Great Meeting Hack to Deal with Interrupting White Guys

[jesse_the_k]

I read the Democratic Socialists of America’s Northern Virginia branch’s meeting guidelines¹, thanks to a Metafilter discussion².

One thing I know is I'm good at running meetings. I’ve herded cats in many contexts, from true consensus to Roberts’ Rules. This brilliant idea stood out from dsa_nova’s suggestions:

Men talking over women is definitely not the way socialist feminism works. To counter ingrained patriarchal behavior, whenever a white male comrade interrupts a person of color or a white woman, everyone should raise their fist.

The goal is surrounding the interrupter by raised fists–not as a precursor to violence, but as a sign of solidarity.

What do you think? Would this be effective? Do you think it would backfire by enraging the white men so notified?

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1. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V2-YNCRW-Ya2tFzapwLMPMbqWAJZNw4qE40cIWqZti8/edit# ↩︎
2. https://www.metafilter.com/175173/The-socialists-are-coming-The-socialists-are-coming ↩︎

Comments

[luzula]

Hmmmmm. I think I would prefer to have the meeting chair head off interruptions ("Keep to the speaking order and let them finish."), and then at the end, have someone who kept track say something about the statistics of people interrupting, if there was a clear pattern.

[jesse_the_k]

Thanks for this viewpoint, I think my enthusiasm is rapidly fizzling.

Best yet to have the four-roles structure brainwane pointed to at the ADA initiative.