Conflict Displacement: Blame the Messenger
We have seen whistle blower laws fail to protect honorable employees who expose often harm-causing corruption within their organizations.  The laws are a good idea, but they often fail because elites successfully frame the messenger as the source of the problem.

We observe this same strategy whenever we hear whites claim that the only problem with racism today is that blacks keep bringing it up.  Or the only problem with insulting corporate logos is that Native Americans keep reminding us that they are insulting. Or the only problem with Trump is that Megan Kelly can't handle being called a fat pig (I know I mashed story lines together on that last one--can't keep up with which woman was subjected to which specific Trumpian insult anymore.)

A third form of this strategy is to blame protesters or critics for the problem they are criticizing or protesting.

Let's start with some common sense:  no one protests because they would rather be standing on a street corner with a sign instead of playing with their kids or watching the game or working on their house.  The decision to protest is nearly always tortured, requiring individuals and groups to weigh costs and benefits, and then to invest time and energy in an effort that from the get-go has limited chance of succeeding.

Despite this common sense, we all fall prey to the stock story line about union protesters who are too lazy to just do their job.  Though we find it harder to swallow this line when it is actually true about elites, like Senators unwilling to do their job and even consider a Supreme Court nominee.

It is not just protesters in picket lines who are subjected to this blame the messenger strategy for avoiding elite accountability.  It is not uncommon for elites (inside the organization in question or observing from the outside), to respond to criticism of their leadership by taking a strong position in favor of collaboration.  

While this strategy overlooks the fact that protests and criticisms nearly always focus on the absence of collaboration from leadership in the organization, it nevertheless articulates a common sense principle, which in the abstract--without knowledge of what is actually going on in the organization--sounds fundamentally reasonable. We do, after all, need to work together to strengthen our organizations.

The strategy, however, is designed to insulate leaders from accountability by blaming the messenger.  Packaging a message that is designed to sound heart-felt, but in fact asserts what needs to be achieved, intentionally creates a misleading analytical frame that blames those most interested in collaboration as the source of the non-collaboration. It frames the power-poor efforts to secure more collaboration as a threat to collaboration itself.

Our most common response to conflict is to 'lump it,' because doing nothing is the path of least resistance, the response least likely to involve risk and time and energy.  When we see non-elites choosing not to 'lump it,' and instead to express their profound concern about leadership failure…we need to remember that divergents are not the problem, they are the solution.