CJ and I recently led a discussion on the first half of the book The Hip Hop Generation Fights Back. The book explores two youth activism groups in Oakland, California, and considers how growing up in circumstances that make the youth both invisible and heavily criticized affect their approach to activism. In addition, the book explores how the youth perceive the label “activist” in the context of idealized cultural images of activists and the history of the Black Panther Party in Oakland.
We began the discussion by asking the class about the parallels between the way the Black Panther Party is immediately associated with guns, and the characterization of the Black Lives Matter movement by Fox News and President Trump. Early in the book, the author discusses how today’s youth are perceived as “deviants” who need to be constantly supervised. This made me consider the ways mass media operates to discredit and vilify Black movements throughout American history. For example, in the 1950s, then-President Herbert Hoover began a program called Cointelpro, with the goal of “preventing the rise of a Black messiah” and targeting black nationalism. This program continued throughout the 1960s, and was used by the FBI to infiltrate the Black Panther Party and assassinate Fred Hampton in 1969. This is interesting to consider in the context of a clip we found of President Trump prior to the 2016 election, promising to former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly that he would “investigate” the Black Lives Matter movement.
It’s incredibly how quickly politicians and people in power attack movements that seek to make Black communities safer, characterizing them as dangerous and aggressive, while ignoring White power movements. In the case of Herbert Hoover, this meant creating a program that would eventually be used to assassinate leaders of the Black Panthers, a group who provided free breakfast for children and thirteen free health clinics, while ignoring brutal attacks on Black communities by the KKK. For Trump, this means calling for “law and order” – a coded attack against Black Lives Matter – while saying there were “fine people” on both sides of the conflict in Charlottesville that saw a white nationalist drive a car into a crowd of protestors, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.
We continued our discussion by questioning the use of the term “activist” and how the students in the book used it. This discussion led to a debate between “slacktivism” and “activism”. Slacktivism, as defined by dictionary.com, is “actions taken to bring about political or social change but requiring only minimal commitment, effort, or risk”. The idea of slacktivism is especially interesting in our social-media obsessed culture, where posts about social movements are everywhere. How can we define “activism” with this in mind? Is someone who reposts things about social movements without actually going to rallies or volunteering an activist? Where do we draw the line between “slacktivism” and “activism”? Most of the class was opposed to the idea of people posting things on social media without actually participating in a movement. However, is doing something better than doing nothing? Despite how irritating it can be to see a hundred posts about the same topic on your social media, what if each post informs a single person? Isn’t that how movements grow? While the change brought about by posting something on social media is negligible, awareness is crucial, because being aware of what’s going on is a step in the right direction, a step toward action and serious change.
I think it is interesting to consider the historical parallels in presidencies and their initiatives. The positions of power described here and how they are used constantly reinforce the idea of systematic oppression. It is a deep rooted institutional issue of race when presidents are upholding white power and going out of their way to stop black nationalism. Examining the issues around the activism vs. slacktivism debate in class was also extremely interesting. Although slacktivism may not be seen as the most engaging or effortful way of raising awareness for issues, it does allow people who would otherwise do nothing to partake in some of the issues. On the other side, we live in a time packed with so much information, that slacktivism may just be glossed over and not really be making as much of an impact as some may believe. I do think slacktivism raises awareness to a much greater extent than if it wasn’t happening, so I think it is a valid form of raising awareness
I think the danger of “slacktivism” is the sense of complacency and self-satisfaction that often comes with it. I agree that the importance of platforms and websites like Twitter and Instagram in creating change and transformative social movements cannot be understated. However, I personally define activism as deliberately working to change the status quo. Is someone really changing the status quo when they only want to contribute one post on their Instagram story to the cause? Again, social media fostered movements like #BlackLivesMatter and #MarchforOurLives. Spreading the word online has enacted true social change. But usually, it’s not enough.
I thought this discussion was super interesting because media usage is so prevalent in today’s society. I’m glad I learned the term “slacktivism” because I notice that a lot on social media. I think a lot of people should be labeled “slacktivists” because they only reposts things on social media, but won’t actually do anything to bring change. I’m not saying that spreading awareness is bad, but people shouldn’t label themselves as activists if all they’re doing is reposting on social media.
Dan and I lead a very interesting discussion on youth activism, looking specifically at Andreana Clay’s The Hip-Hop Generation Fights Back. The book goes into great depth into activism and how in certain parts of the country the youth are made to feel invisible, in turn allowing them to feel as if their voices do not matter. Personally, this really hurts me to think that there are kids in our country who were told to stay quiet where so many of peers were always taught to speak up. There were tons of disturbing stories in the book where students were treated as if they were nothing and that they could never become something. It is important that we make it a priority for future generations to know that their voices do matter, hopefully avoiding the recreating of many of the situations we read in the book
As a class we then discussed the idea of slacktivism vs activism quite a bit. We defined slacktivism as actions taken to bring about political or social change but requiring only minimal commitment, effort or risk. This lead us on a huge rant about social media. We debated on certain trends we have seen on instagram and whether reposting these actually do anything. As a class it felt as if we collectively decided that reposting these things we see on instagram was not enough, but I would like to push back on that just a bit. I am a huge advocator and believer that an accumulation of small actions can make a difference. So I just wonder why we felt as if those small actions on instagram spreading awareness was not doing enough. I think a big factor is that we do not really see direct results when we do a simple repost, which is a great argument for why a simple repost is not enough. Do we need to have direct results to make a difference though? I understand that direct results and actions are what our society harps on nowadays, but I still believe that spreading awareness is just as important to actually getting those results in the long run. The way I see it is that you cannot have results without spreading the awareness first.
Finally, we talked a bit about activists movements like Black Lives Matter, and how there are always “white” movements in response to these racial movements. It’s really interesting how so many conservative and often white movements are never started until they are used in response to “liberal” movements. It is just kind of ridiculous and childish that our society works that way. I think a big part of this is the whole idea of whiter fragility, where white people often believe they are being attacked and labeled as bad where in reality that is not the goal of many of these movements. I do really wonder if this would ever change, but I don’t think it ever will. White fragility is just too potent in our society and I just don’t see a change coming anytime in the near future.
During our discussion, I enjoyed when we talked about Slactivism vs Activism and how people often say they support a cause or post about a cause on social media but do nothing afterward to further support whatever cause. We mentioned how it is just the thought of being a part of something that motivates people to do something such as change their profile pictures, post videos, or make up challenges to illustrate themselves as activists when they aren’t. And that people do this because of the ease of sharing messages and making movements.