the problems we are trying to solve. Dena Simmons (2021) recently described SEL initiatives without an antiracist commitment as “white supremacy with a hug” (p. 31). We find this a useful way to think about niceness or kindness without a transformative equity commitment. It’s white supremacy with a hug, heterosexism with a high-five, cisgenderism with a pat on the back, or ableism with a smile.

One concern about the increasingly trendy emphases on kindness and niceness, whether related to antibullying programs or office decor or bigger shifts to institutional culture, is that we end up burying deeper equity issues by implicitly suggesting that equity is simply a matter of individual relationships. The path to equity is kindness, so we all just need to smile more often. Imagine students whose families have for generations endured economic marginalization or racism, or both, being told that the solution to this injustice is simply being nicer, or that the situation will improve if white or wealthy students are kinder to them. Isn’t it rational, even ethical, for people experiencing injustice to be angry about injustice? When was the last time you witnessed significant social progress on an equity issue simply because somebody asked for it nicely? And how is systemic and structural advantage disrupted by being nicer to someone without access to it?

Another concern about the focus on niceness is that, when we prioritize it over truth-telling, we limit the depth and sophistication, and certainly the directness, of our equity conversations and actions. Rather than creating institutional conditions in which people are hesitant to tell the truth or to name how their colleagues or institutions are harming students and families because they don’t want to be labeled “unkind” or “mean,” we should create conditions in which critical feedback is interpreted, as we mentioned earlier, as an invaluable gift, as a deeper form of kindness and love.

Fix Injustice, Not Kids and Other Principles for Transformative Equity Leadership

Likability

The concept of likability is intertwined with compliance and conformity, especially for minority groups. One way people perform likeability is taking on altruistic tasks at work. Cuddy, Glick, and Beninger explored how warmth and competence judgements shape outcomes in organizations. Heilman and Chen found that men and women face different consequences for the same altruistic behavior in the workplace. The requirement to adhere to the majority’s norms of politeness, performative warmth, and professionalism often masks an undercurrent of racial and gender biases. Jones et al conducted a meta analysis that highlighted the negative impacts of subtle and overt discrimination on individuals and organizations, while Wingfield examined the experiences of African-American professionals navigating gendered racism in the workplace. These expectations can stifle authentic expression and enforce a type of performance that aligns with the dominant groups comfort, often at the expense of personal and group identity.

PsyberSpace: Understand Your World | Transcript: The Politeness Protocol: Exploring the Psychology of Control in Social Dynamics

We know who they are and what they have done to our people.

I wish you could know
What it means to be me
Can you see
You’d agree
Everybody
Should be free
(Because if we ain’t, we’re murderers)

--I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free by Nina Simone

How much time do you want, for your, “progress”?

I don't trust you any more
You keep on saying "Go slow!"
"Go slow!"
But that's just the trouble
"Do it slow"
Desegregation
"Do it slow"
Mass participation
"Do it slow"
Reunification
"Do it slow"
Do things gradually
"Do it slow"
But bring more tragedy
"Do it slow"
Why don't you see it
Why don't you feel it
I don't know
I don't know
You don't have to live next to me
Just give me my equality

“Mississippi Goddam” was banned in several Southern states. Boxes of promotional singles sent to radio stations around the country were returned with each record broken in half.

Simone performed the song in front of 10,000 people at the end of the Selma to Montgomery marches when she and other black activists, including Sammy Davis Jr., James Baldwin and Harry Belafonte crossed police lines.

Mississippi Goddam – Wikipedia

Further Reading