When do you speak?

[rivka]

As I have done several times before, at one point this weekend I bit my tongue and said nothing when one of my in-laws said something racist.

In this case, she was explaining that she'd purchased a second cemetery plot because there were too many blacks - and I can't even begin to convey the tone of voice in which she said the word "blacks;" it mingled scandal, contempt, disgust, and a revolting just-between-us intimacy, and I cannot think of any way that tone could be used to say something that wasn't shameful - at any rate, too many blacks at the cemetery where she already owns a plot. She went on to relate a story about how someone had once stolen artificial flowers from her husband's grave.

I wanted to say something sarcastic about posthumous segregation, and I wanted to say that I was pretty sure that a white person could steal flowers just as easily as a black person. I wanted to ask her how could go on to Mass feeling like a good Christian immediately after saying such ugly things - she was actually holding her rosary while she said them.

I had made a vow, however, to prioritize Michael's dying father's comfort and his ability to bond with his grandchild over everything else that happened that weekend. And I didn't think that any good could possibly come from confronting her with her ugly and shameful behavior. So I said nothing, and after my initial horrified and disgusted glance I kept my eyes averted.

I'm sure that the incident has left her memory without making a mark, but two days later I still feel dirty. I am feeling as though I went too far in the service of family harmony.

Do you always speak up? Does one have a duty as a human being to always speak up? When do you protest, and when are you silent?

Comments

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I really admire you. I would like to be closer to where you are on this issue than where I am now.

It wasn't about traditional politeness, it was about trying to avoid a fight. I think I do have a tendency, at least in face-to-face settings, to let too many things go in the name of not making waves. But the more I think about that incident, the more I wish I had said something. Would it have "accomplished" anything? Well, if nothing else, it would have made it clear that I don't agree with her. By not saying anything, I feel complicit.

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

I do get where the people are coming from who are saying "you're not going to change her mind anyway"--that's a very pragmatic point of view. But one of my core principles is that it's a bad idea to have opinions that are both strongly held and unconsidered. And speaking up forces people to think about where they're coming from, at the very least, even if their mind doesn't change.

Mostly, though, it's not a matter of accomplishing anything, or even "being a good person." It's about staying true to myself.

-J

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

[...]speaking up forces people to think about where they're coming from, at the very least, even if their mind doesn't change.

Hmmm. That hasn't been my experience at all. Especially when dealing with people whose are generally thoughtless and self-centered and inconsiderate, I find that they often just hunker down and repeat what they've already said, focusing more on "I'm being attacked, must counterattack" than in actually discussing the issues. Often, it's not worth the effort for me to try to convince the person, or even to try to understand where they're coming from, since I've got a lot of things to do and only a limited amount of time and energy to do them with. Think of it as a "twit filter for realspace", maybe.

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

With people like that, my "speaking up" usually takes the form not of challenges or attacks, but of simple questions. People are often taken aback that I have the audacity to ask things like that, but I've never had anyone refuse to answer.

-J

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I don't generally find I feel any better for speaking up. Pace Jae, I don't think that people stop to consider their views any more if you speak up--they just feel attacked and hostile--and I don't think silence makes you complicit in anything. I think that not contributing pain to this particular visit was the right choice.

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying anything about what the right choice was in this particular case. I'm saying something about whether *I* tend to speak up, which is what I was asked about.

For what it's worth, my "speaking up" most often takes the form of questions rather than challenges. While some people have been a little shocked that I'd dare ask such a thing, I've never had anyone refuse to answer me, and they're always questions that are impossible to answer without conscious thought.

-J

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

I know we talked about this before, but I do think you handled it as well as it could be handled, and I'm glad you made the decision you did about the whole trip. If you had started a discussion (or even just said something disapproving), it would have gotten blown up into the focus of the weekend, and I really didn't want that shrew to get any more excuses to start even more crap among my family.

If there had been a way to confront her about that while still keeping the focus on Dad and Alex, then things might have been different. You know as well as I do that she wouldn't have been content to let it lie; even if there hadn't been anything said while we were there, she'd have been seething with venom today, and tomorrow, and the day after. She'd continue to harp on it as long as she had breath, and it would have made any time with Dad even more strained, which wouldn't be good for him, for me, or for Alex. Anybody who thinks that she will ever change her opinions is just deluded, and doesn't know her.

What we've *done* about it is decide that she's not a fit person to have in our daughter's life, and we're not going to let her have the role she craves as "Nana". Instead, she's going to be "that crazy old lady that's in a few pictures of Alex and her grandfather; we never saw much of her after he died", and that's a punishment that I can not only cope with, but am rather enthusiastic about administering.

Did you ever happen to look over at her during the weekend when it was really plain that you and I and Alex and Dad were all getting along great together, and that she was on the outside looking in? I did, and she looked like she was sucking on the world's sourest lemon.

As is often attributed to Machiavelli, "Never do an enemy a small injury". Arguing with her about this wouldn't change her mind, and would only start unpleasantness that would still end up in the very same place we've decided to go. Bill's quote above is very much to the point, as far as I'm concerned.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to speak to whether you should have spoken up in that particular rather fraught situation, you know way better than I do. But in general, I do think it is worth speaking up - even to people who aren't going to listen - because every time you call someone on it in public, you're sending the message "saying things like that in public is not acceptable and people will give you shit for it" and every time you don't you send the message "saying things like that in public is acceptable and ordinary."