Jim Brown’s recent post reminds us to listen, and I’m thinking about how I can listen when issues of race come up. I’m finding it more and more difficult to listen to white folks who deny that institutional racism and white privilege exists. How can I listen better to them? And how can I respond to them rhetorically — not just with indignation, anger, or condescension, which I find myself falling into more and more often?
This isn’t a problem with my students. I can be patient and compassionate, and not be bent on convincing them of anything. But with other folks, my patience is running thin.
This fall in English 584: Rhetoric, Writing, and Identity, we’ll be reading Krista Ratcliffe’s Rhetorical Listening: Identification, Gender, Whiteness. I read the introduction over a year ago, but haven’t taken the chance to read the rest. I’m looking forward to the opportunity later this fall.
it’s definitely difficult to respond in a positive way when people are not listening to a single thing that you say. It’s like they are preparing salvos behind a brick wall while you’re crafting something meaningful and heartfelt.
Suzette Haden Elgin recommends, when listening to someone, that you assume what they’re saying is true, and try to figure out what it’s true *of*.
In the case of racism, I tend to think the word gets understood pretty differently by people. I had an Argentine guy tell me there was no racism in Argentina, and as evidence, he said “we even elected a Lebanese president, despite the fact that Lebanese are filthy awful people”. That’s a mean thing to say, but, he didn’t perceive it as racist because he thought it was *true*. So it changes his perspective on what “racism” means.
How can you talk to someone about racism if the word means something different to them? In my case, I just stopped talking about “racism” and asked him about his experiences with Lebanese people.
Chris, I agree that often a problem of definition is at the root of disagreement. I’ll have to look into Elgin. Thanks!