All throughout my education in rhetoric, we focus on the rhetor’s faculty to find available means of persuasion, and rarely is anger amongst those means that are deemed effective. But we hardly ever focus on the audience’s moral responsibility to pay attention to evidence. Instead, (and this is not from my formal education), I see time and time again the dismissal: you’re too angry. Or the ad hominen attack: you’re just a victim! Or a hermeneutics of suspicion that’s pretty anti-intellectual: you have an personal agenda of (fill in the blank).

Of course, rhetoric would be unnecessary if we could all get outside of our subject positions and simply observe evidence and draw objective truths from it. But I think there is a moral responsibility to pay attention to evidence and to change based on that evidence. How then, do we listen to those who are angry?

I wish fishing through my blog for older posts on anger, and I came across this statement from Audre Lorde: “When we turn from anger we turn from insight, saying we will accept only the designs already known, deadly and safely familiar” (131).

Lord, Audre. “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism.” Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde. Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1984. 124-133.

This letter will be angry. I won’t apologize for any vitriol or confrontation here. I don’t believe that we can have honest public discussions without being confrontational.

My anger comes from hearing, with dismay, about a party last weekend themed “Cowboys and Indians.”

I don’t know a lot about this party, other than it was hosted by a visibly white student at OSU who identifies as gay. I don’t know a lot about who attended this party other than the host, as well as a few people I recognized in Facebook pictures. I don’t know whether the party was attended by mostly lesbian and gay students, mostly straight students, mostly white students or whom.

Frankly, I find that the party happened at all abhorrent. But I mention the host’s sexuality because I am concerned with the connections between white gay identity and representations of minorities by white culture.

I believe that representations of people of color and of queer folk have a common grounding in a largely white, straight society that denies these communities their rights to self-determination.

I feel it is incumbent upon me to write this column. I could easily sit back and not express my public outrage at this party. I could easily move on and pretend this party and the racist images evoked there do not affect me.

But to wait for a person of color to express outrage at these actions is to deny my responsibility as a white person to combat racism. It is to put the burden (again and again!) on people of color to educate white people.

Yes, I used the term “racist.” Yes, I believe that for a white person to host a party themed “Cowboys and Indians” is racist.

This is because I believe there are two things that every group in this world should have the right to: dignity and self-determination.

And I believe that dressing up as “Indians” at a party harms a group of people’s right to self-determination.

The self-determination of Native Americans has historically, and is still today, under assault. Look at the mainstream media and ask how are Native Americans represented.

It was the stereotype of the University of Illinois mascot until February 2007. It is the savage Indian of Westerns. It is the sole Indian princess wearing a headdress in Disney World’s “It’s a Small World.”

Who creates these images? Not Native Americans. They are created by universities, movie studios and other institutions owned and controlled by white people.

There is no self-determination for Native Americans when white people portray what a Native American looks and acts like. White people have created a near monopoly on the mainstream representations of people of color.

And your party, asking folks to dress up like caricatures of Native Americans, is perpetuating the historical representations of racist images created and perpetuated by white society.

I am sure that you would say your party is ironic, that you knew these representations were racist, but you did it out of absurdity. I would reply that you are refusing to deal with your white privilege.

I am sure that you would say that this party is okay because some people of color attended and dressed up in this parody of Native American garb. I would reply that this claim ignores that people of color can be implicated in racism against other people of color.

Why, I am sure you would ask, does the sexuality of the host and guests matter?

This is because, in case you missed it, dominant straight culture has for the last century defined what it means to be queer: a deviancy diagnosable as a mental disorder, the eunuch Will and the flamboyant queen Jack, the myths that queers are pedophiles, that bisexuals are just sex-starved sluts, that gay men have innate fashion sense, that trannies are perverts, that lesbians just need to have sex with the right man.

This list could continue. The point is that historically and currently, dominant culture represents and defines the lives of people of color and of queer people. Dominant culture has, in effect, taken away these groups’ rights to self-determination.

And you, as white, as part of the dominant paradigm (as much as you might deny it because of your gayness), are implicated in this when you throw a party themed “Cowboys and Indians.”

At a time when people of color and queers need each other to battle systemic oppression, you dress up as a “savage,” you dress up like a “squaw.”

I would hope that you could see the connections between racist depictions and homophobic depictions. I would hope that you understand that to build alliances with people of color, whether straight or queer, you need to show that you are actively anti-racist.

At the very least, I would hope that your selfishness would make you see that in order to fight our society’s demonizing of queerness, you need the alliances of as many people as you can.

I am not surprised when many people of color do not support gay rights, do not join in gay marches and/or do not trust gay people as allies. I cannot be surprised when white queers like you choose to throw parties with racist imagery.

At the very least: you’re queer. You’ve been forced to be creative with your sexuality. At least be creative with your parties. “Cowboys and Indians”? It’s a cliché! It’s as trite as the heterosexism you should be combating.

