Notices by emilygorcenski (emilygorcenski@indieweb.social)

The thing about civility is this: civility is great when you are discussing tax policy or whether the trim should be painted blue or grey. Civility is deadly when discussing whether human beings are to be afforded equal dignity.

In Charlottesville in 2017, in the leadup to Unite the Right, a certain kind of person was obsessed with civility. This person, liberal, white, and smarter than you, was convinced they knew how to take down hate.

We had every manner of civility politics. We had people say they were going to silently surround the Nazis, turn their backs, and join hands in a moving display of love over hate. We had people saying that both sides were bad. One city councillor called an anti-racist group a terrorist organization. The term “cville” was turned inti “cvilleity” more than once.

In the end, this did not stop hate.

It did, however, silence and imprison anti-racist activists who were trying to stop hate.

More than once, civility was used as a dogwhistle to silence Black people for being “too loud” and “too aggressive.” It was a racist policy supported by a bunch of racist community members almost all of whom were blue through and through.

Civility was a weapon that supported hate.

After Unite the Right, the first thing we attacked as a community was civility. The next city council meeting, one of the councillors tried to have a discussion about Land Use policies. No, we weren’t going back to business as usual. We were going to murder civility on the dais.

We took over that meeting. We ran the council off the floor and into a television closet. We stood on the dais. When cops tried to control us we pushed them back. We refused to leave. We demanded to be heard.