How do I put this?

• I am no stranger to the idea that speaking out and getting as many opinions as possible is a good thing. When done in a way that is not compelled and completely freely done by volunteers it can be an effective way to establish that a certain phenomenon or feeling is more prevalent than is generally suspected. Great for issues where silence=death, and yes, there are a lot of those, racism and its effects certainly one of those issues.
• I am also no stranger to the idea that this sort of thing can get out of hand. When a social movement has enough power or leverage to do real town-meeting type shamings where folks get called out and humiliated for all to see, where apologies and capitulation are not just convinced but compelled, where loyalties are sniffed out and undesirable ones are extinguished, where friends, families and extended families are deemed unsuitable by the mob and sundered.
• Oh? We are doing loyalty oaths now? That’s wonderful! And how do we think that will work out for us?
• Witch hunts? No, we were never guilty of that! Pshaw!
• I have until now called myself an individualist antiracist, because I’ve been getting really uncomfortable with the direction the main antiracist activism crowd has been going with respect to anger and the search for justice and recompense and not been comfortable calling that part of the movement my allies. I think I’m going to have to sadly call it a day/month/year, and find something else for me to call myself. At this point, I feel that the main body of antiracist activists is to varying degrees becoming guilty of abuse of the power to be heard that they have recently gained and I am ashamed to call myself a part of the movement. So I will not.

I have some things to say to individual parts of the constituents of Racefail 2009.

To those folks who have been compelled to say something, who have reevaluated friendships based on what strangers are telling you, who have been shamed into saying or writing loyalty oaths:

I understand what it’s like to be beaten and shamed and to be lonely and exhausted and desirous of resolution, peace, and end. At the same time, I urge you to, next time, or perhaps this time, really address this ethical issue with your full energy and full intellect and full honesty and only confess to what you really feel you are responsible for. I urge you to NOT reevaluate friendships based on what a mob is telling you. By all means if you feel that you must reevaluate, do it in private and make it a fully personal and individual decision. Do what you feel is right, certainly, but please don’t do it because there’s a howling mob outside your door.

To those folks who, antiracist activists new and old, have howled outside doors:

I understand the soul consuming anger and the energy and joy of running with the pack, finally making some progress, finally being heard, finally being able to be effective with words so long ignored or simply not heard. At the same time, as you know from my writing about the Tao of the Warrior and what links activism has to warriorship, you have a personal responsibility to justice, mercy, compassion, honor, honesty and many other intangibles that go with the warrior’s role. If you find that you are at the point where you and your angry mob are compelling, for instance, loyalty oaths, you have gone too far. Come back and start thinking for yourself, come back and start thinking compassionately and sympathetically about your opponents. Remember that they already have lives, families, co-workers, friends, and that you are not responsible for that, nor should you interfere with that.

To everyone:

How do I feel about Racefail 2009? A shame, really. We all could have put our energies to better ends. I’m glad some folks got something out of it (I think it’s clear Elizabeth Bear – she’s a friend, by the way – has learned some things, but I would be surprised if all of these things were directly productive for antiracist activists), but I am personally saddened by seeing so many noble warriors fall. The good news is that few of them actually died in any meaningful way (deaths, I assume, were largely metaphorical and deaths of ideologies/assumptions), so they’ll get up again I’m sure, and may be as good after that as they were before.

For the record, I will NOT be stating any loyalty oaths and in fact this has cemented my suspicion that the antiracist activist organization is not the right one for me. In some cases I will be willing to discuss purposeful alliances, but I do not give ongoing or blanket endorsement for the cause. I think too many of the grassroots methodologies of creating change are too problematic for me to be loyal to.

I have more to say about organization of civil rights activist groups and the long-term goals of making change and what short term and long term strategies and tactics may or may not be suitable but I’m still formulating that and will post it later.