To my white lesbian and gay siblings, show me I can trust you to stand up against racism. Show me I can trust you to listen when I tell you your actions hurt other people.

Show me that there is hope that white gays and lesbians can see the consequences of their actions and choose to ally themselves with other marginalized folks, instead of identifying themselves with a dominant culture that not only demeans people of color, but also hates and demeans queers.

ABSTRACT:

In my presentation, I will examine the reaction on liberal blogs to conservative pundit Ann Coulter’s “joke” at the 2007 Conservative Political Action Conference in which she called John Edwards a “faggot.” While the discourse from conservative pundits surrounding gender and sexuality is in itself interesting, the reaction of liberals to Coulter’s homophobic remark are of particular interest, as they have labeled Coulter herself a “tranny,” an “ugly dude,” and “gayer than gay” (among other disparaging remarks) in blog posts and comments to those posts. When feminists confront this liberal discourse as homophobic and sexist, the defense for these insults is often a claim of “parody” to point out the “absurdity” of Coulter’s discourse. Additionally, bloggers claim that their words are not harmful because they are not made at a political conference, but rather on “private” blogs, implying a private/public split that minimizes the potential of civic dialogue on blogs as public discourse. The conception of blogs as private rather than public also allows for the privatization of institutional homophobia and sexism and the absolution of institutional power by straight men. Using Judith Butler’s concept of resignification, I argue that these “parodies,” while perhaps parodic, fail to take into account audience and the marginalized groups harmed, and in fact only serve to strengthen a liberal, straight male bond that continues to exclude women and queer folk from public discourse.

TALK

Most of you are probably aware of Ann Coulter’s homophobic comment directed at John Edwards at the Conservative Political Action Conference in March of this year, but to remind you, I’ll start by quoting her: “I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, um, but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you’ve use the word ‘faggot,’ so I’m — so I’m kind of at an impasse, I can’t really talk about Edwards….” I begin by quoting Coulter not because I find her “joke” particularly interesting; though unfortunate, it seems fairly typical of Coulter’s ad hominem attacks and homophobic and sexist rhetoric from the Right. While I think Coulter’s rhetoric is worth studying, as David Elder discussed in his talk yesterday, I’d rather focus on the reaction to Ann Coulter by liberal men. What I find more interesting is the reaction to her comment, and to Coulter’s gender performance, by self-identifying liberals, mostly men, on the liberal blogosphere. Today, I’d like to briefly discuss the comments left by liberals on blogs in response to Coulter and her sex and gender performance, and to discuss the defense of such comments and the implications of these defenses — particularly in regards to an inclusive public sphere and issues of privacy and publicity.

The liberal blog Think Progress reported Coulter’s comments the same day as the conference, offering little commentary, other than links to previous homophobic comments made by Coulter and links to a few other blogs that discuss Coulter’s comments. 923 comments and trackbacks were left on this Think Progress post in March and April. Many of those comments resorted to disparaging Coulter’s gender and sex performance, usually in sexist or homophobia terms. A sampling:

“Dude looks like a lady…” — Elliot Moore, March 2

“tranny + skank = trank?” — Chimpeach, March 2

“That Coulter guy sure is an ugly dude.” — And You Thought REAGAN Was Stupid, March 2

“Last time I checked, Edwards was happily married. Mann Coulter is single. And her Adam’s Apple is bulging in that photo. So who’s the faggot?” — Tom3, March 2

“Trannie Annie! [...] Annie [is] still a boy!! Time for sexual re-assignment surgery! And get rid of that nasty adam’s apple sweetie! You’re supposed to be a woman! She’s a He! He’s a She!” — TWEB, March 2

Other comments on Think Progress include references to Coulter as a “hag,” a “cunt,” a “female impersonator,” and a “bitch.” On Wonkette, a snarky blog that often mocks politics, comments followed similar lines, including calling Coulter “Trannie Annie” and a claim that she “has a HUGE pair of balls. She shaves them daily.” Of course, these type of ad hominem attacks on Coulter are nothing new. For example, a Google search for “trannie annie” and “coulter” reveals 118 websites, including comments on other blog posts, such a 2005 post on Brad Friedman’s liberal The Brad Blog. I’d also like to stress that these comments are not taking nuanced feminist stances in discussing Coulter as a man in drag — that is, as a woman who is identifying with male power — but are instead often resorting to name-calling. While these attacks, I believe, are always inexcusable, they become even more problematic in light of their recent context: They are, in the instances I am discussing today, in response to Coulter’s homophobic remark. It appears that, on the surface, these online citizens have decided that the best response to Coulter is to confront homophobia and sexism with homophobia, sexism, and transphobia.

