The Moonspeaker:
Where Some Ideas Are Stranger Than Others...

Tone Deaf Messaging (2025-01-27)

Screen shot of an outstandingly tone deaf message, so readers can be reassured the text discussed was not invented, 2023.

These are in so many ways, excruciating times. When old certainties are shown up as nonsense and the last of zombie colonialism becomes impossible to ignore because the smell has overcome the undertaker's make up and preservatives, the result is anything but pleasant. I say this all too aware how very fortunate my circumstances are compared to so many others in the world. An awareness long far from academic. Matters have developed far enough now that even the grim process of how committed capitalists carve off more and more things and ideas to put a price and a marketing plan on them, especially if they could otherwise interfere with the colonial world they love best, now happens quickly and before our eyes. I did not appreciate at first what a warning the sneering term "social justice warrior" was of the beginnings of this very process as applied to genuinely useful and yes just action. Such terms are the bellwether of a cooptation exercise, in which providing an appearance of doing right is more important than actually producing meaningful change. In fact, it is deliberately encouraged in order to counter and prevent meaningful change. More than one keen eyed and sharp eared entrepreneur picked up on old attempts to shut down meaningful change by those claiming racists and similar are merely ignorant or crazy. If they are ignorant or crazy, then technically they are redeemable by treatment or training. All the better if either of these can be sold on a contract basis with suitable mark up, and structured around the model of deliberate practice of self-humiliation, to be followed by reward with a certificate or a job guarantee for confessing sins. I have often heard this referred to as a "maoist struggle session" – well, Mao didn't invent it, and I suspect christian missionaries didn't either. Nevertheless, christian missionaries are among the most infamous practitioners of this sort of psychological terrorism. But there is plenty of far more benign stuff than that, stuff that seems like it may even come from a well-meaning place, not meant at all to go along with not altering the structural issues that keep sexism, racism, and colonialism firmly in place. At least I hope so. It seems to me if it were otherwise, they would not be so relentlessly tone-deaf and ridiculous.

Reproduced here is a screenshot (to reassure the rightfully skeptical I didn't make this shit up) of an astonishing message shared with me by an associate who was caught between astonished and appalled when they received the original email. Below is the text reproduced separately, except for the closure.

Dear XXXXXX,

Self-advocacy and self-care are acts of resistance!

Surviving in a world of white supremacy, inequity, and microaggressions comes at a great cost to our mental and emotional stability. We often feel "unwell." We struggle with our emotional and mental health because we struggle to understand what diminishes it. We struggle to understand all the ways we are impacted by survival.

The XXXXXX Black Caucus invites you to join us online for a Black health and wellness workshop...

In this workshop, you’ll learn to assess your current mental and emotional wellness, explore the aspects of life that contribute to emotional "breakdown," and gain the ability to re-prioritize your current mental and emotional needs. You will walk away with tools and a plan of action to start your wellness journey.

Please note that this workshop is intended for XXXXXX members who identify as Black.

...

So many wonderful buzzwords, it's an embarrassment of riches. But note first thing, the fundamental position expressed in this message is that racialized people, in this case anyone so foolish as to "identify as Black" are the problem here. Furthermore, they make up the problem solely via their individual behaviour. As individuals, such people are not doing a good enough job on the tasks of self-advocacy and self-care. Worst of all, these people who "identify as Black" don't know how they feel really, just that they are vaguely "unwell" and therefore are unable to properly care for their mental and emotional health. They need to take workshops to learn how to recognize how they actually feel, and how to re-prioritize their emotional and mental needs. Really, individuals who "identify as Black" are sick, but with a brand new plan of action and the right tools, all will be right with the world in future. Honestly, who in the hell actually wrote this shit?

I am a racialized person. When I encounter racist structures and actions in my life, I don't feel "unwell," I feel angry. Furthermore, I am right to be angry, because that stupidity impacts not merely myself busy trying to do my job well and make a decent living, but all the others like me who are prevented from doing their jobs well. It impacts our entire damned society because it means racialized people, including specifically Black people, are stuck wasting their energy fending that shit off instead of being able to put their full energies into their society, families, and yes, themselves as individuals. Tools and tactics to deal with personal needs are of course, important. But if I do no more than take care of myself, I won't stop being angry, because I won't have dealt or even tried to deal, with the root of the problem. "I got mine, jack," is not a strategy for ending racism, colonialism, or sexism. It is true anyone needs to start by getting their own house in order before they can help fix larger structural issues, but this email suggests a path that barely does even that.

Now, perhaps I am being unfair. After all, there is apparently a Black Caucus, and it is at least highly probable they are enacting an action plan of some sort. Such a plan could reasonably consist of providing training meant to help individual Black colleagues, organizing with Black colleagues to take specific actions to change acute expressions of structural racism, and strategizing those with a view to breaking those structures apart all together and replacing them with something healthy and just instead. But where is the reference to this plan? Say something like "We are offering this workshop as part of our planned action items for supporting personal development. To learn about other action items and opportunities to contribute to organizing and political action, see XXXXXX." Or contact so and so to request a copy of the plan, or whatever.

As it stands, be advised, "Black identifying" colleagues, that the issues you are facing are actually poor prioritizing and lack of tools to properly assess emotional and mental health. There is a contractor who will deliver a lucrative workshop to put you, and no doubt any other "racially identifying" group who pays the fee, right.

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