Voicism - A New Social Idea

I want to tell you a story about racism, and then I want to introduce a new idea that helps me understand a bit better the difference between the way I (a middle-aged Caucasian male in the United States) experience it, and the way I sense people in another demographic experience it.

Here's the story.

One day, I was taking the bus from the downtown of the city in which I live, to a Walmart in one of the suburbs. I observed a person of color driving the bus, and I watched his behavior at each stop along the way. What I saw was that at each and every stop at which a person of color was getting on the bus, he pulled up in front of them and lowered the bus to make entry easier. I also saw that at each stop at which a white person was getting on, he did NOT lower the bus, including for an elderly white woman in front of a local Community Hospital at which he not only did not lower it, he actually stopped a good ten or more yards before her on the curb and before the actual stop so that she had to walk down the curb and still climb on board.

I took this in, and I started thinking and feeling.

My first thought was to notice how angry I was, and how unfair I felt the driver's behavior was to the Caucasian patrons. My second thought was that perhaps I should report him so that he faces some consequences for his behavior. I mean, racism is racism, right? Well, luckily for me, I hadn't gotten to Walmart yet, so I had time to think about the situation a bit more. That's when I had these further thoughts:

If I said something to administration, he may very well be called to task for his behavior. What's more, it didn't occur to me at first even the POSSIBILITY that my voice would not be heard, validated, agreed with, and supported. I thought about that for a bit, at first quite smug in my assessment and also a little proud of being so socially observant as well as willing to speak up in the name of "justice."

But then I wondered something more:

It didn't even occur to me I would NOT be listened to.
It did not enter my mind the possibility that I would be disrespected or questioned in sharing what I saw.
It was true to me that racism was racism, no matter the races involved.
So, what would it be like for me if I had grown up in a demographic such that when speaking up against the same injustices I was now seeing, I experienced NOT being respected in expressing those feelings. In other words, what if I had to feel all those same things, but had no voice in the world that was allowed to express them? What if instead of being respected and validated for sharing my feelings, experience, and views, I was instead contradicted, relativized, or treated as if my experience could not be a different one because someone in the dominant culture chose to force the idea that the experience was the same because they said so? Or because they didn't want to be bothered?

What would my experience of racism  be then?

Today, I decided to coin the term, "Voicism."

So what is it?

Simply put, "Voicism" is the name I give to the mentality or attitude that when one person decides to express some perspective, or say a thing, another person feels entitled to correct it, change it, relativize it, or "make it about them."

Let's look at an example.

A bit ago, there was the "Black Lives Matter" movement. Very quickly, a kind of counterculture emerged that effectively responded with "Yeah, but, all lives matter." Now, what happened there in light of the idea of Voicism?

The idea that it is okay to do what was done by a white counterculture seems clearly to have been based on the idea that there is no special experience to the community of color that the other demographics do not also experience. It in validates the very need to say it - a powerful tool of voicism. Don't take away just the words, but try to negate that the need to say them isn't real or is crazy or somehow threatening. In such a context, the very act of expressing the need and pain is couched in such a way as to make it appear to be a threat to the world. It is a nifty, devious, and powerfully violent trick, and it attempts to take away the foundation from which self-expression arises: human need. If I deny you have a need, I don't have to have a conscience about not helping. In effect, I make the problem "disappear." This is insane. One human being cannot determine for another what their needs are. The very idea is blatantly dehumanizing.

As my story shows, even though racism is racism in a sense, the assumption that a person in the dominant culture experiences racism and lives with it in the same way a person in the nondominant culture does is not a reasonable one at all. The comfort in making this "leap" rests primarily on the fact that such a social leap has been safe enough because the person has been immersed in a dominant culture that allows it. Not everyone is so lucky. In fact, it now seems that such an assumption is naive to the point of being an oblivious and abusive perpetuation of the entitlement of voice. And all of us feel the effect. When it is done to us, the ground has been cut from beneath our feet by taking away one of the primary means by which a human being participates in world culture.

When one person takes the perspective of another and corrects it or changes it in any significant way, they have effectively stolen what was said by the other person and forced it to become a tool for their own self-expression, their own end. A person decides that the other person "should" speak for them, and they treat that person as if their own need to be heard is so important that it is okay to warp what another person says so that they themselves can feel heard. Thus, one person is forced to be the voice of another. It is a violent act.

Now, what's the consequence?

Well, in effect, the first person's voice disappears entirely and the act is pushed through with a kind of sneaky social force that makes such a behavior "reasonable" or "practical." But the harm is always the same.

The Black Lives Matter was not a movement to say why others' lives don't. Rather, it was an effort to give voice to the voiceless. And what did we see? Those who already had a voice saw no problem whatsoever with co-opting (stealing) the initial sentiment to serve their own needs and ends. This gave us the "All Lives Matter" gig.

Instead of saying something like, this hurts me and frightens me, and that it feels like "Black Lives Matter" is trying to knock me down since I'm not a Black person - which would have required some courage, some vulnerability, and a willingness to step out of social laziness, apathy, and lethargy (whether or not the perception of the intention was accurate) - an alternative slogan was created in order to express what they felt "should really be being said." It was a passive-aggressive way which not only affirmed the dominant culture by embracing its own entitlement of voice, but also directly damaged the power of the original voice which spoke the Black slogan, as well as violating the ingrity of its intention by never recognizing it to begin with.

This act showed no responsibility whatsoever for even discovering what the intention might be, let alone affirming it or intentionally making a space for it in the public sphere, inviolate.

When one person corrects another person's speech, modifies it, decides they know how to say a thing for another person without being asked, presume to know what another person's problem is, what they feel, what such things mean or mean for that person's life - no matter how well-intentioned or delusional they might be - they are speaking from an entitled point of view. It is an exercise in the abuse of power. Something in them makes it okay for them to speak for another human being, decide what their truth is, and how they should say it. It is a violation.

Granted, when it is children being taught how to speak or a student in a class being educated, this sort of thing is probably to be expected. But outside of this, and between grown adults - especially of different backgrounds and cultures - it feels like an inherently violent move, and I judge it as such. That's right. I said judge.

It is true, in a way, that racism is racism, however, if you have no voice in a society, or if a dominant culture continually uses the dynamics of Voicism to control your speech or method of self-expression, the oppression is quite real. We may experience the same thing as human beings, but not all of us feel safe enough to speak up precisely because our voice has been violated for so long.