Why I Won't Assume Positive Intent

This doesn't directly relate to fashion, except the initial post appeared on another fashion blog. Recently Sally, over at Already Pretty wrote about how we should all assume others have a positive intent when they comment on our looks, or our bodies or whatever, because, after all, the people commenting mean well. As Sally says,

These nosy parkers are irritating and overbearing, but there are germs of real, human positivity fueling their unwelcome rants.

As I said over at Sally's site, I’m not sure I could disagree with this post more strongly than I do. Intent doesn’t determine reception. I don’t give a shit if someone intends to be nice when they insult my weight or ask why I use a cane or tell me I shouldn’t be wearing that or say they don’t mind nice gay people like me but freaks shouldn’t get married. Almost everyone thinks they’re being nice, but that doesn’t give them the right to give me their opinion about my body or my life or my choices, and remaining polite and assuming positive intent may be nice, but it sure as hell doesn’t change anything. Sure, in a workplace situation, it might be necessary at times, since you can’t escape your colleagues, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let people get away with their offensive behavior just because they meant well.

Being able to assume positive intent comes from a place of enormous privilege, and also safety. It's simply unrealistic and ignorant to follow this kind of advice.

I think only a privileged person could go through life assuming everyone means well. If you're queer or disabled or fat or trans or a person of color or any and all of those and more, you know for a fact that, actually, most people don't mean well. It's a nice thought, but it's not well-meaning to tell a fat person to go on a diet. It's not well-meaning to say you think I'm a lovely girl, but I don't have a right to get married, it's not well-meaning to tell a transwoman that if she dressed more feminine more people wouldn't misgender her. It's not well-meaning to tell me I shouldn't wear horizontal stripes or ask my Japanese-American friend where she's really from.

As one commenter already pointed out over there, Sal is advocating we ignore microaggressions, and basically implies that we're just getting too worked up over nothing when people are well-meaning, and we ought to cut them some slack. Not only is this condescending to those who experience these microaggressions, but it is dismissive of the very real systemic problems from which microaggressions stem. One commenter even declared that we should assume positive intent on a macro level as well, because most evil that is done in the world is not done to intentionally harm.

Some people live in a privileged bubble that insulates them from the truth of the oppressions surrounding us. What disturbs me most about the blog post is that so many people agree with it. And maybe they are all thinking of things from the point of view of "assume your husband didn't mean to leave the cupboard door open!" but that's not actually what Sal is talking about in the post, as she uses the example of facial scarring and tattoos.

There is a place for patience when someone is actively trying to learn and be a better person. If someone screws up and uses a word they shouldn't use, and you remind them not to say "that's lame" anymore, and they apologize, and are obviously making an effort to improve, that's one thing. But there is an evident difference between truly well-meaning people who may not have the vocabulary to be the most effective in their communication and assholes disguised as concern trolls wrapped up in bold impolite and unsolicited advice.

If we dance through life assuming positive intentions and never calling people out on their offensive speech and behavior, nothing will ever change, and I don't want to maintain the status quo, I want a revolution, and maybe your way of life involves putting blinders on to the truth of the inequities in the world and the body-policing and the way that privileged people feel they have rights over others' bodies, but rage fuels change for me, and you go ahead and assume I mean well when I tell you that this attitude gets us absolutely nowhere.