Should You Change Your Medium Story in Response to Comments?

A lesson in standing your ground

At what point, if ever, should you and I rewrite parts of an article that one or two people find offensive, if ever? What is the tipping point for changing our wording or softening a stance?

With more than 5500 articles on Medium, it would be safe to say I have a body of work out there. Some of it pisses people off. There have been times, like with all of us, that I wrote a piece while under duress or in physical pain. The underlying discomfort bleeds through, as it always does, for we all leak our truth. In those cases, where a kind Dear Reader has pointed out that the tone barks or that I’ve used to a term that could be considered offensive, I have indeed been responsive.

But not always. There’s a reason for that. There is a point when, if you write a piece for a very specific purpose, the article needs to stand as written. While I can’t speak for you, I will try to address where that line is for me.

Last August I wrote a story that has been trending again recently. I have no clue why that happens. Any more, frankly, than I understand why my readership has recently skyrocketed while at the same time my earnings continue to plummet.

As Yul Brynner used to intone in The King and I,

“Tis a puzzlement.”

The article in question speaks to body image, which is one very tough subject for all of us. I’ve been very frank about my battles with my body. The four decades of eating disorders, the loss of all my teeth. I’ve been quick to make fun of and mock the stupid shit I’ve done to myself as well as a society which viciously attacks us all for not being perfect.

However. I also make the very high-level spiritual point, regularly, that the body is an IT and not us, and that as a spiritual being, we inhabit the vessel that teaches us the most at any given time. As difficult as that is- and kindly, if you want to get pissy about how awful your body is, please see Stephen Hawking-the way I see it, the body is the grand teacher. But not if we simply cannot see it that way. That’s one of the points of the piece.

Several people- all White women, which doesn’t surprise me in the least- have written me recently barking about how the piece moralizes and the word “deserve” is offensive. That choice of wording is very intentional. And, woven throughout the article are very clear explanations for why I chose that wording.

The purpose of getting in Dear Reader’s face is to bring up their shit. It’s not my shit, it’s their shit. However, the three who wrote me, most especially the second (young, White, blonde) decided to lecture me about my choice of wording.

From where I sit at nearly seventy, I find it utterly delightful that the Morals Police, so many of them White girls in their twenties and thirties, with Medium monikers like “Justice Warrior” (no really, no kidding, you can’t make this shit up) make up the new community of trollers. Apparently they are using their Tone Police nit combs to find offensive words and then go after shameful Medium authors to put us right.

Well, with all due respect ladies, GTFU and FUCK your moralizing.

I struggle to sort out who hired your insecure, easily-offended, immature, self-righteous White Savior ass to fix the world for the rest of the population. But that’s just me.

To those women I wrote this response:

Yesterday, as I am exceedingly fortunate to do every week, I had my conference call with Rosennab. Dr. Bakari is a prodigious talent, an original thinker. She doesn’t write a lot on Medium, but what she does write is fucking brilliant. It can also get in your face, and in doing so, her choice of words and her unique way of presenting information can cause a seismic shift.

This is precisely why I love her shit.

We forged our friendship right after George Floyd lost his life. It would be fair to say that was a powerful relationship bathed in fire. I count Dr. B as one of the, no, THE best thing that has happened to me this year. Regular readers of mine will notice how often I link to her work. Good reason for that. She’s a lot smarter than I am.

The other day she received a comment on one of her pieces calling her a racist.

Dr. B is Black. Suffice it to say we both nearly fell over laughing.

If you read any of her work you’d understand why. Dr. B is anything but a racist.

When she and I write a piece that has a thread of difficult growth woven into it, it’s going to cause certain folks- precisely those folks who probably need to take a look at their personal shit- to get their panties in a twist.

It’s been my consistent experience that Certain Young White Women behave precisely like their White Male Supremacist counterparts, without having a single clue that they are doing so.

From another article I wrote recently, and this is from Black scholar Jenn M. Jackson:

She (Jackson) stipulates that White women are number two in a deeply entrenched racial order in the United States and says not to forget the role White women play in upholding White supremacy.

Both communities put themselves out on line to moralize, attack and correct writers whose material they deem unworthy or offensive to folks, who, by and large, probably don’t know or much care that the Tone Police are working the trenches to protect them from us Evil Authors.

Deep Work is bloody hard work. It’s exceptionally rewarding, but not unless you and I are willing to deal with the demons that are installed in our own basements. There are times I will write a piece (like the one on “Deserving” your body) that specifically pokes at the bullshit we all carry about body image. That is precisely the role of that article. There is humor and love and care written all through it.

