Creating a political climate based on shame is an impediment to justice. Shaming is about control, not justice. The shame-rage spiral is an unsustainable burden that ensures that we are unable to mount substantive challenges to oppression. Unacknowledged feelings of shame will destroy us as individuals and as movements. Honestly, I don’t have a strong idea for how we can overcome the shame dynamic in our political spaces. Thus far, Ngọc Loan Trần’s concept “calling in” offers the most hope.
From R.L. Stephen’s II’s “The Left’s Self-Destructive Obsession with Shame” in Orchestrated Pulse.
blue milk 
ooh this is a good quote! I’ve grown uncomfortable with the way that it seems like there is a growing desire to shut people down rather than encourage them to think more deeply within social justice. The whole “sit down and shut up” or “check your privilege” type of speech just seems to be counter to the goal of creating a more informed society. Do we want people to change because they have grown? Or do we just want people to acquiesce because we’ve shamed them into submission? The former is probably a lasting change. The latter seems more based on a power struggle, not for equality and empowerment but for dominance over.
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