[Air-L] A good way to respond to a query from a student about activism?

[Charles M. Ess]

Dear all,

FWIW, I've been struggling with how to respond - not solely to this 
query on AoIR, but across a number of fronts, starting with friends and 
family in Minneapolis and so on.

I've not responded to Sarah's query because, if I've learned anything 
from and since the 1960s, it's that response and action are frequently 
most effective when focused strongly on the local level.  Lots of 
reasons for this, including the importance of being able to sustain a 
focus over time, despite the welter of competing, equally compelling 
causes, needs, etc. - and, on a good day (year, decade ...), you can see 
some modicum of results from your (shared) engagement.
So: not knowing the local scene, I didn't have anything concrete to suggest.

There's lots to say about what AoIR might do as a collective, and I hope 
there will be good ways to further that conversation.

In keeping with the above, however, let me offer a fairly simple 
observation - one that I'm sure most of us know, but perhaps it helps to 
have it articulated (again).
(I say this partly as a 60s' kid, whose coming to political (not to 
mention ethical) consciousness was catalyzed and fostered by not only 
the Civil Rights movement, but also related struggles - as well as from 
the standpoint of having taught and worked with young people for some 
time now.)

I think that for many of us, especially when we are young, one of the 
key obstacles and difficulties is a sense of paralysis that can come as 
we recognize the scope of the problems - not "just" systemic racism 
worldwide: if we are to confront that evil, we will also need / feel 
compelled to confront its multiple cousins and expressions, ranging from 
the oppression and exploitation of women to staggering poverty and 
hunger in so many parts of the world to the organized assault on the 
planetary ecosystem, and any number of catastrophes in between.

We - whoever "we" may be - can't fight them all, and we will certainly 
not win them all.  Why try?

For me, a compelling lesson was catalyzed by the anthropologist Loren 
Eiseley, who wrote of his own crises in an essay titled "The 
Starthrower."  The central figure is a man he encountered who was 
inspecting the mass of creatures thrown onto the beach by storm waves. 
When he found a starfish still alive, he would fling it back into the 
ocean, and then keep looking for the next.
There is an absurdity in this: no single person can save them all.

No, but you can help a few - and for those few, whatever else may come 
of your work and help, your work and help can make all the difference.

Sarah & Co: I don't know if this will be helpful in your response to 
your student. But perhaps this might be useful to keep in mind as these 
struggles continue.

