Please Call Me On My Shit--An Open Letter To My Friends

[marcmagus]

This is coming from a lot of places at once: I've been doing a lot of reading on discussions of privilege, and particularly of the derailing effects of certain common but unfortunate discussion tactics used by privileged persons in conversations about the difficulties of non-privileged persons. I've been doing a lot of thinking of the principle of Own Your Own Shit [I really wish I could remember where I got that one so I could link the essay; it was really good.], particularly as it relates to participation in relationships. I've been doing a lot of work more generally regarding taking responsibility for my life and being more proactive about figuring out what I want it to look like and getting from here to there.

I have a request of my friends. All of you, no matter how close or distant. If you see me fucking up, please call me on it. Calmly and matter-of-factly, point out that I'm fucking up, and possibly why. I may get defensive; I'm saying now that my getting defensive doesn't mean I don't appreciate your calling me on things, it just means that I apparently feel strongly about whatever you've called me on. I'll try to remember to thank you for it after I've calmed down. If I actually don't appreciate what you've said or feel it was hurtful or unhelpful, I will tell you so and calmly ask you to refrain from repeating that behavior--you may take absence of such as tacit affirmation that I appreciate your comment.

This request imposes no responsibilities on anybody: it's still my responsibility to catch my own mistakes and correct them. However, I know that self-awareness can often be difficult, so this is something you can do to help me improve myself, if you want to and are willing to. I won't think of you as less of a friend if you don't, for whatever reason. This constitutes both blanket permission to tell me you think I'm screwing up, and an affirmative statement that I would appreciate it if you do so.

This of course does not give you permission to be a jerk; if I think you're using this as an excuse to be an asshole toward me, well, I'll call you on it, just as I'd hope you would me if I were acting like an asshole toward me.

Please help me grow. Thank you. I love you all.

Comments

[jazzfish]

I've been doing a lot of reading on discussions of privilege

RaceFail, or something else altogether?

Also, I can try, but my own inherent blindnesses are gonna cause me to miss a lot of those.

Which is to say: the same goes for me.

[marcmagus]

Most recently a link off dot_poly_snark [possibly another layer or two of indirection] to a well-written article which doesn't make the mistake so many well-meaning articles seem to of tacitly taking as given that you already know everything they're trying to explain. "Check My What?"

I had some tangential awareness of RaceFail, but wasn't willing to put a lot of time looking into a trainwreck of people being nasty to one another. Amazonfail was more directly on my radar.

It's really just been an accumulation of a lot of discussions in all sorts of places, though.

[I think I started to say more here, but the cable guy came and took me away from the computer for about half an hour and I kind of completely lost track of where I was. Oh, well.]

Of course, while you may not be in the best position to call me on matters of privilege, there are plenty of other aspects of social interaction or just plain life failure that you might catch during the times you're in a position to be aware of my actions.

[mosephine.livejournal.com]

hmmm... this is an interesting request, but one that I think can only truly be accommodated by those who see you in person on a semi-regular basis. I say this because, while I would be happy to help in any way, I often get the sense that you refrain from discussing certain things with me for fear that I will somehow disapprove. it's possible this has changed in the past few years, in the time that we've been less in touch.

just something to consider :). best of luck with this.

[marcmagus]

I have certainly been concerned about your potential disapproval, and I think it has led me to avoid broaching some topics with you in the past. Thinking about it right now, I don't think it's still the case [that my fear of your disapproval would lead me to avoid topics], but we don't talk all that often, so it doesn't come up all that much.

I think that's about our relationship in particular, though. I'm not really sure anymore why I was so concerned with specifically your [dis]approval.

While I see a definite connection between how often I interact with someone and how able they'll be to help me in this way, I'm not sure in-person interaction is necessary. Why do you feel it to be? Also, am I correct in perceiving that you're seeing an advantage to semi-regular communication beyond the obvious that more interaction affords more opportunity? If so, what are you seeing?

[mosephine.livejournal.com]

*soft laugh* the approval of those close to our heart tends to be of particular importance. i do not imagine in the least that you're the only person to have felt such :)

i know that i can be fairly blunt - i do try to be honest but never cruel. what you're now requesting is what i think i always did by default, and my reason for mentioning what i did was so that you might keep it in mind and not accidentally repeat it. it can be difficult to tell people things when their response is one we don't like.

my thought that this might work better with people who see you in person was only that it can be much harder to hide things in person than over sporadic electronic communication. this becomes especially true with people whom you see regularly.

i don't mean any of this to come across as a suggestion that you not pursue this or that it isn't a good idea :). only that for it to be beneficial, you must be aware of the inherent pitfalls.

[marcmagus]

Ah, yeah, thank you. Part of the reason I posted this was so it would act as a reminder for myself not to get upset when people are offering friendly criticism.

As for the who: Yeah, there's a certain set of things that people I interact with a lot in person are going to be way more able to catch than people I occasionally interact with in LJ comments. I think you, knowing me well and in person, are cluing into that aspect of what I'm looking at more than, well, other people might. There's also stuff, such as how I present myself in an online setting, which people who don't know me all that well might be better able to catch (where people who know me well also know how to read what I write as I intended it).

Basically, this is a really blunt tool that I'm pointing at huge swaths of my life in the hope that it might catch something useful. I intentionally posted this in a public comment on LJ in the knowledge that it would apply to a lot of different people who know me in a lot of different ways, because I want it aimed at everything, big, small, social, personal, etc. Which is kind of also why I made a big deal about distinguishing between permission, responsibility, and request.

Thanks. I . . . am sure I'm not aware of all of the pitfalls, but I think it's a good experiment.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

It is moments of self-realization like this that make me love you. That, and a million other things.