Finally, a word about tone policing, thought control’s fresh-faced cousin, otherwise known as “kindly tone it down to where I may politely ignore you.” It’s perhaps described more aptly by my friend the philosopher, educator, and poet Alfred E. Prettyman as “civil smother,” which he observed being used in a specific instance regarding the distribution of a special benefit in Segregated Town USA to deflect outrage over a clever bit of White resource hoarding, or hogging (with apologies to the hogs), by deflecting the focus of a meeting’s concern away from the behavior of the White people who were hogging a valuable resource and onto what they signaled was the far more serious transgression of a Black person being angry about it.
Many years ago, the American guru Ram Dass decided that perhaps the shockingly monochromatic nature of so many spiritual groups ought to be addressed, and out of the goodness of his heart organized a conference around it, which was filmed. The gathering was overwhelmingly White, and a question was raised about the fact that it looked as if everyone involved in filming and organizing the event was White, which seemed to come as a surprise—firstly that it was noticed, and secondly that it could be a question. In a small group, one of the few people of color in attendance said he’d just been to a panel discussion elsewhere about issues mainly impacting young people of color, in which the panelists were all White, and he wondered aloud, as much in sorrow as in anger, if anyone else in the group shared his distress about that. No one did. Instead, he and all his concerns were shut down on the spot by a White woman who very kindly explained to him that his “anger” was pushing her away—and we can see here how “tone policing” and “civil smother” land differently: she smothered him. At the end of the film, there was something of an “in memoriam” for that man, who had died untimely: shocking, but not so surprising.
After I joined Al-Anon because I believed that the wise people of Al-Anon would help me to help my beloved baby sister stop drinking, I quickly learned that I was not the only one who believed that if I could just think of exactly the right thing to say, she would stop drinking. Of course I couldn’t, and she didn’t. Like a loved one’s drinking, White supremacy is frequently exasperating beyond measure, and can blow right through enraging to infuriating: if we’re not furious about the racism itself, we’re furious about being called on it. And yet, no matter how futile the effort (hence the need for spiritual healing), and as squeamish as some very spiritual people may be about full and comprehensive use of the English language, there are still plenty of people trying to find exactly the right thing to say to persuade other people out of their White racism—and some of that may come out sounding pretty salty.
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