The Tone Argument and Social Price

[melanoman]

The term "persons of diversity" came up in the Language Log. It's a newly coined lexical item used to mean "people belonging to groups that were historically excluded [from X]" where X is drawn from the context but is always something where inclusion is socio-economically desirable. This coinage is super-new, but will probably catch on in American Boardroom Dialects for technical linguistic reasons that I don't want to go into here.

What I did want to talk about was that the early comments on the subject were overwhelmingly looking to deny the existence of the term. The comments felt... out of character for the board. It nagged me until I realized that this felt just like the Tone Argument. I wrote this comment about that:

At the risk of going off-topic for the log, strong reactions to terms that come up addressing racism are common, so much so that most discussion groups dedicated to analyzing, addressing, or otherwise discussing racism have coined the term "the tone argument" to refer to a way-too-common tactic of derailing the discussion. The derailer will talk about terms and politeness to shift blame for his or her own discomfort onto the person pointing out the uncomfortable truth.

The tone argument can't be accommodated. Begrudging members of the discussion aren't really objecting to the words, but to the very idea that they need to do something about the unfair advantages or even that those unfair advantages exist.

Even though the attempts are in vain, people in those discussions will and do try to accommodate the inconsolable. Trying to say something when someone is trying to squelch the idea is inherently broken. They end up coining increasingly opaque terms, which is where monstrosities like this really come from.

The annoying part of all that is that by arguing for the plainer terms instead of the obfuscated ones, that just adds to the distraction from the core argument.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying discussion of the terms nor GKP's reaction are at all out of bounds nor objectionable. This is the Language Log, so the discussion of terms is core to the purpose of this forum. "The tone argument" is about squelching people in other forums by changing the topic from the subject matter to the expression thereof.

I was satisfied with my analysis of the subject, but that disclaimer at the end bugs me. The social pressure got me to specifically exempt Dr. Pullum, and in doing so I took the edge off raising the question fully. I wonder if anyone in the forum will get the connection between trying to reinterpret the semantics of the new lexical item and the tone argument itself. I think I managed to get the worst of both worlds where I will pay the social price for touching on the taboo point, but without actually getting that point across. Damn.

Comments

Re: a third comment

[pielology.livejournal.com]

people who have been excluded will not self-identify as a "person of diversity" because their particular form of diversity is highly salient to themselves and their identity

As a woman in a traditionally male field, I disagree. Yes, my particular form of diversity is highly salient, but there are also times where the relevant feature is simply the fact that I don't look or act quite like most people expect someone who does my job to look. I won't use it as a generic identity marker but I can definitely imagine using it in the context of activism aimed at particular power structures, especially when I am trying to ally with others who have been excluded.

"diversity" here only makes sense in terms of who has been excluded and who has been included [...]. "diversity" here isn't about a diversity of groups, but about who has been kept from the table by those at the table.

I think you hit the nail on the head here. The fact that "person of diversity" focuses attention on the way people at the table are excluding others, rather than getting lost in the myriad ways this shakes out when it comes to particular groups, is why I think it will be a successful term.

Re: a third comment

[stoneself.livejournal.com]

I won't use it as a generic identity marker

i think this goes to my point.

but I can definitely imagine using it in the context of activism aimed at particular power structures, especially when I am trying to ally with others who have been excluded.

this makes me wonder at how much activism you've done especially at the coalition building level. common bond is more effective in coalition by celebrating differences instead of trying to erase them. erasure is one of the active sore points in much activism - a problem that gets analyzed as assimilation, internalized oppression, normativity, role rigidity, etc.

an example of erasure that make many anti-racist activist annoyed/upset is the notion of "colorblind" - the notions that seeing race is racist and that race shouldn't matter with the important unstated parenthetical (and therefore we will pretend it already doesn't matter). the former notion means that no discussion about racism can even be framed, and the latter notion flies in the face of reality - race shouldn't matter, but it does matter right now. this what happens when salient features of an oppression are erased.

examples of erasure happen to transgender people w/ the lgbt community and even more so in the larger straight community. not being erased is very much taken as matter of survival by transgender people.

i also think "of diversity" will shine unwanted light on the issue of "token" hires.