Typically, when I get accused of using a “tone” argument, I’m not making an argument at all; I’m really just saying, “You’re being rude, and this conversation has become unpleasant. Please be more civil, or I’m not interested in talking to you any more.”

That’s still derailing. If you want out of a conversation, that’s your own prerogative, but by responding to substantive argument with “You’re being rude” doesn’t actually address the argument itself. The tone of an argument might make you less willing to engage with that argument emotionally but if you can already acknowledge that, then the choice is on you whether or not you want to engage. If you want to engage, then you push past that. If you don’t, then don’t. “I’d engage with this if you were nicer” is attempting to absolve yourself of personality responsibility in these conversations.

Additionally, people usually start getting “rude” when they’ve already exhausted their supply of social niceties and civilly-worded rational arguments, and the person in question is Just Not Getting It.

The additional implication is that marginalised people always need to be “nice” to their oppressors – who are usually the ones being bigoted. Marginalised people are not activists 24/7 and it is not their job to be. When a bigoted person has said something hurtful, it is not a marginalised person’s responsibility to suppress their anger and turn the event into a “teaching moment” for the bigot.

I’m so glad I’m not the only person who does this.

For me personally I felt that this film showed a) That it was because of systematic oppression that having a white manager was helpful, not because the POC lacked intelligence/resilience etc. and that b) the manager is often wrong and the butt of quite a few jokes. For me that made his character far less objectionable and less problematic, but obviously ymmv and I might be missing something.

I also think that the character is possibly more of a part of the advertising because Chris O’Dowd is more famous internationally. Which yeah, also pretty problematic.

Haven’t seen the movie (yet) but from the trailer this looks like another case of White Man’s Burden (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhiteMansBurden), where a white character (in this case the manager?) helps the poor, oppressed PoC to rebel/realize their full potential (which is nice for the white audience, because they can identify with the nice white person and does not have to reflect if they might at least partly have something in common with all the racists white characters) but this is of course also very problematic because it also totally undermines the agency of the PoC characters. The Help (2011) was another recent example of this trope (where white pixie dream girl helps the poor black household helps to do something against their situation).

As someone who has actually seen the film I’d like your opinion on this.