How Dare You Not Defer To My Lack Of Self-Possession
People often don’t like the words I say or write because they don’t like the way I say or write them. They don’t like the emotion, intention, passion, and words I use to emphasise all of the above.
In the pages of Scary Mommy, Ms Amber Leventry, a “queer person and educator,” is telling us how it is:
When folks become uncomfortable, they focus on the tone of the words being said and label it as unprofessional, angry, off-putting, or inappropriate. Rather than actually hearing what I’m saying, they try to avoid accountability or problem-solving by advising me to be more approachable or calm. This is tone policing, and it happens most often to marginalised groups and women — especially Black women — and it happens everywhere. It’s bullshit.
At risk of being difficult – and making claims of “bullshit” seem a tad premature – other possibilities come to mind. It is, for instance, generally easier to process calm speech and to formulate a meaningful response. Dealing with agitation and temper isn’t often conducive to mutual understanding, and it’s hard not to be defensive when someone is shouting and swearing at you. Needless to say, fits of vehemence and impatience aren’t the most obvious path to nuance and the clear communication of detail. And it may, of course, be the case that the person doing the shouting and shrieking is simply a bully and accustomed to getting their own way by means of decibels and arm-flailing.
However, Ms Leventry is much too busy to engage with such humdrum possibilities. Instead, we get a hint of the regard in which she holds her peers and employers:
I recently provided a training for K- through third grade teachers about how to make their classrooms more inclusive for transgender and gender nonconforming kids. It was LGBTQIA+ allyship 101. The principal asked me not to swear during the training because some of the elementary school teachers don’t like swearing. This wasn’t a threat; it was an admission that some of her staff would be policing my words and then shutting down if they became offended when I didn’t spoon-feed them G-rated language and in a way that didn’t disrupt their naïve view of the world… Instead of focusing on the content, they would only be able to focus on the tone or package in which the content was delivered.
A pretty good reason, one might think, to prioritise effective communication over any satisfaction to be had in unnerving strangers with incongruous coarseness and bellowed epithets. Assuming, that is, that what matters is the aforementioned content, not adolescent self-indulgence or displays of domination.
This is just one version of tone policing, and it was used to silence and derail the conversation away from the real topic at hand.
Again, readers may have their own views as to which party is needlessly derailing the conversation.
Inevitably, objections to being shouted at, and sworn at, are framed with great haste as a sign of complicity in oppression:
Tone policing happens because it’s too hard for some people to sit in discomfort, acknowledge mistakes, and move toward meaningful conversations and change. Instead of validating the message, tone policing uses thin and privileged excuses to avoid it altogether. Tone-policing is rooted in colonialism and white supremacy.
In short, then, when a suitably black or gay person shouts at you, you “need to be quiet and listen” – and by implication, you should promptly defer, however wrong or ridiculous, or nakedly opportunist, the shouting person may be. You must “validate” their rage, and any incoherence, with lots of silent nodding, before rolling submissively onto your back. Because, being members of a Designated Victim Group, even if irrelevant or based on nothing whatsoever, they matter, and clearly, you don’t. What with all that “privilege” you apparently have. And because reciprocal courtesies just ain’t woke. It’s the progressive pecking order. Know your place.
Update, via the comments:
The lovely Ms Leventry, whose pronouns, we learn, are they and them, has been mentioned here before. As when she boasted of encouraging her own small children to feel hostile and violent towards conservatives and Trump supporters, and to shout profanities at them, randomly, simply for being conservatives and Trump supporters. Because cultivating irrational hatred in children aged seven and nine is a way to combat bigotry, it seems. And she does this while conceding that her own Trump-supporting neighbours have, and I quote, “always been kind to us.” So, not a well woman, or an obvious moral guide.
And it may, of course, be the case that the person doing the shouting and shrieking is simply a bully and accustomed to getting their own way by means of decibels and arm-flailing.
That.
That.
Given its obviousness, it is a little odd that Ms Leventry doesn’t pause, even briefly, to acknowledge the possibility. As so often, we’re expected to believe that no-one with unsavoury motives would ever take advantage of these woke hierarchies and all this leverage – despite the open goal. For all the blather about “critical thinking,” the woke-lings seem to expect devotees to be remarkably credulous.
His/her/it’s private life is no doubt… sparkling.
For all the blather about “critical thinking,” the woke-lings seem to expect devotees to be remarkably credulous.
Submit in willing humiliation.
Or else suffer further humiliation.
“When folks become uncomfortable, they focus on the tone of the words being said and label it as unprofessional, angry, off-putting, or inappropriate. Rather than actually hearing what I’m saying,”
FULL STOP.
