I don’t know the answers. I just don’t see hostility working as a tactic in the long run.
By the way, while this is a good discussion IMO, I’m thinking that we’re off topic? I don’t mean to be disrespectful of the OP or the author and book that are Cory’s topic here.
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Why does it always seem to be this way?
If white people get defensive, the expectation is to respect that defensiveness, and find ways to achieve goals without triggering them. Put solutions to privilege on hold until everyone’s comfortable.
-But-
If other people get frustrated, they should get over their frustration so as not to appear “hostile” or threatening. Put solutions to privilege on hold until the people pointing out the problem find a way to be more polite, or are able to not display “awkward” feelings of disappointment in other people (however understandable).
This double standard is there because of the issue itself. People challenging systemic injustice are held to the standard of comforting yet non-threatening 911 operators, and the people who need to be convinced maintain that they should be approached like bosses being asked for a raise, or an alien visitor that requires handholding on the basic concept of “one kind of person having an unearned advantage.”
If someone’s house is on fire, people have to stop expecting a please and thank you at every interaction.
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We’re good. Cory himself brought up Scalzi’s metaphor in connection with Hodgman’s musings on his own white privilege in his new book.
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Sometimes that requires working with people instead of against them. We’re not in a perfect world, that’s for sure. If some white dudes can’t hear what we’re saying the way we’re saying it, why keep saying the same things the same way? It doesn’t mean we abandon goals, just that we look for methods that will achieve what we’re looking for.
It appears that you like to fight, while I like to be peaceful. May each of us be productive toward our shared goals 
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The Scalzi metaphor is exactly that. It also highlights the catch-22 of using a metaphor. Usually, for me, when I resort to metaphor, it’s when a detailed and straightforward argument (not in the angry sense, but the persuasive sense) is not working, because the other party is getting bogged down on the details. That’s when a metaphor can aid in reaching agreement on the big picture.But it inevitably fails in the details.
Thus, the catch-22. When it comes down to it, if someone really doesn’t want to see your point, they will poke out their own eyes (metaphorically) to remain blind.
I was already open to the concept of white privilege, but when I first encountered Scalzi’s metaphor, it was an epiphany. YMMV.
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I was open to the concept of white privilege, but I’ve never played video games and didn’t know they had difficulty levels. When I first encountered Scalzi’s metaphor, I learned something about video games!
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Do you think being polite hasn’t been tried? (I’m not saying people should only go out of their way to be rude, but all approaches have failure rates with people more interested in perpetuating the basic problem)
If we’re in a thread with people arguing that our communications should be made to come across more nicely and more sweetly, I feel like it’s appropriate to tell you that this kind of sentence can be interpreted as patronising. (You can be rude to me, but if it’s while you’re talking about manners, I’ll comment on it.)
I was talking about people feeling frustrated by actual systemic injustice, and how it’s important not to dismiss people because of their anger at things that make reasonable people angry.
That’s not “likes to fight” or “hates peace”.
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Dangit, do we have to keep reteaching the same old lessons? Everything old is new again.
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Of course I don’t think that.
Thank you for the info. It was not my intent to patronize. It was my attempt to wrap it up and exit.
Back to lurking.
Edit for clarity, because some comments have been removed from the topic:
I was not talking about politeness or manners. I was talking about the usefulness of hostility vs. non-hostility when working with other human beings, in relation to employing Scalzi’s metaphor. Those comments have been removed, perhaps for having gone too far off-topic.
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