Readers of this column occasionally complain that I'm too nice to our enemies. They may have a point.
I'm an easygoing person by nature. It's not a deliberate strategy; it's just who I am. Usually the trait serves me well, though there are times I wish I had a reputation as more of an asshole. People generally steer clear of assholes, for fear of provoking them, and intimidation has its uses.
Even though my being "Mr. Nice Guy" wasn't chosen for strategic purposes, I try to work it to my advantage. It gives me influence with a certain group of people. And it's shaped my career as a gay-rights advocate, one who aims for thoughtful engagement with the other side.
Such engagement can be productive. For one thing, the more our opponents know us personally, the harder it is for them to demonize us. (Not impossible, obviously, but harder.) Part of my life's mission is to create cognitive dissonance for those who would label all gays as angry deviants.
But engagement is also important because, like it or not, our opponents still capture majorities in most states. I don't doubt that the tide is shifting strongly in our favor, but we've got a lot of work to do. One effective way to reach the movable middle is to take opponents' concerns seriously.
I say "one effective way," not "the only effective way." There's a place for militant activism. And I'm not just saying that because I like getting along with people-militant activists included. I really believe it.
There's a character type in the GLBT community that we might refer to as the Angry Queers. (It's a caricature, to be sure, but like any good caricature it captures something important.) They're angry, and they want everyone to know it.
They're angry at our opponents. They're angry at me for civilly engaging those opponents. They're angry at the schools who host our debates, for giving the opposition a platform, as well as for not providing (take your pick): (a) free parking; (b) accessible seating; (c) more Q&A time; (d) universal health care.
They're angry at the world generally, and they're going to let everyone know it.
There are times when I'm sincerely grateful for Angry Queers. They jolt us out of our complacency. They remind us that these issues can have life-or-death implications. Yes, they make us uncomfortable, but sometimes we should be uncomfortable.
So they have their role, and I have mine. Both have their uses.
It's tempting to cast the resulting alliance as a "Good Cop/Bad Cop" strategy. Tempting, but not so easy. For when it comes to moral issues, "Good Cop/Bad Cop" seems unstable-maybe even unsustainable.
In this debate, the Good Cop tells opponents, "You have reasonable concerns-just like the many other decent people who share your views. Let's hear those concerns so we can address them thoughtfully."
The Bad Cop tells opponents, "Your 'concerns' are prejudice, pure and simple. And the best way to stamp out prejudice is to make life as uncomfortable as possible for anyone who tries to express it. That's how society handles bigots: we don't accommodate them; we ostracize them."
Needless to say, these strategies are at cross purposes. One cannot simultaneous tell people that one wants to hear their concerns and also that they'd better shut up if they know what's good for them.
I don't pretend to have an easy answer to this dilemma. The debate is unlike, say, the health-care debate, where everyone agrees that healing the sick is a good thing, and the disagreement is over who pays for it and how.
The gay-rights debate is a debate about whether our deep romantic commitments are a good thing. It's about the nature of family, the authority of scripture, and other core moral issues. It cuts far deeper than "who pays for it and how?" (which, admittedly, has its own moral entanglements).
I agree with the Angry Queers that the other side is wrong-badly wrong, wrong in ways that profoundly harm innocent people. And I can understand their desire to marginalize anyone who doubts the moral value of our relationships. I get it. I get it strategically, and I get it personally.
But, for reasons both strategic and personal, I can't join their approach. So I keep doing my "Good Cop" thing, hoping for synergy in this unstable but necessary alliance.
9 Comments for “No More Mr. Nice Gay?”
posted by TS on
Where did you get those insights? I want a set just like them! Hopefully, they weren’t too expensive.
posted by Jess on
Yeah. What you said. I lean more towards the angry, myself, but, you know, the world needed Gandhi and MLK just as much as it needed Malcolm and Margaret Sanger. I really respect what you do, and appreciate it, largely because I’m incapable of it.
So, go Team You.
Keep talking. We’re listening.
posted by Seth on
One reason I proudly call myself an angry queer is the very tactic your (extremely thought-provoking) article employs in its discussion of our “place” in the “discussion.” You’re conceptualizing angry GLBT people only as a means to your perceived end. One of many things that makes me fearful for the queer community in our struggle for rights is how easily we try to subsume other individuals and groups (such as African-Americans) as means to our ends, and nothing more.
It’s not just that many of your GLBT brothers and sisters are “personally” or “strategically” angry. It’s that many of us resist being co-opted as thoroughly as we resist being villainized.
posted by Paul on
Hi John,
Nice post and I am glad that you feel secure in being who you are….Mr. Nice guy. :).