Though I find this reading accurate (these comments are homophobic, sexist, and transphobic), most commenters, when confronted with this accusation, deny it and defend their rhetoric or resort to ad hominem or ethical attacks targeted at those who point out their apparent hypocrisy. For example, comments like these were confronted by a remark left by ‘beefeater” on the Think Progress post, who points out that posters had called out Coulter for her ad homimen attacks. “beefeater”’s post then reads: “And the next 40 posts go ad homoniem [sic]. Now that’s funny” (comment #62). Rather than take this remark for its face value and interrogate their own discourse, commenters on Think Progress turned to ethical attacks on beefeater, implying that beefeater’s comment was not valid because he or she was conservative (which appears unfounded), and then ridiculing his or her username and the possible homoeroticism behind it.

In fact, these liberal commenters often made the assumption that anyone who called them out on this type of language was a conservative. On my own blog post regarding this topic, where I quoted a critique from the feminist blog I Blame the Patriarchy in March, a commenter who called himself “Howard Davis” wrote, “This posting is a joke right? Ann Coulter makes the homophobic remark, yet it is the “liberals” fault for homophobia? Do you right-wingers accept responsibility for anything you do? Ever?” (Faris et al.) — making the assumption that because I was critiquing the discourse of liberals that I therefore must be a conservative, and that my viewpoint is invalid.

“snozzberry” is another commenter who objected to the transphobic comments directed at Coulter, and was very quickly accused of being a conservative. Once snozzberry later revealed his, her, or hir progressive politics more explicitly on Think Progress, other commenters continued ethical attacks instead of taking this critique seriously, including calling snozzberry a “snob.” This is in line with other comments that accused critics of “complaining” or “whining,” or that, in the grand scheme of things, their concerns about this language against Coulter doesn’t matter.

Resorting to calling other commenters conservative and dismissing their concerns is only one of the ways in which commenters respond to critiques, though. Just as often commenters defended their discourse as somehow parodic of Ann Coulter and therefore justified. Some claim that by using “tranny,” as well as other such words, they are not using it as a “slur,” but rather as a “joke” to point out Coulter’s absurdity. A few even claim that they are attempting to “out” Coulter as transgender and it is perfectly fine to call her a tranny, as if they know her gender and sex identity because of her body and gender performance. Commenter “Gary” wrote on my blog post, “Unless you’re actually in danger of harm, making fun of someone’s homophobia by accusing them of being homo is hilarious. ESPECIALLY when you aren’t a homophobe, and even funnier when you’re gay yourself.” Other comments left at Think Progress imply that these slurs are not making fun of transgender folks, but are instead making fun of Ann Coulter. The logic seems to be similar to the logic behind resignification, as described by Judith Butler and others: that one can make a citation in a different context in order to give it a different meaning.

However, what these commenters who call Coulter a “tranny” fail to take into account when attempting this parody or resignification is audience. Certainly, these parodies do work as parodies within certain audiences: straight, cisgender men can use these parodies in order to poke fun at Coulter and point out how ridiculous and irrational her discourse is. However, when the audience is a wider than solely straight, cisgender men, the act of parody no longer works, and sends a message to many women, queer folk, and trans folk that they are not included in this public discourse. In “Critically Queer,” Butler shares her reading of the resignification in Paris is Burning by drag queens; according to Butler, the audience of a speech act matters greatly, and the citations made by the drag queens in the film serve as speech acts to create bonds among those drag queens. We might view the slurs launched at Coulter in a similar way: it is a bonding mechanism among straight, liberal cisgender men in order to solidify a group identity.

When I tried to discuss the matter of audience on my own blog with a few commenters, I was met with serious resistance. “Gary” brought up another interesting situation that might elucidate these blog commenters’ general misunderstanding of audience. He cited Larry Flynt’s “Asshole of the Month” feature in Hustler, in which the magazine placed the face of a public figure like Jerry Falwell coming out of a cartoon donkey’s butt. This act, “Gary” said, works because Falwell finds it offensive, not because it is an attack on the rear-ends of donkeys. “Gary” states that “the jokes against Coulter are of that ilk. Crude, but meant to offend HER, not others.”

I partially agree with Gary’s reading of the “Asshole of the Month”: this act does not work as a denigration of donkeys. But “Gary” misses the primary audience of this monthly feature: Hustler readers who are, generally, straight men who would disagree with the censorship of pornography that Falwell supports. This image does not work because Falwell finds it offensive, but because readers of Hustler assume he will find it offensive and can bond — at least through the medium of print — over their mutual contempt of censorship of pornography. Similarly, Ann Coulter does not read these comments left on blogs (though perhaps she does, she is not he primary audience). The primary audience is other liberals who are contributing to the comments section or who simply read through them. They bond over their mutual contempt over Coulter, and rather than do so through rational-critical discourse, they choose to do so by tossing slurs at her, thereby excluding anyone from this bond who finds slurs like “tranny,” “faggot,” “dyke,” and “bitch” offensive.

