But I will confess to being a Stay-at-Home-Slacktivist. I'm selective about what I post on social media, always aware of my audience. But I'll 'like' the heck out of everything I possibly can on FB, as a passive-aggressive means of getting to some sort of audience. Surely a friend of a friend of a friend will see what I've liked - through the magic of Facebook's algorithms - and be motivated to think, act, do. I sure as heck don't have time for much more than thinking...and even that I suck at after 8 straight years of being woken up in the dead of night by thirsty, scared, lonely, needy little munchkins.
Been there...
Wait. DO I really only have time for thinking...not doing? not acting on things I feel passionately need to be changed in my world? Let's see, shall we...
The time is there, it would seem. I mean I spent 2 hours on Facebook yesterday - ON A WORK DAY. My Facebook is 90% news sites (I know - no chill for this 38-yo teacher of yours). But what if I even cut my exposure to what was happening in the world down by, like, an hour a day, and actually experienced what is freakin' happening in the real world instead?!!
The question I suppose we left unanswered Wednesday in class: what DOING - what participation in activism - is going to make a difference from our comfy little spots in white bread Langley? Where's the revolution, and how am I supposed to show up? Am I even supposed to show up, or is my privilege showing if I do?
When Jason and I spent most of our evenings in the Downtown Eastside, there were lots of different Langley-types who showed up. Some showed up to give us money, then take off. (Cool, we needed the money more than we needed your fake smile anyways, thank you very much.) Some showed up to clean or paint. (Umm, have you ever cleaned or painted before, because seriously dude, you're making a mess!) Some showed up to hand out gospel tracks or pray with people - people who, from my experience, had more knowledge of scriptures and church and love and grace and grief and reality and spiritual things than anyone I grew up with in the Christian church.
You know who didn't show up? Someone willing to hang out with Freddie in the lobby and play cribbage with him for an hour. No one came to fill in the paperwork that Kitty needed to be eligible for government disability. No one came to set up the karaoke machine on Wednesday nights, or boil the eggs for the daily breakfasts, or to walk with Zee in Stanley Park so that her legs didn't feel the permanent effects of Type One diabetes.
I think people were hiding behind their computer screens, clicking 'like' and sharing hashtags instead of actually investing in the PEOPLE behind the social movements and societal needs. I think that from our computers and hand held devices, we think we have reached the higher ground of empathy, but, as Dr Robert Berezin relates, this is just evidence of our narcissism.
Showing up is uncomfortable. I mean, how do you talk with a Freddie, or a Kitty, or a Zee? How do you maintain a relationship with people so unlike you, or so not connected to your typical group? Berezin addresses that too. We don't show up to fix anyone: "All of our problems are human problems that reflect our human story" and we're not going to erase all the bad things that happen in life and in society as a whole.
But the responsiveness that Berezin claims surpasses empathy, that's showing up for Freddie's loneliness, Kitty's need, Zee's health, but so importantly, it's showing up for our own learning: "We are all cut from the same cloth and the human story is one story. And we all can imagine and identify with anything, once you get past that no one is better or worse than someone else."
We're the ones who need the revolution.
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