On Not Posting on Social Media about Harm

There was a time when I’d flood my social media timelines with quick and what I thought were witty retorts about those I didn’t agree with whom I didn’t politically agree. It felt good to send out a quick jab while live tweeting a presidential debate or sharing out some meme that poked fun at someone, but those days of politics as sport are over. As we all know, we’ve entered into a world that has many of us waking up with a sense of dread and fear of listening to the news and having to say, again?

And by again, I mean: another shooting, another racist, misogynist, classist comment and action by 45, another bombing, another sexual assault/rape allegation that is dismissed, another “natural” catastrophe caused by our human disregard for our environment.

I made an unconscious choice sometime after the 2016 election that social media wasn’t where my activism was going to live. I wanted it to be present in my day to day interactions. If a change was going to happen in this world, it would have to start with me.

This past summer I attended a healing conference, where social justice activists spoke about using the time after the 2016 election not to act, but to reflect, regroup, and refine their purpose, vision, and plan. Many times we think we must react immediately, but that strategy keeps us one step behind the forces looking to maintain power and dominance over us.

Here’s what I’m doing to resist:

1. Journaling and writing about the positive interactions, relationships and connections I am making with others.

2. Photographing my niece and nephew in all of their joy.

3. Facilitating Spaces and Conversations where folks can tell their stories and search for their purpose and heal.

4. Reading, Reading, Reading. We thought we knew the answers, but we were wrong.

5. Seeking to align my work with my values and from a perspective of abundance not fear.