IOW, they don’t understand me, and it’s their fault.
This has the ring of an abusive spouse, an alcoholic, or both. It’s the “I’m right and everybody else is wrong” syndrome.
But this is where we are. Anoint yourself as a member of a victim group and rules of civility no longer apply, or at least not to them. I seem to recall that our mere words are considered “violence” to people like Ms. “Fuck you I’ll curse in front of 6-year-old students if I want to” Leventry.
Tone-policing is rooted in colonialism and white supremacy.
TBF, as explained in this handy chart* by another of her general ilk, so is everything.
*(Not a parody)
People often don’t like the words I say or write because they don’t like the way I say or write them. They don’t like the emotion, intention, passion, and words I use to emphasise all of the above.
Sounds like Harlan Ellison, except even more deranged. 😉
“Rather than actually hearing what I’m saying, they try to avoid accountability or problem-solving by advising me to be more approachable or calm. This is tone policing, and it happens most often to marginalised groups and women — especially Black women — and it happens everywhere. It’s bullshit.”
Hey didn’t this actually happen to Paul Rossi – not a black woman IIRCC ? Which David covered here just last week. Not a whiff of double standard here.
(Hits tip jar – just to be safe)
This has the ring of an abusive spouse, an alcoholic, or both.
It doesn’t invite feelings of sympathy for the author, no.
There’s an air of either obliviousness or disingenuousness, or both. I mean, if you were actually concerned that your audience was being distracted or repelled by the way in which you choose to communicate, and that your all-important message was being lost, then the solution seems obvious. I.e., change the way you communicate. In this case, dial back on the shouting and f-bombs. But instead, Ms Leventry presses on regardless, alienating much of her intended audience, as if their expectations of courtesy were unimportant, indeed contemptible, and then blaming them for her own perverse choices.
Of course, if the object is merely to scold people, especially white people, at every possible opportunity – to smear them as oppressors because they’d rather not be sworn at and shouted at by passing lunatics – then it starts to make a kind of sense.
(Hits tip jar – just to be safe)
Bless you. May the state of your lawn attract hushed awe, not the urine of foxes.
Assuming, that is, that what matters is the aforementioned content, not adolescent self-indulgence or displays of domination.
She says she’s an anti-bullying activist but it sounds like she enjoys bullying people.
Helpful Advice: If you shout back, curse and swear at Ms Leventry in her lectures, she will “police” your tone, label you as resisting her truth and report you as noncompliant with training, leading to a summary court-martial and punishment.
Your job as a lecture attendee is to sit quietly, nod and mutter “Amen”, “Tell it, Sister”, and such approbations throughout.
A standing ovation when she stands to begin and another when she concludes would not go amiss.
How is “queer non-binary” not a contradiction? I guess it doesn’t matter if you’re living “you’re own truth.”
Non-binary but pronouns are “they/them”. I’m honearly stumped.
Also in the Twitter photo they/them look remarkably like a younger version of Mark Williams in “suits you sir” mode.
One wonders if it/they/them are part of the Beria branch of the family, also from pictures on duckduckgo their appearance is decidedly Teutonic.
Strong emotions are one of the primary tools of the bully. Some people learn early on that their rage this can set others back on their heels, and they use this to dominate and subdue.
The problem is that this tactic is limited. They soon run into those who know what their game is, and simply don’t put up with it. Thus Leventry’s frustration. My righteous wrath is supposed to be working. Why isn’t it working?
Some people learn early on that their rage this can set others back on their heels, and they use this to dominate and subdue.
I’d imagine most of the readers here have encountered people who use emotional incontinence, whether incongruous tears or disproportionate anger, or a reputation for such, to inhibit criticism or to get their own way. And yet it seems we’re supposed to pretend that such creatures don’t exist. And if they did, would never, ever exploit a golden opportunity.
It seems likely this delightful person wouldn’t take kindly to being told to STFU, something apparently long overdue.
When folks become uncomfortable, they focus on the tone of the words being said and label it as unprofessional, angry, off-putting, or inappropriate.
Well isn’t it? Funny, she’s able to identify all the issues that hurt her communications effectiveness but can’t quite understand how to deal with them. A real head scratcher.
Tone-policing is rooted in colonialism and white supremacy.
Then black-on-black beatdowns and shootings based on “disrespect” are … ?
This lady does this better than you do:
https://collectivecuriosity.quora.com/Why-was-Genghis-Khan-so-successful?ch=10&share=0b786792&srid=1Pk3x
If you really want to sent her/him/it off, turn around and start conversing (calmly) with the person behind you. Also works with Karens.
