Again, offhand from experience of these episodes: the sad thing is that
this, too, turns out as a form of self-marginalization. Starting the
conversation with what amounts to an accusation makes people wary of
communicating with you, as basically all the active contributors are taken
as also willingly excluding all the non-writing list members. Surprise is
only one of the generic reactions.
A generalized story of what transpires is that a person assertively
presenting as marginalized will get a lot of patient and well-meaning
responses trying to explain that there are no intentions of
marginalization, and trying to negotiate an understanding. I suppose that
genre can be read as patronizing. The person will also get a smaller number
of less patient responses trying to teach manners. This, naturally, will be
read as active exclusionarism. Well, there's a limit where I start to agree
with that reading... And there will be a lot of emotional force behinde the
taps on the keyboards, a lot of misunderstandings and writing at cross
purposes.
The largest number of responses, howvever will be silence.
Well, if you look at the relation between the total membership as potential
responders and the actual responses to a message this is always the case...
and even if you look at the fairly active contributors, there are
ordinarily just a few responses to a particular message: most responses are
silence (fortunately for "the bandwidth." And you never know if this is a
silence on the verge of responding, a silence engaging with the message, a
silence skimming-and-shrugging or just the silence of no reading time
whatsoever this week.
In the silence occasioned by selfpresentations as representatives for the
Marginalized, however, there is also the silence of fear, of making onself
invisible as a target. I must confess I have been there, although
confessing it feels like a confession of refusing to take responsibility.
(Yes, I'm discussing this with my therapist).
All in all, the ensemble of responses usually neatly (re?)-produce
marginalization. Perhaps the conditions for discussing these issues have
improved?
Eva