As queer theorist Michael Warner points out in “Publics and Counterpublics,” “the kind of public that comes into being only in relation to texts and their circulation” (50) “is a relation among strangers,” “is self-organized,” and “exists by virtue of being addressed” (60, 50, 55, emphasis original). Publics are also addressed in both personal and impersonal terms, meaning that there is an identification process between the reader and the text (57). When the liberal male contributors to these comments use slurs, a certain identification process takes place among those readers, I assume: they identify with the use of these slurs to denigrate someone else. Those who don’t use those slurs in denigrating ways (feminist women, queers, and transfolk) dis-identify with the public and are excluded. The use of these slurs, then, not only shows a misunderstanding of audience, but also a misunderstanding of publics.

This misunderstanding of publics is an important aspect of the defense of the use of these slurs. When confronted with arguments against calling Coulter a “tranny,” “bitch,” or “faggot,” many commenters claimed that their comments did not carry any weight because they were not public. On my blog, “Gary” urged me to not compare Coulter’s “very public and official statements delivered at a major conservative political conference, attended by Presidential candidates” to “freewheeling commentary” made by “private bloggers.” On Think Progress, a comment left by “Justice” offered a critique:

“So why all the anti-transgendered remarks by all you purported liberals who purport to give a damn about queers? Coulter’s remarks are unremarkable for their consistent ugliness, but all this trashing of her appearance and questioning of her gender are only part of the same stupid hate she displays so brilliantly. Get a clue and make a real difference in this world, or shut the hell up.” — Justice, March 2

This sparked comments in defense of private “talk” that does not have the publishing and official political backing that Coulter’s discourse does. “Bluedog49” writes, “Hey Justice, talk is talk. Public policy is more important” and in a later comment adds “I think the only difference is that liberals are speaking to power and people like Coulter are speaking for power.” “Cory,” who identifies himself as a gay man, adds, “after all I’m not in the press or writing books and my words are only shared privately online between people who can understand where my anger comes from.” The assumption here is that a blog post, which can be read by anyone who has access to the Internet, is a private space. This assumption also weakens the agency of these very comments for creating change through public discourse: instead of viewing these comments as acts in a public space, where these commenters can engage in civic discourse, the view is that they are private and the commenters have little or no power to help to shape public discourse. This view also limits the possibilities for online discourse to be a part of public debate on issues and to actually affect policy and consciousness.

When liberal men deny the power of their words on a blog because they view it as a “private” space, we —those of us who are committed to inclusive civic discourse — need to consider how we can call into question notions of privacy and publicity. In “A Semiotics of the Private/Public Distinction,” feminist Susan Gal notes how, because of the fractal nature of the public/private dichotomy, one’s situation can determine whether an act or place is considered private or public. A blog is much like the sidewalk in front of a store or the living room that Gal describes. A sidewalk appears public to most, but then, when a storeowner is sweeping it, it becomes a private space: a place that the storeowner must tend. A living room is often viewed as private inside a private space (the house), but once guests are involved, the living room becomes public in comparison to the rest of the house. If two guests whisper to each other in the public living room, there is a private space within this public space that is still within the private space of the house. It seems that a blog is much the same way: either private or public based on one’s perspective. The act of reading and writing a blog is possibly a private one: sitting alone at one’s computer in one’s home. But also, it is public, with an unlimited readership.

How then, among many questions, do we unmask the public aspect of online discourse? What type of space is a blog, what type of discourse is helpful, and who is included? It seems to me that these liberal blogs like Think Progress are often debased into private spheres akin to high school boys’ locker rooms, where, if memory serves me correctly, women are not allowed and queers and transgender folks are criminal. Additionally, it is disconcerting to consider that some of these liberal men who leave these comments feel they are “speaking to power” while Coulter is “speaking for power.” Comments like these not only deny the commenter’s agency as someone engaged in public discourse, but also deny the institutional power that men are granted qua men in our society.

I’d like to return to “Gary”’s comment that I quoted earlier, that these jokes toward Ann Coulter (or others who are homophobic) are funny “Unless you’re actually in danger of harm.” It seems here that another serious concern that feminist, queer, and trans activists must take into account is what constitutes harm and how to convey a different understanding of harm than the traditional concern for bodily harm — that is, an understanding that harm to dignity is important. As I re-read these comments, I also read comments from women, queers, and trans folk that state that these words harm them, but these claims seemed to go unaddressed, or if they are, they are dismissed as overly sensitive. On my blog, I too tried to confront “Gary” by referring to his use of the word “harm” and insisting that harm to dignity was important to take into consideration. I linked the use of “tranny” and “faggot” being hurled at Ann Coulter to the use of these terms on the school-yard and how, if they are coming from straight men, they are generally not well received by queer or trans folk. However, “Gary”’s response might well have been a “boys will be boys” reply. He writes in response: “I doubt you will ever see the end of teasing and competition in schoolyards and the adult equivalents of those places, especially when testosterone is involved. Those who do not conform will always have to develop a tougher skin.” Rather than continue in discourse about what type of harm we should prevent (in my view, harm to dignity as well as physical harm), “Gary” chose to continue in the naturalizing discourse that we will always be cruel to each other and that it is incumbent upon the targets of the cruelty to “develop a tougher skin.” It seems that here, even when people testify to the harm done to them by these words, liberals fall back on discussions of rights (such as the right to say what one wants) rather than discussions of dignity.

