What If I Say the Wrong Thing?
I recently wrote about perfectionism in racial justice work, and the way white allies can be hard on each other and ourselves for not getting our role quite right. In response to that post, a white friend who cares about racial justice thanked me via email.
“You capture a lot of how I feel,” she wrote. “I think I have been nearly paralyzed from doing anything because of my intense fear of offending someone.”
That’s how I’ve often felt, too. I’d like to explore this further—because paralyzed, fearful white allies aren’t helpful to anyone.
My own fear of offending is partly a worry about accidentally harming people of color, an important concern. White allies need to keep listening and doing our best, although I hope we’ll be gentle with ourselves along the way.
But there’s another fear I’ve noticed within myself, too. It’s a little embarrassing to confess: it’s the fear of what other white allies will think of me if I say or do the “wrong” thing. I find this fear more troubling—it’s less about helping and more about protecting my own self-image. I don’t think it’s uncommon, although it goes largely unspoken.
At first glance, this defensive fear resembles white fragility, the discomfort white people often feel when discussing racism. But on closer examination, it’s not that. I’m comfortable talking about racism and acknowledging my privileges and possible hidden biases.
Instead, this fear is more fundamental: it’s the basic human desire not to be misunderstood. I’m a sensitive, empathic person, and I’m not always good at letting go of what others think of me. Compounding my sensitivity is a dogmatism that has arisen on the far left, an atmosphere in which sharing the “wrong” thing on social media or questioning any aspect of racial justice movements leads some others to suspect you may be ignorant, complicit with oppression, or even a bit racist yourself.
This orthodox atmosphere makes it risky to speak or act at all, especially if you are conflict-averse or sensitive. That concerns me. When speaking is risky, the quieter, gentler, more introverted voices stay silent and conversations lose their nuance.
My anxieties about offending others aren’t as important as the movement to uplift people of color and enact systemic change. But nevertheless, as I wrote last week, these anxieties are worth writing about. I’m devoting several posts to them—this blog is about how to improve our national conversations, and dogmatism stifles conversation. And as others have eloquently written, intolerance among white allies slows progress on racial justice.
Hanging Back From the Noise
Let me illustrate the dogmatism and my sensitivity to it.
In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, I was inspired by the protests and participated in a couple small neighborhood protests myself. I also wanted to explore my thoughts on this blog, but for months, I found myself hesitating to say very much publicly. Again, I hesitated for two reasons: fear of inadvertently harming people of color and fear of being misjudged.
As the protests had unfolded, my Facebook feed had quickly become flooded with posts from progressive friends, especially white friends. Many were writing reflective posts describing systemic racism, their understanding of our role in the system as white people, and a commitment to listening and learning.
I understood that these friends were reacting to the maxim that “white silence equals violence,” and I admired their candidness and humility. I’m quite proud of the deep reflection on racism that’s been happening among white progressives, which I don’t see among conservatives.
But at the same time, I was taken aback by the sheer volume of these posts. There were so many of them! It began to feel as though they were largely talking to each other. I felt the urge to brush them aside, like cobwebs, so I could hear more voices of color. A friend of color said her work email had become so flooded with well-meaning statements from white colleagues that reading them had become exhausting.
I wasn’t sure where the line was between public self-reflection and “performative wokeness.” Ultimately, I wrote one small, innocuous blog post but mainly tried to keep quiet, just liking and “hearting” others’ posts.
A Minefield of Judgements
Then I began to notice a second genre of posts by white allies: judgments of other white people’s posts. Suddenly there seemed to be many rules about what was okay and not okay to say.
No nature posts, one said in the week after Floyd’s death. White people posting about nature right now just demonstrates our white privilege, since we can visit nature more easily than people of color.
No condemning the rioting, said others. The rioting and looting had trashed parts of downtown Portland at the beginning of the protests, but many people were chiding others for mentioning it. At best, mentioning rioting detracted from the protests’ message; at worst, it was seen as code for racism.
No calling the rioting “rioting,” either. The appropriate words were “uprising” or “revolution.”
Also, no posting pictures of police kneeling.
As I read these edicts and others like them, anxiety blossomed within me. I agreed with some of them—I myself had delayed a blog post about nature, since it felt ill-timed. I disagreed with others, like the judgement on kneeling police. And I wanted to talk about the rioting, which I felt was harming the peaceful protest movement.
But whether or not I agreed with each post, the general tone affected me. Reading many of the judgmental posts caused my heart to pound and my fingers to shake. This wasn’t the defensiveness of white fragility; it was aversion to conflict in general.
In the heat of outrage over Floyd’s death, some of my friends seemed so self-righteous, presenting their ideas as hard rules rather than suggestions. To an empath, there’s a big difference between a suggestion (“Some people find police-kneeling photos offensive”) and a stern admonition (“Don’t share those photos”). Tone matters—to everyone, but especially to sensitive people like me.
Trusting My Quiet Voice
I feared breaking the “rules.” I didn’t want to be privately judged, or worse, publicly called out. But slowly, I had a few realizations that began to ease my fear.
First, I discovered that in real-life conversations with people of color, I didn’t typically hear the same adamance I saw on Facebook about what was okay and not okay to say. It turns out that although the loudest, most confident voices tend to dominate social media, they’re not necessarily in the majority. Most people, of all colors, are longing for more nuanced conversations.
Part of me had feared that maybe I was racist if I cared about the rioting—what if my outspoken friends saw some latent racism within me that I didn’t see? But discovering friends of color who shared my views bolstered my confidence that this wasn’t the case. Looking within, my motivation for talking about rioting wasn’t racism or white fragility but passion for Black Lives Matter—I wanted the movement to succeed.
As time passed, I became more and more conscious that I had things to say but was afraid to say them. To my surprise, fear of my friends’ judgment was proving more powerful than fear of arguing with political opponents. Long ago, I had once been shy about expressing my progressive views to conservatives, but I had surmounted that fear. Now, publicly contradicting friends who shared my progressive values was turning out to be even harder.
If you’re progressive and surrounded by progressives, speaking out against racism takes some courage—but speaking against rioting takes far more. Conversely, if you’re conservative and surrounded by conservatives, it takes much more courage to admit the country is racist than to condemn the rioting.
This is why most of us stick to our party lines. We may privately disagree with some aspects of our own side’s platform, but it’s difficult to break ranks publicly.
In the end, it finally occurred to me that fear of others’ judgment is a poor reason to keep silent. Dogmatism ends when enough people add diverse thoughts to conversations. I decided to be brave and attempt some critiques of my own side.
This hasn’t been easy. Since I’m naturally conflict-averse, it takes me a lot of deep breathing to handle conflict calmly. But that’s work I’m willing to do—our national conversations are too important to be left to only the loudest voices; we need more introverts to join in when we can.
So I’m trying to let go of my fear, trust my own judgment, and speak my thoughts even when they contradict friends I hold dear. I also try to always listen to people of color and to progressive white friends who push back against things I write, because they may catch errors in my thinking. But I balance that listening with the conviction that nuance is important. And if I’m brave enough, nuance is something my quiet voice can offer.