She says she’s an anti-bullying activist but it sounds like she enjoys bullying people.
As with a lot of today’s “anti-X” stuff, it’s really just X. Thus, “anti-racism” is racist, “antifa” is fascist, etc. Not unlike the way that, for example, a photon is its own antiparticle.
Says Ms. L. in her lectures, “You don’t have to have EXPERIENCED our struggles to BELIEVE our struggles!” as an example of something she might be “tone-policed” for.
To which I might reply, “Not at all. But SHOUTING about your struggles isn’t always the best way to make me CARE about your struggles, either!”
emotional incontinence,
Wasn’t that a Rolling Stones tour?
Right after Steel Wheelchairs…
Harvard epidemiologist in Mao hat wants ‘accountability’ for anti-lockdown academics.
Harvard epidemiologist in Mao hat wants ‘accountability’ for anti-lockdown academics.
He’s got the luvvie head-tilt Tim Blair used to talk about. That expression, though – now I understand what people mean by a “punchable face”.
The poor dog. He looks like he wants to escape.
Oh damn. Pasted the wrong link.
David, could you please replace it with this? Which links to this?
David, could you…
Done.
[ Resumes nonchalant wiping of bar. ]
People often don’t like the words I say or write because they don’t like the way I say or write them. They don’t like the emotion, intention, passion, and words I use to emphasise all of the above.
But enough about accusations of “mansplaining”.
the person doing the shouting and shrieking is simply a bully and accustomed to getting their own way by means of decibels and arm-flailing
Possibly related.
Ya know, with all the various and sundry that has “taken root in colonialism and white supremacy” I’m starting to think the soil there must be incredibly fertile. Maybe we should start a farmers co-op, or a community garden at least.
standing ovation when she stands to begin and another when she concludes
Of course, one should never be the first to stop applauding.
Right, tovarisch?
It occurs to me that this could be an example of the kind of spirited black woman Ms Leventry has in mind.
An educator, of course.
May the state of your lawn attract hushed awe, not the urine of foxes.
One begets the other I’m afraid.
Done.
Thank you, David.
[ dons hair shirt ]
Jonathan/Jessica Yaniv is now pretending to be unable to walk?
Serves xher right for not wearing 2 masks on public transport pst.
Possibly related.
So I got curious what became of Trigglypuff (I know, I’m sick)…anyway, apparently it is on twitter (of course) where apparently it objected to a reference to Cinderella. Why? Because Cinderella triggered it to think of the Holocaust. Why? Because “Cinder. Ashes. Holocaust. How can you not see the link?”.
He’s been using a mobility scooter for some time. I think he’s laying the groundwork for a disability grift.
Possibly a bit chafed after his waxing; makes it hard to walk, I suspect.
He’s been using a mobility scooter for some time…
I didn’t know that.
I think he’s laying the groundwork for a disability grift.
Seems extremely likely. Does he do anything that is not a grift or recreational sadism?
Quite the man-spreading thing he’s got going on there. For all his blather about being a woman, he looks and acts like your bog-standard leftist man, one who definitely has a chip on his shoulder about women. He’s just an opportunistic grifter using the latest lefty trends to bully women and lord it over them like the male chauvinist pig the feminists of yore used yammer on about endlessly.
Decolonization for you! And decolonization for you! Decolonization for everyone!
She could be transported to a magical land where fatness wasn’t just accepted, but celebrated as the highest ideal of beauty. And in that magical land, her joints would still be ground to powder, and she wouldn’t be able to climb a flight of stairs without her heart threatening to explode, because at the end of the day gravity just doesn’t give two shits about what’s trendy or popular.
…training for K- through third grade teachers
If there’s another group that needs to be profanely shouted at I can’t think of who it would be. This educator clearly knows her audience. You have to treat them like a Marine Corps drill instructor would or they won’t learn anything.
She could be transported to a magical land where fatness wasn’t just accepted, but celebrated as the highest ideal of beauty.
Do you mean like the Playboy Mansion?
*(Not a parody)
That chart seems needlessly complicated. I wonder how long it took them to make it?
Do you mean like the Playboy Mansion?
” ‘You have the power to love your body without hesitation,’ David Hasselhoff’s 28-year-old daughter wrote on Instagram alongside her powerful, boundary breaking Playboy Germany cover”
It wasn’t that many years ago that German culture celebrated the beauty of physical fitness.
And it’s funny how all these publicity stunts are “powerful”. Not to mention the implicit assumption that “boundary breaking” is an always and incontrovertibly Good Thing.
Not to mention the implicit assumption that “boundary breaking” is an always and incontrovertibly Good Thing.