So, I’d like to attempt to wrap these various ideas together in a conclusion. I have to admit that I was infuriated as I read and re-read these comments and wrote this talk — that the acts of reading and writing about this topic evokes an embodied response in me. That someone would deny that “tranny” is a slur, or not understand that the term is contextual and should only be used in certain context (“redployed” in Butler’s terms [“Critically Queer”]) is beyond upsetting. That liberals, who generally espouse tolerance and acceptance of difference, cannot understand when someone else says that a word hurts them, breaks my heart. That the side of the political fence that most lays claim to rational-critical discourse falls repeatedly into ad hominem attacks and can’t move beyond attacking Coulter’s body and gender performance and into thoughtful discussions of bodies, gender, homophobia, and transphobia, is distressful. As a scholar of online media and public spheres, I am hopeful for the potential of online discourse for affecting change, but online discussions such as these reaffirm my beliefs that perhaps political scientist Richard Davis is correct in The Web of Politics, where he writes that the Internet may in fact exacerbate power differences: “The gap between the politically active and the inactive will grow larger. The Internet will offer greater advantages to a political elite while simultaneously erecting another barrier to participation for those who are uninterested and uninvolved” (Davis 184). By the word “uninvolved,” I understand it to mean those historically and currently excluded from most civic discourse: women, queer folk, and transgender folk.

My critiques here are not necessarily new; they echo concerns voiced by many other feminists: the exclusion of women, as well as queer and trans folk, from public debate; the way objections to masculinist discourse are dismissed out of hand by many men; the continued ways in which those who claim to be allies for women and queers do not listen to the concerns of women and queers; the focus on the gendered bodies of women public figures instead of on their verbal discourse; the liberal dichotomy of public and private that often relegates issues and discourse important to public discussion to the private arena. The same questions that have bothered feminists and democratic theorists since the beginning of these movements remain: How can we effectively change discourse in public arenas so that listening is a central aspect of civic discourse? How do we develop public spaces in which we engage in hermeneutics based on listening, rather than a hermeneutics of suspicion in which claims by feminists, as well as by conservatives (or supposed conservatives), are not dismissed out of hand because of the identity of the speaker or writer? How can the public sphere become more inclusive? How can we develop a public sphere that is based more on rational argument and less on denigrating the bodies of others? And, as feminist commenters on Twisty’s blog I Blame the Patriarchy ask, how do we confront others when we are angry or even outraged at what appears to many of us as blatant misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia?

These last questions echo the questions asked by Krista Ratcliffe in her keynote address yesterday. She asks how we are to “listen rhetorically and get others to hear,” as well as how we can “have civil discourse when others aren’t civil.” Ratcliffe suggests continuing to reframe ideas in ways that can help others hear, an important tactic for keeping alive the idea of success. I like Ratcliffe’s focus on success, as well as her stress on agency, belief, possibility, and hope. It seems that there must be some hope for change, as many who make sexist, homophobic, or transphobic comments directed at Coulter continue to engage in dialogue with those question their discourse. I too am considering a conversation I had with a feminist professor and friend as I was explaining this talk to her. She asked me, rightly so, I think, why I was more outraged at liberals who call Ann Coulter a “bitch” or “tranny” than I was at conservative pundits who use similar language. This outrage, I think, comes from the dissonance between the expectations liberals have set for themselves and the actions and words I see from them (and of course, I do not mean all liberals when I state this). My friend stressed the importance to me of radical feminist and queer communities to try to find ways to make alliances with liberalism because of the high ideals of liberalism: valuing difference, liberty, rational discourse, and inclusion. Perhaps it is by calling attention to these ideals — and adhering to them ourselves — that we can engage in discourse that calls into question discourse that serves to exclude others from public arenas of discourse.

Works Cited

“Ann Coulter Says Something Provokizzzzzzzzzz.” Wonkette. 2 March 2007. 4 October 2007 http://wonkette.com/politics/ann-coulter/ann-coulter-says-something-provokizzzzzzzzzz-241224.php.

Butler, Judith. “Critically Queer.” Play with Fire: Queer Politics, Queer Theories. Ed. Shane Phelan. New York: Routledge, 1997. 11-29.

“Coulter: I Would Talk About Edwards But ‘You Have To Go Into Rehab If You Use The Word “Faggot.”’” Think Progress. 2 March 2007. 4 October 2007 http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/02/coulter-edwards/”.

Davis, Richard. The Web of Politics: The Internet’s Impact on the American Political System. New York: Oxford UP, 1999.

Faris, Michael, et al. “Anne Coulter Strikes Again; Thousands of Liberals are Just Like Her.” Sispyphean Task: Electronic Surgical Words. 3 March 2007. 4 October 2007 http://sisypheantask.blogspot.com/2007/03/anne-coulter-strikes-again-thousands-of.html.

