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Patsy, I'm going to tell you why this "Castro was a jerk" narrative is bugging me and other POC so much...can't condense it in 280 characters so prepare for a thread...
As a POC, one of the first things you learn is that entirely too many white people view everything you do from a highly racialized lens--even if they are not consciously racist, even if they are "good white people."
And bc these white people often hold power over you (bosses, teachers, cops, politicians, etc), the second thing you learn is that you have to INORDINATELY CAREFUL of how you speak to them. You learn to keep your voice down when you feel like screaming...
You smile (or at least maintain a neutral facial expression) when you feel like scowling. You turn encounters with "problematic" white people into "teachable moments" when the white person in question actually deserves to get cursed the fuck out...
In short, you spend a lot of time modulating your tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language to avoid offending white people who can get expel you from school, fire you from your job, deny you a service or (gulp) even kill you...
For saying the wrong thing. And you do this knowing full well that if you tell these white people how you "really" feel or what you "really" think, you'll be victim-blamed and shamed for "provoking" the often intense overreactions that these white people are known to have...
Do you have any idea just how many times in my life I've nearly stroked out from the stress of (sometimes literally) biting my tongue in the presence of white people? (And, BTW, my blood pressure is actually on the low side of normal.)
Do you have any idea how many times I've cried from the stress of tone-policing myself? How many stomachaches and headaches I've gotten from that. It's exhausting. It wears you down bc you're a human and all humans suffer when they CONSTANTLY have to stifle their true feelings...
Here's the thing, bc POC are human, we can't always manage this stifling. We get sick/distracted just like white people. We cross paths with malicious actors just as often as white people do. And sometimes we just want to be right and win an argument--just like white people do
What does this have to do with Castro and Biden, you may ask?
Well, here's the thing...Castro is a Latinx man who attended Ivy League schools and pursued two careers (law and politics) that are overwhelmingly dominated by white men. Make no mistake, Castro learned the exact same lessons about auto self-policing as I did....
I don't have to know him to know this is true. A Latinx man who can't self-police his tone and demeanor ends up unemployed/imprisoned/sometimes dead. The fact that he is running for president is proof positive that he knows how to do this...
So here's what happened on Thursday...a white man with money, power, and status contradicted himself--in the space of two minutes--and Castro noticed. Castro could have let him slide. After all, Castro had been trained to do exactly that for 45 years. But what most likely...
Happened is that Castro remembered that he was in a competition for the Democratic nomination for president and that adopting a deferential tone-policing posture at that time would not be appropriate...
Yes, he raised his voice slightly but the debate stage isn't an ICU ward, a library, a cocktail lounge, a baby nursery or any place else where keeping your voice down is de rigueur...
Did he talk over Biden? Yes. But once again, he was in an environment where that behavior is permissible, even necessary...
What bugs me is that Castro is being vilified for doing the exact same thing that EVERY WHITE MALE CANDIDATE HAS DONE ON A DEBATE STAGE. His behavior, given the context, is not AT ALL UNUSUAL...
The fact that people are accusing Castro of being "rude," "mean," "disrespectful" or "taking a cheap shot" for (rather mildly) criticizing another candidate when they largely kept silent
About a WHITE MAN standing on the debate stage and calling on Joe Biden to "pass the torch" is more telling than you think...
And the fact that so many Biden supporters are tone-policing a Latinx man over remarks he made during a (sometimes contentious) presidential debate is racially tinged whether they intend it that way or not...
Because policing people of color over their attitude, presentation, and demeanor is one of the MANY ways people uphold white supremacy in the United States...
So, the next time you find yourself taking umbrage to a POC's "rudeness" please ask yourself if you would interpret a similar remark/behavior as rude if a white person did it...
And remember, Patsy, how many times people have ignored pertinent/correct observations YOU have made bc they "didn't like your tone." (I know this has happened to you bc you're a woman and tone policing has a gendered aspect to it, regardless of the race of the woman involved)
And please show a little empathy to POC who decide to display annoyance, disappointment, or even anger when they tell you what they "really think" or how they "really feel." As I've said before, tone-policing is EXHAUSTING and sometimes you just can't manage...
And please reconsider your perceptions of the dust-up b/w Castro and Biden on Thursday. Biden really did contradict himself and Castro was under no obligation to not notice.