Similarly in the 70’s and 80’s with “provocative”. Apparently I was the only one who thought that was stupid. Provoke what? To what end? It always seemed to be being used in reference to certain celebrities as a disingenuous substitute for what a normal person would call “asshole”.
It occurs to me that there’s an awful lot of people in the world who just haven’t been punched in the face often enough.
And their numbers seem to be growing exponentially.
RE: the Genghis Khan article.
There’s some real stupidity in that one.
Mare’s milk is known for inducing diarrhea, even in Europeans, due to the amount of sugar in it. There’s enough sugar in mare’s milk to allow it to ferment into an alcoholic beverage called kumis.
The reference to the “Therefore such an army of 100 000 warriors was more effective than for example the slow-moving Chinese army of 1 Million soldiers with an entourage of at least several hundred thousand.” is another bit of horseshit. The Romans managed to put together a combined military of ~400K soldiers at the height of their empire, which had much better internal communications (due to the Mediterranean sea) than China (even with the Chinese river network) *and* had performed various wars of conquest that provided riches via war booty. (Not *that* booty! Gold, silver, jewels, and slaves.)
There was never a case where all ~400K of Roman soldiers were in the same place. You couldn’t keep them fed nor keep them from being sick. The Chinese couldn’t do that either, movies from China notwithstanding.
Genghis gets much credit for people killed after he himself was already dirt napping. But the 1.2 million Urgenchies in one weekend is rather impressive. Not even the A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki come close. But what does Tamerlane have to do to get the respect he deserves? Sure, Mao killed maybe 60-100 million. But the ol’ Tamerhead took out 5% of the world population.
Of course, if the object is merely to scold people, especially white people, at every possible opportunity – to smear them as oppressors because they’d rather not be sworn at and shouted at by passing lunatics – then it starts to make a kind of sense.
The medium is the message: Ms Leventry hates the people she lectures so she feels justified in abusing them.
She’ll have a civil conversation with a waiter or a hairdresser or a colleague. But, based on her own writing, she is paid to be a professional abuser.
Yes, the article was silly, but the picture was neat.
Fair enough on that point.
There’s silly and there’s stupid; I have no doubt that I’ve provided in these comments a link to something that was superficially neat, but fundamentally stupid.
I guess I’m throwing the second or third stone. looks around nervously
(This is here to ensure that I haven’t screwed up the italics markup in the preview.)
She’ll have a civil conversation with a waiter or a hairdresser or a colleague. But, based on her own writing, she is paid to be a professional abuser.
Increasingly, these professional hectorers, behave as if the live group in front of them isn’t real. So they say whatever they want regardless of how insulting it may be. Several people here have provided examples of what happens when that audience pushes back and gets in the face of the hectorer. Needless to say they don’t like it and they write articles like the one featured here today. In some cases–like academia–they push administrators to inflict punishment.
I read a comment the other day (I forget where) where someone pointed out that the fill-in-the-blank studies grads had to find employment somewhere. It’s like the efficiency consulting grift that was so popular in the 80s and 90s. A way to employ newly minted grads who were otherwise unemployable.
“their naive view of the world”
*snort*
“She says she’s an anti-bullying activist but it sounds like she enjoys bullying people.”
It would seem that “anti-bullying” is not unlike “anti-racism” in that respect.
“Similarly in the 70’s and 80’s with “provocative”. Apparently I was the only one who thought that was stupid. Provoke what? To what end?”
“If it provokes a reaction, it must be doing something right”. I used to joke that you could provoke a reaction by poking people with a stick, but it doesn’t make it art. However, looking at some of the things we’ve seen over the years here, I wouldn’t put it past some of them these days.
Increasingly, these professional hectorers, behave as if the live group in front of them isn’t real.
This. Modern media makes it easy to turn other people into objects. Modern social media makes it easy to turn other people into various kinds of NPCs. So Ms Levantry spends all this time studying and, probably, on the internet turning masses of people into objects to be hated. Then she takes a job educating those objects. Without effort or applied intelligence it’s entirely likely she behaves this way because she has come to see those K-3 teachers as racist oppressors who deserve all the bad things she can dish out unless they remain prostrate before her lecturing.
I see T-shirts: “Gravity doesn’t give two shits for your fat acceptance”
We need to bring back face-slapping as an appropriate response to deliberately offensive behaviour.
Being stupid has to hurt. If it doesn’t hurt, people won’t stop being stupid.
Being stupid has to hurt. If it doesn’t hurt, people won’t stop being stupid.
When folks become uncomfortable, they focus on the tone of the words being said and label it as unprofessional, angry, off-putting, or inappropriate.