Friedman, Brad, et al. “Exclusive: Conservative Group Denounces Ann Coulter!” The Brad Blog. 10 October 2005. 4 October 2007 http://www.bradblog.com/?p=1940.

Gal, Susan. “A Semiotics of the Public/Private Distinction.” Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 13.1 (2002): 77-95.

Twisty, et al. “Liberal Dudewatch ’07: Their Forbidden Love for Ann Coulter.” I Blame the Patriarchy. 2 March 2007. 4 October 2007 http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/2007/03/03/liberal-dudewatch-07-commentary-on-commentary/.

Warner, Michael. “Publics and Counterpublics.” Public Culture 14.1 (2002): 49-90.

In this month’s issue of College English, Donna LaCourt (of U-Mass Amherst) provides an interesting essay about the institution of class as replicated in the composition classroom and the university. She worries that many classrooms that focus on the difference between working class discourse and academic discourse, by seeing them as fully separate and oppositional, are failing working class students by “[reinforcing] the idea that class is a static identity category written into student bodies and minds, something that can only be ‘lost’ or ‘replaced’” (33).

LeCourt wants to view class as Judith Butler views gender: it is a performance. She quotes Piere Bourdieau:

Difference is everywhere. And in the United States, every day some new piece of research appears showing diversity where one expected to see homogenieity, conflict where one expected to see consensus, reproduction and conservation where on expected to see mobility. Thus, diffference (which I express in describing social space) exists and persists. But does this mean that we must accept or affirm the existence of classes? No. Social classes do not exist[...]. What exists is a social space, a spacce of differences, in which classes exist in some sense in a state of virtuality, not as something givven but as something to be done (qtd in LeCourt 38, emphasis Bourdieu’s)

LeCourt claims “we need a perspective on class that recognizes that it is always under construction, always being negotiated, and always felt and enacted in relation to other classes, discourses, and power structures” (45). In her classroom, she tries to “present writing as a constantly moving target, one where style, genre, and most important, author position are constantly changing and continually open to multiple options” (47).

LeCourt’s discussion seems helpful to me in beginning to understand class differently. It makes a lot of sense to view class as a performance, as something negotiable, something which I am becoming, performing. Pedagogically, it also makes sense to not so much focus on these supposed inherent differences between working class discourse and academic discourse. Indeed, I think they are both founded on argument (I am reading, off and on, Graff’s work Clueless in Academe, which argues pretty well that academic discourse is simply a certain style of argument that gets obfuscated by our inability to articulate how it works to our students).

LeCourt notes that her working class father makes arguments based on research in academic magazines, but that because of his working class discourse community, he doesn’t cite his sources like academics do. I think this is pretty interesting — a friend of mine has complained about the need in academics to cite sources. Why can’t an argument just be mine? he asks. This is, of course, common sense. Why can’t we just say what we want to say. Of course, academic conversations are about the conversation and situating yourself within that conversation.

One last thing, before I wrap up this little montage of reflections on LeCourt’s essay. Because I am interested in anger, I want to key in on what Vicki, a student LeCourt quotes, writes:

By the time I was nineteen I was angry about a lot of things. I felt certain that if only I hadn’t grown up in Ohio, if only my father wasn’t a car salesman, if only I had come from a different set of circumstances, I might have been part of some ivy league that would help me skate through my life. It seemed to me that my education had been deficient in some way. (40)

This rings so true for me, and for many working class students attempting to get out or climb the class ladder who are frustrated that they don’t seem to get it. I remember the anger I used to feel because Mom and Dad didn’t seem to understand how college worked, because they didn’t give the same type of support that my middle class friends received, because their house was filthy and others were spotless. This anger has subsided a bit, or rather been transfered, to anger at a system that created such structures, and that relies on the internalized hatred for many working class folks.

LeCourt, Donna. “Performing Working-Class Identity in Composition: Toward a Pedagogy of Textual Practice.” College English 69.1 (Sept. 2006): 30-51.

“I don’t like to talk about hate. I don’t like to remember the cancellation and hatred, heavy as my wished-for death, seen in the eyes of so many white people from the time I could see. It was echoed in newspapers and movies and holy pictures and comic books and Amos ‘n Andy radio programs. I had no tools to dissect it, no language to name it” (147).

“sometimes it seems that anger alone keeps me alive; it burns with a bright and undiminished flame. Yet anger, like guilt, is an incomplete form of human knowledge. More useful than hatred, but still limite. Anger is used to help clarify our differences, but in the long run, strength that is bred by anger laone is a blind force which cannot create the future. It can only demolish the past. Such strength does not focus upon what created it — hatred. And hatred is a deathwish for the hated, not a lifewish for anything else” (152).