Which these respondents miss because they appear to have a gut reaction to the word “deserve.” After that, confirmation bias absolutely guarantees that they cannot see anything else in the piece through any other lens. They seek proof that this author is looking to shame Dear Reader.

So should I change the wording? Should you?

Here’s my acid test. When I get responses like this, at least initially I take them seriously. Usually. The second commenter, the one who referred to herself as the “Justice Warrior,” hadn’t bothered to read the article at all. At some point you really do have to just can the comment entirely. I did.

But not after I wrote a few choice words to Ms. Self-Proclaimed Justice Warrior. If you’re going to start a fucking war, probably not a good move to start one with a decorated military veteran who is also a prize-winning writer. Especially if you can’t be bothered to read the article beforehand.

To be clear, this means reading to understand, not just scanning to find more proof of your preconceived notions.

Just saying, Sparky. I will shame a shamer. (Of course that makes me a shamer, and if you fail to see the humor in this, that’s also a shame.)

But what if people, a lot of them, or if one really thoughtful Dear Reader, pens you a respectful PM?

A respectful, detailed PM, is a whole other category than the public spanking that the Morals Police love to engage in. Far be it for the commenter to go private and engage you in a thoughtful discussion. Those who take the time to send you a PM not only make the usually fair assumption that you will read their comment, but also take it to heart. This is the heart and soul of polite discourse. Which, tell me I’m wrong here, is one of the guiding principles of Medium.

For my part, if Dear Reader’s purpose is to drag my aging ignorant ass publicly across the coals so that (usually) she can claim victory for her (billions of nonexistent rabid) fans, then I will not change what I write. Because the intention is to shame, do damage, or publicly point out how bad or wrong I am. That to me is a fine sign of how much her shit came up for her, and how badly she needs to fling it back in my general direction.

Bingo. Mission accomplished.

I have deleted articles that were earning money fast for all the wrong reasons because they were just plain WRONG. For this I thank the Dear Readers who were good enough to politely point out my shit. Which I needed to own.

However.

I’m not in the business of either empowering or encouraging White Saviors, no matter how they show up.

Medium writer Shannon Ashley, who is very public about the battles she fights with her body, read and highlighted this piece. Funny, it appears she understood precisely what I was saying. Shannon is very good at speaking her mind, and we exchange comments every so often. I believe Shannon understands that if I went too far, she could make a comment and I would most certainly attend. However, she didn’t. She got the point.

But then, Shannon isn’t a member of the Morals Police. Nor are my other favorite (young White female) writers, Gillian Sisley, or Kris Gage, both of whom are about half my age. They both write material I love for they also underscore personal responsibility, which is a huge underlying theme in my work. So do a lot of other young, White female writers who pen courageous material.

The way I see it, if writers whose work you really trust take the time to PM you that your tone is ugly or offensive, or that you sound off today, listen. Attend. Go back with a careful eye and ask yourself if you woke up mad or seriously need to take a walk. What’s informing your words?

Then challenge yourself to ask, which Rosennab reminds me of regularly, what am I saying to myself? Because all relationships are relationships with the self.

Which of course said Morals Police trolls don’t seem to understand. Not everyone who wasn’t happy with that piece falls into this category, mind you. However, those who took offense are not looking at themselves when the offense rises. The one this morning added her comment that she didn’t think that the response is solely in the eye of the Reader.

Where on earth else can that response be?

I didn’t put it there. This is how we hand away our power. “You made me….” Nope. I didn’t. You made you.

This is how much we resist personal responsibility.

One of my Medium buddies wrote me the other day that if what I wrote didn’t cause a reaction, then I wasn’t doing my job. While I agree, if we write something that, upon review, is clearly an attempt to do harm, shame, cause discomfort or shift the burden of our own Work onto others, then that’s when we do indeed need to edit our pieces.

However, do NOT change your piece if what you clearly understand is that your truth caused others to painfully face their own. That is our job. When you and I do that with love, care, respect and grace, then our intention is clean. The only person who can know that is you.

A note to the next (and yes, there was another VERY young, VERY blonde White chick) who just PM’d me, UM. It helps to read the article. UM. I appreciate that you took the comment private but condescension from someone barely out of your thirties is….UM…to use your word, UM…..you might have wanted to read the article. UM.