I think the current tactics that antiracist activists are using are good when dealing with outreach but bad when dealing with resolution. The mechanics of the pursuit of change that they currently carry out put some folks (especially white people in power, some of whom might have been better allies if approached in a different way) at such incredible disadvantage that yes, it creates change, but it also alienates potential allies and creates enemies. I do not believe that doing this is an ethical act, and I think that at a purely pragmatic level it will not make lasting change for any of us, beyond creating enemies and sowing distrust. That needs to change about how antiracist activists make the change they want.

Shock troops are fine for certain kinds of change, but generally not good for long-term change because people become inured, and honestly I think activists in this area are about to lose the momentum gained by the shock and merely become tired and ineffective, so there will be a need for change in tactics anyhow.

Updated: Edited to remove some grammatical froners and tighten up some prose, no substantive changes made.

I think one of the things we’re stuck on in the cultural appropriation wars is other things the folks who are appropriating could do, and other things we activists could provide with respect to alternate places to put energies, creative juices, alternate ways of life, if you will. The problem with appropriation simply being wrong and being made so by activists is that it does nothing to address the truism that exoticism sells. It sells books and video games and movies and it keeps the audience interested. Moralizing, shaming and humiliating folks who do it or consume it  is, while immediately effective, not ultimately so. It doesn’t provide enough impetus for folks to change their ways, nor does it provide folks with the alternatives they need to start creating change themselves.

Simply saying “Don’t do it. It’s wrong.” is not enough to change the world. It sure is a good way of making folks miserable, though, as we revisionists claim to know about the Puritans.

These are essentially Taoist approaches/thoughts, although they are rather modernized. I’ll try to approach the essay from that perspective.

Justice is closely tied with duty, wisdom, honor. It is important to be a just warrior because without a sense of justice, opponents will only engage with you out of revenge. Fighting a vengeful opponent is much more difficult than convincing one who already knows you are just (and honorable and wise).

As an activist, not only are you fighting for your cause and your ultimate goals, but you should also be looking for folks (who may start out alternately as fans of yours or opponents or anywhere in between) who can and will become your allies. You’re much more likely to get allies who are useful at building and recruiting other allies, who are themselves personable, fair, wise, honorable, just, if you yourself demonstrate those qualities. It’s a self-reinforcing feedback loop that will work out well if you lay strong foundations and build a reputation for integrity or justice.
With that in mind, some general aspects of justice:

Do:

• Demonstrate consistency
• Remain present and accessible
• Demonstrate responsibility (to yourself, your opponents, your allies, your duties)
• Build and display a strong ethical framework for your actions
• Demonstrate affection (to yourself, your opponents (if possible), your allies, your dependents)
• Be generous
• Be respectful
• Be decisive

Do not:

• Assume your opponents are stupid or crazy
• Assume that your ethics are obvious to or shared by your opponents
• Assume that your context/experience is shared by your opponents
• Assume your morals are obvious and shared
• Assume that even if your opponent understands you, they will switch sides or ally with you
• Assume that your needs trump everyone else’s (that your opponent will immediately back down, etc.)
• Be inconsistent, waffle or hesitate
• Behave differently in private than you do in public

I should note that one of Taoism’s strongest philosophical aspects is the idea that change is an unavoidable aspect of life. We recognize that humans seem to instead prefer stasis or very very slow change, and one of the ways that Taoists attempt to practice our philosophy in the world is to become willing and able to embrace and encourage (and benefit from) change. Instead of fighting change, we manage it and we try to benefit from it.

In my system (and of course many others’), wisdom maps to the 5th trigram, moon or the river.

Another list of aspects and explanations:

