Tone Policing

So I have two kids, Harry and Jude. The other day, Harry accidentally banged Jude on the head with his homemade (and amazing, may I add) lightsaber. It was such a horribly forceful whack that I actually heard it from the other room

Said whack naturally sent Jude spiralling into that horrible space between hurt, rage and shock (poor little dude) yet on the other side of this, it also sent Harry into an arena of thwarting defensiveness. “I didn’t mean to!” he yelled. “It’s not my fault, because I didn’t mean to! He can’t be angry at me! He can’t be upset!”

So here’s the thing. Sure, Harry didn’t mean to wallop Jude on the noggin and I get that it was a mistake. Yet he still did it. Of course, his intention was never to hurt Jude, yet regardless of his intent he caused a lot of distress.

So where am I headed here? Surely not just a mum story about lightsabers, right? Right . . . so let’s talk about intent VS harm with regard to how people get defensive when they’ve caused pain — yet more specifically, about how this defensiveness morphs into tone policing.

Tone policing is the first cousin of Gaslighting (bags not being invited to that family’s Christmas lunch!) and is when one party in a debate/fight criticises the other party for expressing emotion. It belittles the logic of a statement by attacking the emotional state in which it was said, rather than the statement itself.

When you disparage someone for expressing their sentiments, you are putting your own comfort over their pain. You are lessening their experience and asking for them — the party who has already been hurt or oppressed — to suffer in silence. You can see how this is f_cked, right?

It was not too long ago that I was called out by an online friend and woman of colour who was hurt by my words. Regardless of my intent, I had prioritised my own feelings and context, and thus had minimised hers. My first immediate reaction was “but I didn’t mean to!!” — yet then I took a step back and realised that irrespective of my objective, I had walloped her with the lightsaber. So I reflected and apologised. And in doing so, I learned.

So let’s all cut out the defensiveness and learn from my mistakes, right?

White folks: when a Black, Indigenous and Person of Colour speaks on their emotional truth, do not centre this factual account on yourself to make it an attack on your existence.

Male-humans: when a womxn speaks on her emotional truth, do not accuse her of being hysterical or a man-hater, and do not centre your own fragility.

Straight people: when a person in the LGBTQIA+ community speaks on their emotional truth, do not counteract their feelings by demonstrating your own imperfections.

If you read a comment on social media where one party is upset about something that was said or done to them, don’t tell them it would be better if they weren’t angry and did not express their emotion. Don’t tell them to be nicer! That is nonsense! Validate their emotions. Validate their experiences. And re-channel your outrage into fighting the systems which oppress them - rather than gaslighting their lived experiences.

We have some extremely large fish to fry in the world right now, such as climate change, systemic racism, white supremacy, civil injustice, the patriarchy, COVID, and wealth disparity - as well as the many intersections to each of these clusterf_cks! So let’s not waste our outrage by centring our own sensibilities and instead try to view ALL interactions through a broader, nuanced and intersectional lens.

If you accidentally wallop someone with your metaphorical lightsaber (or literal one for that matter!), do not blame them. Do not lessen their pain. Do not get defensive. Put that MFing sabre down and acknowledge/apologise for the harm caused.

The sooner we can all move away from our own indignation, the sooner we can fix this world of ours. So let’s move away already!