I really like how Lorde views emotions as knowledge. I once had a philosophy professor tell me that if I couldn’t articulate something with words, I didn’t truly know it. I immediately resented this. Can’t I know something with my body? Where are the words for pain? Does a child who is hated for being Black know the words for that hate? Isn’t our vocabular too regimented by hegemonic forces to truly allow us to represent what we know with our hearts and bodies?

Lorde finishes her essay powerfully:

Until now, there has been little that taught us how to be kind to each other. To the rest of the world, yes, but not to ourselves. There have been few external examples of how to treat another Black woman with kindness, deference, tenderness or an appreciative smile in passing, just because she IS; an understanding of each other’s shortcomings because we have beeen somewhere close to that, ourselves. When last did you compliment another sister, give recognition to her specialness? We have to consciously study how to be tender with each other until it becomes a habit because what was native has been stolen from us, the love of Black women for each other. But we can practice being gentle with ourselves by geing gentle with each other. We can practice being gentle with each other by being gentle with that peice of ourselves that is hardest to hold, by giving more to the brave bruised girlchild within each of us, by expecting a little less from her gargantuan efforts to excel. We can love her in the light as well as in the darkness, quiet her frenzy toward perfection and encourage her attentions toward fulfillment. Maybe then we will come to appreciate more how much she has taught us, and hwo much she is doing to keep this world revolving toward some livable future.

It would be ridiculous to believe that this process is not lenghty and difficult. It is suicidal to believe it is not possible. As we arm ourselves with ourselves and each other, we can stand toe to toe inside that rigorous loving and begin to speak the impossible — or what has always seemed like the impossible — to one another. The first step toward genuine change. Eventually, if we speak the truth to each other, it will become unavoidable to ourselves. (175)

Lorde, Audre. “Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred, and Anger.” Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde. Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1984. 145-175.

My response to racism is anger. I have lived with that anger, ignoring it, feeding upon it, learning to ue it before it laid my visions to waste, for most of my life. Once I did it in silence, afraid of the weight. My fear of anger taught me nothing. You fear of that anger will teach you nothing also.

Women responding to racism means women responding to anger; the anger of exclusion, of unquestioned privilege, of racial distortions, of silence, ill-use, stereotyping, defensiveness, misnaming, betrayal, and co-optation. (124)

While talking to a white woman, the woman told Lorde, “Tell me how you feel but don’t say it too harshly or I cannot hear you.” But Lorde asks,”But is it my manner that keeps her from hearing, or the threat of a message that her life may change?” (125).

“Any discussion among women about racism must include the recognition an duse of anger. This discussion must be direct and creative because it is crucial. We cannot allow our fear of anger to deflect us nor seduce us into settling for anything less than the hard work of excavating honesty; we must e quite serious about the choice of this topic and the angers entwined within it because, rest assured, our opponents are quite serious about their hatred of us and what we are trying to do here” (129).

“This hatred [by opponents] and our anger are very different. Hatred is the fury of those who do not share our goals, and its object is death and destruction. Anger is a grief of distortions between peers, and its object is change. But our time is getting shorter. We have been raised to view any different other than sex as a reason for destruction, and for Black women and white women to face each other’s angers without denial or immobility or silence or guilt is in itself a heretical and generative idea. It implies peers meeting upon a common basis to examine difference, and to alter thsoe distortions which history has created around our difference. For it is those distortions whch separate us. And we must ask ourselves: Who profits from all this?” (129).

“I have no creative use for guilt, yours or my own. Guilt is only another way of avoiding informed action, of buying time out of the pressing ned to make clear choices, out of the approaching storm that can feed the earth as well as bend the trees. If I speak to you in anger, at least I have spoken to you: I have not put a gun to your head and shot you down in the street; I have not looked at your bleeding sister’s body and ask, ‘What did she do to deserve it?’ That was the reaction of two white women to Mary Church Terrell’s telling of the lynching of a pregnant Black woman whose baby was then torn from her body” (130).

‘When we turn from anger we turn from insight, saying we will accept only the designs already known, deadly and safely familiar” (131).

“If I fail to recognize them as other faces of myself, then I am contributing not only to each of their oppressions but also to my own, and the anger which stands between us then must be used for clarity and mutual empowerment, not for evasion by guilt or for further separation. I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. And I am not free as long as one person of Color remains chained. Nor is any one of you” (132-133).

“For it is not the anger of Black women which is dripping down over this globe like a diseased liquid. It is not my anger that launches rockets, spends over sixty thousand dollars a second on missiles and other agents of war and death, slaughters children in cities, stockpiles nerve gas and chemical bonds, sodomizes our daughters and our earth. It is not the anger of Black women which corrodes into blind, dehumanizing power, bent upon the annihilation of us all unless we meet it with what we have, our power to examine and to redefine the terms upon which we will live and work; our power to envision and to reconstruct, anger by painful anger, stone upon heavy stone, a future of pollinating different and the earth to support our choices” (133).

Lord, Audre. “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism.” Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde. Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1984. 124-133.