• Fairness
  As I’ve said before in other posts, a sense fairness is essential to keep you balanced and on the right path. Not only must you demonstrate fairness, honor, compassion, and other characteristics and talents to keep your opponents convinced you are accessible and reasonable, but you must do right and be honorable for its own sake. The fight is not a contest, but part of a journey you undertake, an evolution you engage in, and you cannot afford to compromise yourself in order to win. Completion of a fight is not victory, but another step on your journey as a warrior. Knowing that you live that journey is part of a warrior’s expression of wisdom.
• Judgment
  Not only is this good judgment from the point of view of immediacy of decisions, but also the long view, the ability to judge the character and intent of others, good judgment in words and actions. Display your wisdom by displaying good and able judgment.
• Tactics
  Tactics and strategy go hand in hand. For wisdom, know both, not one without the other. Tactics concern themselves with immediate goals and smaller and shorter range changes. Manage the short-term changes and set the groundwork for the longer-term changes. Tactics is part wisdom, part luck, part hunch, part knowing when and when not to take action, when and when not to claim credit, when and when not to lead.
• Strategy
  Strategy is the other side of the equation. It’s the long view, the greater reach, the wider scope. As opposed to tactics, the management of the short term changes, this is long-range planning and longer range changes. Use your wisdom to know how one relates to the other, read long term changes in the foundations set the the shorter term tactics. Again there is wisdom in both acting and not acting, and a mix of both should see you through.
• Boundaries
  One of the long-held wisdoms I’ve benefitted from (I was almost born with a spoon made of boundaries in my mouth) is the usefulness of well-formed and well-policed boundaries. This is a deep and introspective wisdom founded on knowing your limits and insisting on them. You do not have to defend boundaries (and this is something I learned pretty recently) actively. If you know your limits and withdraw out of range, going slack and letting your opponent fight emptiness, that’s usually more than enough. The most important lesson about boundaries that I learned later in life was that any fight takes two (that it’s like ballroom dancing). And if you become empty (however you manage that), you are unassailable.
• The Long View
  Part of strategy and of wisdom as a whole is the ability to look forward to not only your ideal future, but to the future that involves other people. Ideally, you should be fighting for a future state that is not only attainable, but that is acceptable to all concerned. Remember that compromise is a necessary part of reality, and plan based on that. I emphatically do not mean that you should overstate your goals in hopes of compromising precisely where you want to end up. I mean that you should fight justly and be prepared, still, to get only part of what is your most ideal outcome.
• Least Harm
  Another part of the long view of wisdom, and not only that but of compassion, the principle of least harm applies to you as a warrior and to you as an activist. Not only should you be sure that you are fighting a just and right fight, but you should be sure that you are doing the least harm for the greatest good. Think back to my earlier essays about how you are responsible for the damage you do in the fight.
• Intelligence
  Not only does this mean the raw intelligence required to be articulate and to be able to analyze your position, your assets and your best use of those resources to get where you want to go, but Taoism also emphasizes knowing as much about your opponents as possible.
  In the Art of War, it is strongly preferrable to win battles through knowledge of your opponent and informed diplomacy (over the relatively shameful methods of warring or sieging). I think the idea of finding out about your opponents should also include a practical knowledge of their context and their boundaries.

I need to say something here about the exercise of intelligence (both in the sense of having innate intelligence and in the sense of gathering intelligence about your opponents) and what I saw going on in the recent discussions about cultural appropration on the blogosphere.

One of the things that shamed me (and stimulated me to start writing these essays) about what my fellow warriors and activists were doing was that many of them were asking for far more than their opponents were willing to give.

You cannot  conscionably do this as an honorable warrior or an activist. It is not only counterproductive, but you should just know better. Asking or demanding that your opponent do things that they clearly feel are unethical to them is wrong. When you ask for concessions that are demeaning or unethical, you will end up simply alienating your opponent. A better discussion would be to discuss the ethics themselves, though I will warn you that discussing ethics and boundaries with someone who clearly has a strong sense of them is likely to be a difficult and time-consuming fight.

In any case, it is vital that you know your opponent’s boundaries so that you do not ask for the unaskable, so that you remain reasonable. There will be very little progress while your demands are unreasonable unless you have at your disposal overwhelming force. And we all know that’s not the case here.

Joy maps to (in my system), the fourth trigram: Wind.

