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JinduObiofumaFirstEssay 5 - 03 May 2016 - Main.JinduObiofuma
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The performance of protest has become a proxy for actual social change. One could say this has come about largely without comment, but the irony of the situation is that comment—in the modern medium of liberal activism—abounds. At this point, it might seem fitting for me to delve into some smug literary badge like “and therein lies the problem,” before launching into a dramatic description of my grievances and patting myself on the back for discovering yet another flaw in the modern movement we like to call liberal activism. This is not that. For me, this is a stop gap. This is a brief acknowledgement of a problem which will still trouble me tomorrow, but by then I will have turned back to more pressing matters. | |
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< | The problem as I see it—not to be confused with “the only problem”-- is this. In today’s largely public, social media mix of what it means to be a liberal in a tradition of activism, the heart of that tradition seems to be falling to the wayside. Increasingly, in this new age of Bernie Sanders stans* , Black Lives Matter hashtags and HeForShe? ** campaigns, we are liberal, but we’re not all that active. | >
> | The problem as I see it—not to be confused with “the only problem”-- is this. In today’s largely public, social media mix of what it means to be a liberal in a tradition of activism, the heart of that tradition seems to be falling to the wayside. Increasingly, in this new age of Bernie Sanders stans* , Black Lives Matter hashtags and "HeForShe" ** campaigns, we are liberal, but we’re not all that active. | | | About a month ago, I attended the Beyond the Bars conference put on by Columbia’s School of Social Work. Half asleep and haunted by the ever-approaching deadline of my moot court memo—5pm that very evening--I told myself that I would get in, attend my friend’s panel and get out. I had been doing what I thought of as meaningful work for a couple of months by then, and although I don’t think I walked in with any particular chip on my shoulder, I was confident in my role as a budding agent of change. | | | Direct engagement is something that is largely missing in this modern wave of liberal activism. To be fair, this is not the case across the board. We have people risking life and limb for incredible causes every day. However, this is not the norm. Speaking to my peers in the western world, from whom I don’t assume any great moral distance, we can’t afford this newfangled complacency. We tweet and march and pen and protest, but largely in the comfort our own circles of liberal friends. We shy away from throwing ourselves against the issues we purport to care about. We close ourselves off from the people those issues affect. There is no urgency. There is no engagement. And this is what we must fix if we mean to live the lives we say we want. To be liberal is to do more than vote Sanders and to be an activist is more than tweeting #Black Lives Matter. We have to engage with the communities and issues we claim to care about. And we have to act as if we know that our action or inaction has consequences. In case you haven’t heard, people are dying.
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> | | | | * A Stan is a superfan; this term originated with the song “Stan” by Eminem in which a superfan becomes obsessed with the rapper to the point of self-harm; the term is often employed in association with celebrities with intense fans; ie. Beyonce stans are really intense; you can’t say anything about her without getting at least a few of them on your case. | |
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< | **HeForShe is a campaign Emma Roberts (Hermoine from the Harry Potter movies) started to encourage men to stand up for women vis-a-vi “feminism”
* I later found out I was the only lawyer (law student) in the room. | >
> | **HeForShe is a campaign Emma Roberts (Hermoine from the Harry Potter movies) started to encourage men to stand up for women vis-a-vis “feminism”
*** I later found out I was the only lawyer (law student) in the room. | | | (Endnotes not included in the word count) |
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