You left out “micro-aggression,” Ms. Leventry. The most popular form of “tone policing” is to accuse the speaker of committing a micro-aggression. Of course, no one will ever do that to you, because there’s nothing micro about shouting and swearing at people. It’s just aggression. Words like “bullying” and “intimidation” would also be appropriate. These are very useful tactics if you want “to silence and derail the conversation away from the real topic at hand.”
Back to Amber Leventry, I think she makes a valid point.
If you invite someone so obviously toxic to spout malignant nonsense at your staff, making a fuss about the risk of her saying “fuck” is missing the point by quite a distance.
It’s like inviting Ghengis Khan and his entourage around for tea, but fretting that the horses might make a mess of your drive.
@ Joe Ego: speaking of scolds, I see that the great scold, legend in her own mind and famous epidemiologist Greta Thunberg has instructed the world that it is ‘”unethical” that young people at low-risk from COVID in rich nations are being vaccinated before health care workers in low-income countries.
“The only morally right thing to do is to prioritize the people who are the most vulnerable, no matter whether they live in a high-income country or a low-income country.”‘
I disagree: if the first world countries which have the ability to produce vaccines don’t take care of their own and thus become dysfunctional, then where will third world countries get support, whether funding or vaccines?
The most popular form of “tone policing” is to accuse the speaker of committing a micro-aggression.
That.
if the first world countries which have the ability to produce vaccines don’t take care of their own and thus become dysfunctional,then where will third world countries get support, whether funding or vaccines?
Exactly. Just like the flight attendants tell you to put on your own air mask first before helping anybody else during an emergency.
She says she’s an anti-bullying activist but it sounds like she enjoys bullying people.
Ms Leventry, lest we forget, is someone who boasts of encouraging her own small children to feel hostile and violent towards conservatives and Trump supporters, and to shout profanities at them, randomly, simply for being conservatives and Trump supporters. Because cultivating irrational hatred in children aged seven and nine is the way to combat bigotry, apparently.
And she does this while conceding that her own Trump-supporting neighbours have, and I quote, “always been kind to us.”
So, not a well woman, or an obvious moral guide.
A headline in The Age newspaper in Melbourne, Aust. [progressive!!!] suggests that if the outcome of jury deliberations in the Derek Chauvin case is anything less than guilty of murder, there will be a nation wide BBQ [‘America will go up in flames’] and, no doubt, a free ‘shopping spree’ [also known as looting] for all interested in availing themselves of goods ‘on offer’ in any store anywhere in the country. [I do hope store owners are boarding up their windows and even stripping their shelves of wide-screen TVs and fancy running shoes and putting them in safe storage.]
If I was living in any Democrat controlled city I would be stocking up on food and ammunition so I didn’t have to leave the house for the duration of the riots that people like Maxine Waters are promoting. [I know that defending one’s property with firearms upsets certain inner-city ‘citizens’ who consider looting their Right, but I support the A-rabs and the Koreans in standing armed guard over their properties to discourage looters.]
also known as looting
Remember comrade it is now known as material liberation
And because reciprocal courtesies just ain’t woke. It’s the progressive pecking order. Know your place.
That.
That.
Ms Leventry’s ideological peers are quite explicit on this point. Indeed, they’re self-satisfied and prideful, and seem astonished, outraged, when mere mortals object or point out basic errors in their assumptions.
It’s the egalitarian way.
[I do hope store owners are boarding up their windows…]
Yes, they are. And Governor Pritzker has activated the Illinois National Guard.
Oh damn. I screwed up my links again, David. Sorry about that. No more commenting before fully awake!
[ spends the rest of the day nervously looking over shoulder for the henchlesbians ]
I disagree: if the first world countries which have the ability to produce vaccines don’t take care of their own and thus become dysfunctional, then where will third world countries get support, whether funding or vaccines?
On the one hand, yes. On the other hand first world countries should be dealing with this situation more intelligently, leading to plenty of capacity for foreigners, and not selling experimental vaccines so hard that young people would be clamoring for them. But after all no masks then lockdowns then required masks then golly-gee-two-masks-are-a-great-idea then even harder lockdowns — I’m just going to roll my eyes at the whole thing while keeping my family as unaffected as possible.
And somewhere on a third hand that doesn’t exist and, by extension, doesn’t matter at all are my concerns about Greta’s third world countries. The businesses and governments involved will all follow their plans to make as much money and grab as much power as possible and pay about as much attention to some FAS scandi activist as me.
And somewhere on a third hand that doesn’t exist…
Your Fyunch(click) looks significantly at its third hand, raises eyebrow, and looks significantly at you.