At our schools, districts, and/or organizations, we need to ensure that the voices of those who have been historically marginalized are heard.  This is especially the case when our minoritized colleagues state that an action or statement has caused harm.  Nevertheless, in lieu of validation, what we often hear is defensiveness as seen in the following statements. 

• She’s always angry.  She should calm down.
• It’s the way she says it.  She has to find a nicer way of expressing her thoughts; then, people would listen.
• That should have been a private conversation. 
• She has to think about her positional power before calling out a subordinate for being racist.
• She should think twice before calling her boss out for being racist. Where’s the respect?
• She’s too emotional.
• I’m offended that I was corrected so aggressively.

If you hear any of the statements above or any similar ones, what you are hearing is tone policing.  Tone policing is a process of using historically marginalized individuals’ tone or word selection against them with the purpose of silencing them into submission.  Thus, tone policing essentially reaffirms unearned power structures present in racial hierarchies.  Tone policing can happen both upwards on the organization’s leadership chain towards people with positional power and down the hierarchy towards people without any positional power because tone policing has nothing to do with organizational power but everything to do with a 500-year-old, racial power structure designed to keep people who are visibly of color at a place of submission regardless of their education, position, accomplishments, and/or potential.  Tone policing creates an inequity of expectations since it demands the friendliest communication in the face of racism while racism in itself is an unfriendly assault against the integrity and humanity of people who are visibly of color.  

If tone policing occurs in your district or organization, it can be addressed through explicit and interactive professional development.  Here are a few suggestions:

1. Name and define tone policing.  At your next professional development session, discuss Linneaus’s racial hierarchies, what tone policing is, and how tone policing maintains racial hierarchies.  Make sure you go over examples of tone policing like the ones listed earlier in this article. Pay special attention to those statements that have been made in your district, school, and/or organization.
2. Practice validating minoritized individuals when they challenge racist behaviors.  The premise of Courageous Conversations About Race by Glenn Singleton is that we need to be able to discuss race explicitly for us to break systemic racism (2021).  Hence, in professional development sessions, act out practice scenarios where someone who is from a historically marginalized group calls out a microaggression.  How does the recipient of the correction react?  What do they say?  What do others in the group say?  The more we practice responding with validation and the more we practice trying to learn and do better, the less we will revert to tone policing.   
3. Practice speaking up when others are tone policed. When in a group setting, if someone is racist and you belong to the majoritized group, you need to speak up and call out the racist behaviors.  If not, you become equally culpable.  Silence makes you complicit.  In professional development sessions, allow majoritized people the space to practice speaking up and calling out racism and tone policing.  However, please note that those from minoritized backgrounds should be encouraged to speak up or not as they feel comfortable.

By targeting tone policing in your district or school, you can help lead your organization to being a safer place for those who are from historically marginalized communities.