If you are alive and conscious in 2020 on earth, you are being forced to look at the countless ways in which systemic racism and police brutality suppress Black lives in many and mortal ways. As with most things in modern life and especially amidst a global pandemic, most of us are seeing this through the lens of technology. Mixed in with re-shared memories of other times and photos of bread we may be baking are harrowing videos, news articles, scholarly papers, and personal accounts of the ways that racism has never really gone away, but rather been rebranded much like a bottle of syrup.
I have little new or profound to bring to the overall discussion on racism and injustice at this moment, but what I have noticed is the behavior of myself and those white friends/colleagues who are varying degrees of shocked and dismayed, but seemingly unwilling to move past uncomfortable into real examination and then sacrifice.
If you are unfamiliar with the term “slacktivism”, it is essentially a digital semblance of activism but just the talking about and sharing content or information rather than showing up, voting, making the calls, and doing the difficult work. The nature of how our smart phones have become our peepholes to the world makes this both broadly tempting and deeply problematic. Think of the past two weeks. You watched the video or heard about it, you made a personal statement and maybe messaged a few Black friends and colleagues, you shared some harsh memes, you chimed in on a comment thread to correct a friend of a friend, you followed a bunch of new accounts, you read some blogs.
But what else?
Did you donate or volunteer? Did you create a partnership or opportunity? Did you give up your seat so a person of color could have a spot at the table? Did you speak up even and especially when it made other white people feel uncomfortable?
If not, you need to do more. We all do. Clicking on some things and feeling bummed out is really just the very beginning. We must push past feeling bad and past the links and memes to make way for people that need the access and have solutions—real solutions. If anything, the discomfort and the social media are a distraction because they give the illusion of difficult change when they are really just ephemeral white noise.
What’s become clear to me as someone with privilege upon privilege (straight, white, American male working comfortably from my home), are three things:
- We need to put down the phones and pick up the baton being passed to us as people of conscience and access. We need to let our Black friends and colleagues rest and heal while we use our positions of to advocate and to knock down barriers. If anything, the phones and social media are fooling us into believing were participating. We’d do better to look into a mirror or speak to someone with real lived experience.
- We’re often so concerned with hurting white people’s feelings, we fall short of speaking the truth and acting on it.
- Slacktivism and discomfort are the beginning, but what’s next is giving up our advantage, seat at the table, and illusion of wokeness to make way for actual change—which means we likely will need to sit down and listen.
While I started The Off Switch in 2010 to examine and modify my personal habits around technology, I am increasingly seeing a societal blindspot. We’re holding up our phones to film the moment but we’re not in the moment nor are we taking responsibility. That’s hard work but it is so critical.
For my part, I am donating to causes that don’t just feel good but that are doing the messy but essential work of fighting injustice and protecting rights like ACLU. I hope you’ll join me. I am handing the microphone to people of color and then shutting my mouth. I am looking at my sphere of influence (off social media) and having those uncomfortable conversations about injustice and racism backed by action.
It’s really the least I can do.
Image may be NSFW.
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