Column: Tough love doesn't always work
Published Dec. 11, 2009
The headline printed across one of The Maneater's editorials Tuesday read "IncludeMe MU needs to get its bite back." It essentially called for the organization IncludeMe MU to spice up its work this year and push harder to get administrators and faculty members to pledge support for adding a gender identity non-discrimination clause to UM system statements.
It got me thinking about the rhetoric we — not just journalists, everyone — often use when we call for action: words like "push," "rally" and "bite." Talking to my friends from the paper, the journalism school and student organizations, I came to two conclusions: 1) Often, saucy rhetoric doesn't lead to change as easily as something sweeter or simply more academic might and 2) sometimes, to make change happen, you can't bite -- you have to play nice.
For full disclosure, I guess I should put it out there that for a semester, I wrote the editorials through which The Maneater "bites." I called out student organizations, administrators and occasionally individual people twice a week, representing "the majority opinion of The Maneater's editorial board" and trying to spark some type of positive change for students. The Maneater has always tried to be a voice for students; that's the point. It gives you university news, straight up, but it also advocates for students on campus and higher education issues. As I wrote more and more editorials, though, I wondered if maybe some of our attempts to invoke change ended up hurting people we called on to act along the way. If so, that's never what we intended.
The next semester I started working as the Academic Affairs chairwoman for the Missouri Students Association and saw journalistic calls to action from the inside of the fishbowl. I walked a mile in someone else's shoes, and I realized sometimes what student organizations need is a cheerleader -- not a ferocious tiger. It's easier to be inspired by a call to action when it seems as if the person or people calling really want you to succeed. It's hard to convey "tough love" through a written column, letter or editorial.
Fierce action and protests and buttons and stickers have their place. They're good for spreading the word, for sparking awareness and for creating a sense of community among people working toward a common goal. They can highlight injustices and open minds. But when you're separated from your goal by a web of administrators or opponents or bureaucrat, you often have to handle situations the way they do. This means researching your position and stating it in a discussion that doesn't exclude the notion of compromise; it means wearing a suit if it'll get the job done, and it means realizing that people are just people like you. It also means understanding how much political capital you have and how far you can go.
Everyone has plans and emotions and feelings and can be offended or affected just as easily as you can — and "pushing" often won't get you all that far.
This doesn't mean that we shouldn't stand up and wholeheartedly fight for what we believe in with passion and fire and dedication. It just means we should couple all that spice with a little bit of sugar and at times, trading a harsh reprimanding command for a more researched, well-supported suggestion for an alternative.
If we're going to tell people to act a certain way or achieve a certain goal, we're responsible for proving that that's possible and learning how, logistically, that change could take place. You can't have style without substance — that counts everywhere from newspaper columns to PowerPoint presentations composed for the Board of Curators.