Page 20 - APAP - Inside Arts - Summer 2020

Marginalization (TSM): The deep entanglement of one’s identity with being marginalized, to the point where one is inclined to destroy anything that jeopardizes that identity. TSM manifests in several ways:
An addiction to being the underdog: Despite fighting
to end marginalization, being marginalized in a sad way provides a sense of familiarity and comfort. A WOC ED colleague I talked
to mentioned that everyone on
her team got along when she was leading a scrappy organization that had little funding and wasn’t taken seriously. They were the underdogs, fighting together against an inequitable system. Everyone was happy, despite the lack of funding and visibility.
As soon as she was able to raise money, increase everyone’s pay, and lifted the organization’s public profile, suddenly her team started criticizing her and becoming very unhappy. Nothing she did was now good enough. Every decision was now scrutinized. Every mistake she made was now a big deal.
A deep discomfort with power:
The imbalance of power is what drives many unjust systems.
So we often associate power as something bad. However, power by itself is neither good nor bad. Like fire can be used for warmth or for harm, power can be wielded
for good or for bad. But Toxic Self-Marginalization does not understand that. It assumes that power corrupts, and that anyone who has power—including other marginalized people—must, or will, be corrupt. This helps explain why some leaders that everyone loves become hated as soon as they have positional power, even as they try to wield this power for good.
A fighting mode that’s difficult to turn off: Fighting unjust systems is what defines our sector and
many of us who are working each day to advance a better world. It becomes a problem, however, when we do not know when to stop, or whom we should be targeting to
get the systems change we want. When our identity becomes too entangled with being marginalized, with constantly having to fight,
we assume this is the norm. We become hyper-vigilant. It’s like soldiers and warriors having a difficult time coping when they are no longer on the battlefield. They may lash out at the people who care about them. In our sector, it means sometimes we attack others who are on our side.
A propensity for self-sabotage:
When something comes along
that moves us away from being marginalized—for example, when our organization or community starts to get more power or resources—it threatens our identity,
and we act to restore equilibrium. In a way, we try to tear something, including ourselves, down before
it becomes part of “The System.”
At an individual level, it may look like declining, or finding ways to be rejected from, a job with positional power. At the organizational level, it might include turning down funding, jeopardizing meaningful partnerships, and neutralizing those with positional authority who may see strategic value in gaining those resources and relationships.
TSM is a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, and an effective tool
of the dominant system to keep injustice in place. Getting people to be so used to being oppressed that they feel uncomfortable when they have any sort of power, to
the point that they create internal conflict, is brilliant. And because
it is unconscious, it is difficult for us to recognize and counter. It’s not that some people have toxic self-marginalization, and others don’t. Like the cold, all of us are infected with it from time to time, some occasions more severely or more frequently than others. Some of us have no idea how infected we are, and we spread the infection to others.
A quick warning before we move forward: Be careful with this term. It does not apply in every situation. If you are a person with positional power and your staff
18 INSIDE ARTS SUMMER 2020