If literature and the humanities are about exploring the human condition, then teaching, learning, and writing are about becoming more human.

If we are engaged in an ongoing soft revolution (Zizek), our societal changes cannot just happen in the head, but must also happen in the heart. We must begin to see each other as fully human, as a whole whose self is greater than the sum of hir parts. We must have a gradual paradigm shift in the way we feel towards each other and about ourselves. We must have permission to feel our emotions, for to shy away from these emotions is to continue to prescribe to enlightenment reason that has alienated us from ourselves and to put off even longer an attempt at being fully human.

There is a fear in composition to ask students to do personal writing. There is a concern that the classroom will become a therapy session, the teacher a therapist that is ill-equipped to provide therapy to a group of twenty-five young adults.

Composition has tended to focus on positive emotions, averting our gaze from the “negative“ ones. This is especially true in critical pedagogy, which as emphasized at times hope, belief, faith, and love, but has left out discussing the pain and anger that will comes with oppression and will come with liberation. How does one deal with the anger inside the self? How does one deal with the pain? Too much we avoid these, letting them fester inside of ourselves, sometimes ignored, sometimes suppressed, sometimes welling up until they are forgotten and we die a little, or until they explode out of us in tantrums, screams, and breakdowns.

When we are young, for girls especially, we are often told, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all,“ in an attempt to make us polite, to control our negative reactions (thanks Sara Jameson for reminding me of this dictum) — to, in effect, communicate that you have two options: Be angry, hurt, and rude, or be polite and silent. We live in a society that silences us, and as much feminist thought has shown, this serves to limit voices and ways of seeing and speaking of the world. For women, the silencing of this rudeness and anger is a continuation of the silencing of their voices in the public sphere (and often in the private, personal sphere). For men, it is a shutting off of part of the self in a system where they are told the emotional is taboo.

I stopped watching corporate news television years ago. I become too angry watch it. Now the only time I watch is when I’m at the gym on the bicycles. I get so worked up about the way white people are portrayed as charitable; the way people of color are portrayed as criminals, except, that is, when they conform to Anglo norms; the way children are portrayed always as someone to fear or someone to pity; the way our news programs refuse to question neoliberalist jingoism; the way women are underrepresented. I think my friends have stopped listening to me rant at the gym: my anger goes into pumping the pedals faster and harder.

Over the last year I have had five close friends, all of them women, come out to me as victims of sexual assault, abuse, or rape. Sometimes this hits me as I am walking down a street or in the library, or when I am biking home after a long day. I have to stop sometimes and compose myself. Anger rises in me. I have to focus on my breathing to control the tears.

This last year I read an opinion column in the college newspaper in which an undergraduate student made sweeping assumptions about homosexuality, implying that it was all about sex in public and pedophilia. An earlier column in the same paper had accused Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, of being a terrorist. I can hardly pick up the college newspaper these days without getting angry at the ignorance and pain in this world.

Why is it that we never talk about anger in composition? Indeed, in our society, it seems that anger (along with fear) is the emotion that we are the least comfortable with. We assume that people “have nothing to get angry about“ when we see them angry. The student that makes us the most troubled is not the happy student, not the depressed student, not the lazy student, but the angry one. Anger is pathologized in our society: Oppositional Defiant Disorder being one form of this pathologization. Our popular culture teaches us that anger is something to be avoided. Didn’t Yoda tell Luke that he must not have fear? Fear leads to Anger, which leads to Aggression. When we see someone get angry, or express any negative emotion (and indeed, the use of the term negative shows how little we value these emotions), we become uncomfortable.

This devaluing of anger is especially dangerous in a society wrought with so much pain. When women, queer people, working class people, brown people, youth, and transgender people are angry, they are told, in effect, their anger is not valid: “Why are you so uppity? You have nothing to be angry about.“ This is especially troubling in a society that, I would argue, hates these groups of people. When so many women are sexually assaulted and raped, when so many queer people are beaten, ostracized, and told they are “sinners,“ when so many brown people fear walking in certain parts of town and are told, either subtly or explicitly, that they are criminals, when so many of the working poor are told that their health and well being are less important than the pockets of billionaires, fed with tax cuts to the rich and corporate welfare, when transgender individuals are told they are “sick“ and mentally ill (the DSM still lists gender dysphoria as a disorder), when so many young are told that they are people to be feared (see Giroux), there is a right to be angry. When these people are told by dominant culture that they are not fully equal to others to begin with, it is doubly damaging when they are told their emotions are not legitimate: “Not only are you not as worthy as me, you don’t even know how to feel correctly.“

Indeed, it seems that the only people in this country who have a right to be angry are white heterosexual men, who complain that women and minorities are taking their jobs (presupposing that these jobs are white men’s jobs to begin with), that gays and lesbians are asking for “special rights“ when they want equal rights, that racial minorities are taking their spots in colleges, that poor people are raping the system and wasting our tax dollars.

America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy — John Updike