“Political emails”—should you avoid them?

Remember This Email The Next Time Someone Tells Your To “Stay In Your Lane”

“Stay in your lane.”

You have to be prepared to hear that kind of thing if you run a business like mine and you send newsletters like the one I wrote last week about singing resistance. In bold red letters, one subscriber explained why my proper place was in the spam folder. 

“I am literally so TIRED of liberal white women with all their tears and drama for ICE,” she said. “I opted in to hear about email MARKETING. Reported SPAM.”

Fair! 

All those words describe me: Liberal! White woman! Tears! Drama! I concede. I felt like saying, “You’re not the only one who’s tired, man! Try being me for a day!” Not only that, but she was right. I did promise emails about email marketing. You did not sign up to hear my political views.

Receiving feedback is a skill I had to learn — knowing what’s mine, when to take accountability, and when to bless and release. That took years. I did a lot of apologizing for things I was not even guilty of. 

But I will not be apologizing for last week’s email. Most subscribers loved it. Our unsubscribe rate was a perfectly manageable .57%.

If you’re feeling the urge to “write something” or “do something” even though it’s way outside your lane, let’s talk about it. 

If you’ve never done it before, accept that it’s going to be messy. People will be surprised and they’re going to have opinions. Nervous system regulation is a skill for our times, and you’ll need it when you read the feedback. I pay special attention when multiple people are saying the same thing about something I wrote that they don’t like. Even if I don’t agree, there’s always a lesson.

Let people say what they need to say. You’ll grow from it. 

You’re going to get it wrong sometimes. That’s okay. It’s how you learn. Part of being a good leader is speaking up when the time comes to speak up, but also learning how to say, “I was wrong.” Repair = another skill for our time. 

Not everyone on your email list thinks like you. That’s a good thing. We need diversity of opinions and capacity to disagree with each other. I want you to feel welcome here even if your opinions don’t align with mine. We can’t go around cancelling each other and marking people as spam when we don’t agree. That’s only slowing us down. 

Us liberal White ladies are big on going around making statements so that everyone knows that we are the right sort of White lady and not like those bad racist people. So for those who share my identity, maybe check in with yourself about your motivation for writing that email. Maybe sleep on it for a day. You might find that activism is even more meaningful when it stays between you and God.

It’s also okay to stay in your lane as a business owner, even necessary in many cases. Activism can happen in a lot of places other than your email list — at your dining room table, at your church, or the VIP reception of whatever business event you’re attending next. 

The last thing I’ll say is, if you do write that email, have someone you trust read it over first. They’ll be able to see the red flags that you can’t see through your rage and disappointment and fear. 

For the years when I really needed it, I always had a buddy system. I still turn to my trusted band of sensitivity readers now and then if something feels particularly dicey. ← Know who those people are, and stay in touch with them. We need each other right now. 

Okay, that’s it for this week. 

See? I did write an email about emails, even if it’s not quite what you signed up for. 

Thanks for being here,

Liberal White Lady Full of Tears and Drama

Tarzan Kalryzian [she/they]
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P.S. 

Damn! This email was supposed to be about my membership, Email Review Club. Oopsie! This was more important, obviously. 

But if you want a place to ask complicated questions about email, like the one I addressed in today’s email, you’d love Email Review Club. It’s always open but you get some cool bonuses if you sign up by tomorrow.