Tears, fears and careers: Anti-racism and emotion in social movement organizations

Debates about anti-racism in many organizations often collapse into emotional and turbulent scenes characterized by anger and tears. The central concerns of this paper are the practices and discourses of emotional expression that shape what can be said in these organizational debates about racism and anti-racism. A predominant mode of discussion in many social movement organizations, particularly those inspired by feminist and collectivist histories, is one that privileges the disclosure of personal experiences and emotion. I demonstrate that this wide-spread mode of discussion, which I refer to as the "let's talk"approach, also produces a tightly controlled space for the expression and suppression of knowledge and feelings about racism. In particular, interviews with feminists active in anti-racist efforts shows that this "let's talk" approach often deflects and personalizes attempts at organizational change. The implication of this research is that simply ''adding" feelings to organizational efforts, as some sociologists of emotion, feminist scholars and activists have suggested, is an enterprise that must be carefully interpreted. This paper suggests we should be re-thinking not only the practices of emotion in organizations, but also the historical relations of power that prompt emotional resistance to discussions of race.