All very best,
- charles




On 06/06/2020 16:32, Radhika G wrote:
> Steve
> 
> Thankyou.
> 
> Sarah - I’ll connect with you off list . I’m not opposed to a discussion on
> list but just don’t want to be one of the usual suspects to express my
> thoughts on this issue here (I’ve already shared too much on social media
> and feel I am not the person to take up space there - as I have my own
> visible and invisible layers of privilege in this situation).
> 
> BUT I’d like to reinforce my thanks to Steve for asking about what this
> list does. It was important for him as founder of AOIR to do so at this
> point.
> 
> R
> 
> On Sat, Jun 6, 2020 at 10:18 AM Jones, Steve <sjones at uic.edu> wrote:
> 
>> Dear Sarah, air-l subscribers:
>>
>> When I saw this message I first felt for the student and appreciated her
>> query. I wondered this, too: What can I do? I didn’t want to dive in with
>> any suggestions because to be honest I have no more beyond expressing
>> support, donating, joining local protests and adding my voice to those
>> calling on elected officials to tell them they should know they will be
>> held accountable. And as an old, white, cis male there are a whole heck of
>> a lot more voices that need to be heard than mine, ones with far better
>> ideas about what to do and how to support black people and everyone else
>> who is not like me. I want to hear them; I want them to be heard.
>>
>> It’s been longer than 24 hours since this posting and there’s been
>> nothing, no replies. Nor has there been anything from AoIR’s executive
>> committee. Maybe people are struggling in ways I can’t even imagine and a
>> reply is beyond their ability right now. Fair enough. And there are other
>> places where conversations are ongoing. air-l has over the years become
>> more an announcement list and less a discussion list. So it goes. But there
>> are a lot of us on this list and that there has not been a single response
>> to Sarah’s message is troubling to me.
>>
>> Now, it’s fair to ask whether this is something air-l should be engaged in
>> discussing, and whether it is something AoIR needs to address. Yes, and
>> yes. The struggle taking place in the U.S. is not confined to the U.S.
>> Among the many things Stuart Hall taught me, opened my eyes to, is that the
>> black experience is not a U.S. experience only. He also pointed out that
>> all injustice is to be spoken out against. Now is the time to recommit to
>> racial justice. I have heard some people criticize statements from various
>> individuals and  institutions as too little, too late, or opportunistic, or
>> as face-saving. Maybe, but I won’t judge: I want to hear the voices, plain
>> and simple: Black Lives Matter.
>>
>> We have studied race online, protest movements online, you might even say
>> we’ve studied the shit out of #Ferguson, Arab Spring, and many other
>> expressions of oppression and responses to it. But what are we _doing_
>> about any of it? Sarah’s student’s question is what I feel we need to
>> discuss. Is there "the potential to leverage social media for positive
>> social change?” Yes or no? If yes, how? If no, let’s find and discuss some
>> other things we can do. AoIR has from the start been the most welcoming and
>> engaging scholarly community I’ve had the honor to be part of; let’s show
>> who we are and what we can do.
>>
>> Peace and good health to all,
>>
>> Steve
>>
>>> On Jun 4, 2020, at 5:04 PM, Sarah Ann Oates <soates at umd.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>> Dear AOIRers,
>>>
>>> I wanted to ask this great list a question for our times. See the message
>>> below from a student I taught in an online social media and society
>> course,
>>> in which we had a module on #BlackLivesMatter. Can you think of a better
>>> way to respond than just with a list of campus groups and a note that I
>> was
>>> impressed that she wanted to commit to activism for her beliefs? That's
>>> what I did, but I'd like to help a bit more because it's heartening both
>> to
>>> see students wanting to put their scholarship into action. Thanks in
>>> advance. BTW, I asked her if I could ask the list and she said that was
>>> great.
>>>
>>> Here is her message:
>>>
>>> As a young black woman, I am struggling to cope with all that is
>> happening
>>> in our country right now. Looking at social media I am further saddened
>> to
>>> see images of Black men being murdered and their deaths reposted and
>>> reposted for all to see. I fear people will become desensitized to these
>>> images and names like George Floyd will just become another hashtag and
>>> forgotten victim of a corrupt system.
>>>
>>> *... I was wondering if you had any advice or resources for action beyond
>>> social media. I know the Black Lives Matter module discussed the sort of
>>> "wind tunnels" we create where like-minded people swirl ideas among
>> mutual
>>> followers, but little action is taken beyond likes and retweets. I want
>> to
>>> do something that goes beyond liking a post or ranting about it on
>> Twitter.
>>> If you have any ideas or resources regarding the potential to leverage
>>> social media for positive social change I'd love to learn more about
>> them!*
>>>
>>> Sarah Oates
>>> Professor and Senior Scholar
>>> Philip Merrill College of Journalism
>>> University of Maryland
>>> College Park, MD 20457
>>> Email: soates at umd.edu
>>> Phone: 301 455 2332
>>> www.media-politics.com
>>> Twitter: @media_politics
>>>
>>> *Support the UMD Student Crisis Fund
>>> <https://giving.umd.edu/giving/showPage.php?name=crisis-funding> today.
>> *
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>
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> 

-- 
Professor in Media Studies
Department of Media and Communication
University of Oslo
<http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/people/aca/charlees/index.html>

Fellow, Siebold-Collegiums Institute for Advanced Studies, 
Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Germany

Co-chair & Editor, Internet Research Ethics 3.0
<https://aoir.org/reports/ethics3.pdf>

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