While I do believe that being or playing Mr. Nice Guy does have its place and positive attributes, most likely it is only in equal measure to the Angry GLBTQ crowd.
As for my own personal experience, I played and embodied Mr. Nice Guy for over twenty years. When it got me exactly nowhere, the exact same people who I played nice to all those years then asked why I was always so angry! WTF??? It seemed sort of like a canned response that was taught to evangelicals when they were put in an uncomfortable position. (I must admit the first time I was accused of being angry, when I was actually bending over backwards being nice, was quite destabilizing).
So maybe playing/being nice is exactly the same as playing/being angry with similar results? As is often understood, opposites are often exactly the same. So I have now taken a completely different approach when dealing with people on the other side of this argument. Namely, I am nice when it is appropriate and angry when appropriate in an adult fashion. If my niceness or anger “offends” the other side, then that is more than likely their issue and one that they must work with.
As an example, let’s use Proposition 8. The ads that tried to convince the other side that same sex marriage was good and should remain legal was “NICE”. Hell, the ads were so ‘nice’ they did not even make the other side look at a gay person as there were only straight folks in the ads….how very ‘nice’ of the gay community to hide themselves so as to be ‘nice’ to the straight community. Obviously, this “NICE” strategy crashed and burned and most likely did not earn our side a single vote. At the opposite end of the spectrum we have the angry anti mormon protestors chanting outside of their temples during and after their religious services. While I believe that this anger is/was more than justified, I am not sure that such protests has earned us any votes either.
So I am suggesting we need to continue to express both our “Niceness and Anger”. When both are expressed in an adult way it can make inroads into the conversation. Now if the receiver of either of these messages interprets them through the lens of a child, nothing that you say or do will make much difference to the discussion anyways.
So please continue to be yourself and expressing yourself via the niceness card. If it is genuine, it will work.
For most of us GLBTQs, we are genuinely nice people who also have extremely legitimate reasons to be genuinely angry. We can be both at the same time.
posted by Bobby on
The moment you get angry you lose the argument, that’s my experience.
posted by David Skidmore on
I agree with the above – to a point. Getting angry makes you look like you lack self-control. However, when someone screams that you’re a filthy fag and you’re going to hell, I think you’re entitled to get a little upset.
posted by Phoebe on
I have felt this exact same conflict in a very different context, when I was a criminal defense lawyer. The prosecution often did [or tried to do] meanspirited, dehumanizing things to my clients, and sometimes they just seemed sadistic. I know a lot of public defenders who demonize prosecutors, and I hate some prosecutors and what they do as much as anyone, but with one brief flare-up exception, I kept it nice. While stewing and steaming.
One thing is, you have to be nice in front of the judge. I’ve seen a judge chew out a prosecutor for asking for a ridiculous sentence for my client, who had slight brain damage and whose behavior seemed completely tied to staying on his medication. I believe I was way more effective for my clients by not getting on my automatic high horse, indignation set to 11 each time, the way some defenders do. And maybe the judge is the equivalent of the Undecided Voter.
But MAN, I have left the job and I’m STILL angry. They’re still wrong. I don’t want to do to them what they do to my clients. I have had drinks with them and talked about The Wire! That took a bit of compartmentalization. But I need to know how they tick, the better to understand and address the problem.
“They Suck” is not a strategy. Even if they do suck. This is all very stressful, hating people. I have to learn to meditate [!] and I have to think of a way to do something somehow, something productive. Ignoring it, or pretending you don’t care, is not the answer, and should form no part of any Nice Guy strategy.
posted by Bobby on
Phoebe, I love criminal defense attorneys, I read about Bobby Simone and Goodman. I don’t hate the people who defended OJ Simpson, Pablo Escobar, Manuel Noriega, and other criminals. I believe every criminal deserves the best defense. I don’t support the overreaching RICO statues that can put a man in jail just for his associations with an organized crime figure, or the idea that you can kill 20 people and only do 4 years in jail if you testify against someone the government hates more.
However, I don’t know how wrong the prosecutors are. Are they not the other side of the coin? Do they not have to live with themselves when a child molester goes free only to molest again? Have you never freed a client that ends up getting arrested again? Have you never had a client that jumps bail? I’m sure the prosecutors are quite angry at plenty of stuff criminal defense attorneys do.
posted by Joseph Millraney on
Hey, look John has his place in this as much as the angry queers. I would hate to think that we are one side or the other. We need both sides to keep the ball rolling. Discussion and discomfort, what a combination. The thing that I worry about is that WE forget who all of US are, and that WE marginalize ourselves. WE are all in this and WE all have to stand together as a united front. You go John! You go angry Queers!