The list and explanations:

• Laugh
  Don’t appear to take your fight too seriously. Laugh about it. Be willing to make fun and have fun. Yes, it sometimes feels like fiddling while Rome burns, but laughter and the ability to laugh about your cause, make jokes at its and your expense not only keeps you grounded in the common reality (where your seriousness and dedication is threatening and funny to some of your observers, some of your opponents) and recognizes the social necessity of laughing to keep threats less threatening. Laughing about it lets you get closer and sometimes make more meaningful change with your opponents. Sometimes it short-circuits the defensiveness your outright aggression breeds. Sometimes laughing works better than shouting. Usually, in fact.
• Discovery
  Be playful enough to discover new things, again not just about yourself, but about your opponents, and the people watching. Be joyful enough to be open to new ideas, new approaches. Be approachable enough to invite and use new ideas from your opponents, from your observers. Be willing to find new strategies and tactics. Be willing to evaluate them as they come and harness your joy to recognize that outside opinions may be just as valid as your own. This agility is vital to you and your fight. Don’t dismiss it just because an opinion comes from an outside, untrusted source.
• Fight
  There is simple joy in fighting. Revel in it. Again, the gloominess and brooding shit is not good for you. It’s not good for your cause. It’s the joyful warriors who are the charismatic ones. One of your responsibilities as a warrior is to do more good than harm. Let this joy in fighting be one of your guides to that end. If your joy goes away while you’re fighting, use that as an opportunity to reevaluate your strategy, your direction, your tactics.
• Play
  Be willing to play. If the fighting isn’t working, the playing might. Stay flexible and sharp, but don’t lose simple pleasure while discharging your duties.
• Live
  Don’t be so focused on the fight that you forget to enjoy yourself. Take care of yourself. Make sure you’re healthy, sane and well before you put yourself in the battlefield. Make sure you have a place you can relax and have downtime, rest and relaxation and use it regularly. Taking care of yourself is part of the deal that keeps us all healthy and on track. Make sure you are well and well rested as you go about achieving your goals.
• Party
  Be sure to enjoy yourself and your life in the company of others. Your friends and loved ones ground you and help keep you sane and in this world. That is a vital function. A sane, whole warrior, even a lone (on the battlefield) one, needs a stake to fight for, needs folks for whom e fights. Make sure you not only have that home base, that family, but make sure to see them regularly. If your fight takes you so far away that you cannot party with them, you should strongly evaluate whether it’s worth it. Don’t discard your friends, your family for something as simple and one-dimensional as righteousness.
• Love
  Another grounding force, don’t mistake it for passion. This love keeps you on the right side of change and keeps you sensible (in the common sense sense), human, accessible. Love yourself (take care of yourself), love your family, love your friends. Express this love in a steady loyalty. The loyalty doesn’t keep you from saying or doing what’s right. It doesn’t keep you from providing criticism, sometimes it’s not even gentle criticism, but the trust you have with folks you are close to is informed by your love and sometimes how far you’ll go is also informed by that love. As holy and as sacred as this giving love is for you, you should strive to love your opponent as much as you can. Love helps check you and balance you if you’re about to go too far. It also contributes to your duty to be merciful. Have a sense of this kind of compassion as you go into battle and it will guide you even when anger has overcome you (or maybe just short of that – who really knows how you work, but you?).
• Be content
  At every moment in your struggle, harness joy to keep you content. You never know when your energy will end. In actual battle, this can sometimes translate to actual death, but in social struggle it can also translate to your need to take a break from it all, temporarily or permanently. You may be called to a higher purpose or to a different battlefield. Fight every moment as if it were your last. The momentum you create, though you do not wish it to, should be able to survive either on its own or survive stopping on this moment’s instant. This can help short circuit ill-conceived all-or-nothing plans and can also keep us from making short-term sacrifices for longer term goals. If you are content at every instant (not in anticipation of, but in the moment), your strategy should be sound and stable enough for either the long haul or for surviving constant changes. All strategies should be crafted this way, because there is never any guarantee that you will be around to fight them to their conclusions.

Joy in the moment, joy in the eternity. Don’t lose this joy. It is a crucial guidepost to keeping sane, keeping steady, keeping compassionate, staying on target. And it keeps you human. You are emphatically not a killing machine. As angry as you can get, it should never rule you. Joy will help you sort that out. Don’t forsake it.