Today’s posts from our featured Port Elizabeth Blogger:
The Weirdness of Care Shaming by Keep Passing the Open Windows:
It is the morning after the morning after the terrorism in Paris, and I once again find myself observing the ebbs and flows of social media in the wake of tragedy. It always starts out the same. Something happens and we the people start to share with the intent to inform or express condolences.
And then it starts to change. And it usually changes into something where we all start yelling at each other about what it is that we should be caring about. I do it (and often berate myself for it in hindsight). Probably so do you. I’ll probably do it within this post even though I’ll try not to… *hangs head in shame*
In the last 24 hours there has been a lot of “I don’t want to detract from Paris but what about xyz….” followed by much bemoaning of the media in general and why socialmedialites only care about Paris and not Lebanon or Japan or Mexico or – most obscurely – Kenya. Many folks are singing about how they refuse to put up a French flag in solidarity with what the country is going through right now because what about other countries and what they are going through. I even get it. It sounds politically correct, and I imagine that to a large degree it is.
But the thing is this:
I don’t really understand how laying a French flag over your profile picture, one that essentially says France is on my mind today somehow means that you don’t give a shit about anything or anyone or anywhere else.
And this is what is really bugging me. You’ve got folks all over social media screeching about every tragedy that has ever happened as if no one ever cared about those things. And I don’t think it is quite as true as our indignant selves would like to believe.
Here’s the thing: social media is pretty much what you ask it to be. Social media is filled with the friends who you have chosen and the business pages and groups that you have chosen to take an interest in. Your timeline reflects that. Your social media timeline is basically as skewed as you have chosen to make it.
If it truly bothers you that it seems disproportionate then you need to be tweaking your circle. You need to open your circle up a little to include more colour, more diversity, less mainstream news sources. You can’t expect a well-rounded media experience if you are not making well-rounded selections for your timeline. You yourself need to be more well-rounded and diverse. You can’t just sit back and go “if it’s important enough it will show up on Facebook at some point” because it’s not going to.
Yes, a lot of attention is on France at the moment. But America and France are long time allies. And yes it does seem a little bit like no one cares about anything but France, but this is simply not quite true. Your news sources are English. Where is the English coming from? The States and Canada and Britain. France is Great Britain’s neighbour and France is America’s ally and Canada is half French. Couple all of that with your timeline full of pretty much duplicates of the same people – people in the same sort of social classes as those affected by the bombings and gunmen in France – over and over again and things are definitely going to start looking a bit one-sided.
You could also think of it another way: If your sister and an acquaintance die on the same day you are not going to be able to get your mind off of your sister. Does that make the death of your acquaintance any less sad? Is the life of your acquaintance of less value? Hell no! Even in your mourning you do not believe that even a little. The people on your particular timeline have ties to France. They may be real ties or they may be imaginary ties that come from daydreaming about maybe visiting one day. But they are ties. The timelines of the people with bigger ties to Lebanon, Japan, Mexico, Kenya etc might have timelines that look very different to yours.
The Kenyan bombing that people are suddenly freaking out about happened in April this year. If memory serves me correctly there was a mall bombing a little while before that as well. I promise you that at the time people did care. I was one of them
I don’t think it was only me who spent yesterday holding my breath and begging all the deities to spare Japan from their expected tsunami. That was not uncared for.
Thousands of people moaned about how no one cared about the bombings that happened in Lebanon. That’s caring.
The subject of South African farm murders is brought up constantly on social media. That’s caring.
And lastly: The plight of the refugees has not left the minds of everyone. It might have left yours, but not everyone’s. There is caring there. And in fact, when it comes to the refugees there is more proactive caring which is something worth far more than a flag overlay on a profile picture. I know of people who have gone on holidays to Greece with the sole aim of helping refugees. There are volunteers doing their utmost to provide relief. France doesn’t need us. They can take care of their own. They don’t need help picking up the pieces. They don’t need us to feed them or provide them with shelter or to rescue their children from drowning. They’re in mourning, of course, but they are united and they well rise from this. It’s just nice to be able to say Hey France we’re thinking of you and we love you. And that’s great. But no one needs to hop on a plane and go and help. People have been hopping on planes to go and help the refugees. That is damn amazing. That is caring. And that is caring with purpose. To say that nobody cares is an insult to those who have done amazing things during this exceptionally huge crisis that has been plaguing the planet for so long.
So please. I don’t expect you to change your profile picture by adding a flag as a way of saying Hey France, I care. But before you lambaste others for doing it, before you police what should be cared about, I do ask you to consider this:
Caring begets more caring. Allowing yourself to care about one thing opens up your capacity to care about more things. It is great that you care about more things than other people care about, but just remember that – on a social consciousness level – for you it probably started with just one thing as well. We cannot demonise people for showing support for something. Maybe it’s true and they only care for that one thing. But maybe that also needs to be ok. Because maybe from there it grows. But it’s not going to grow if we throw acid at it. We have to let people put themselves into the shoes of people that they relate to, because that can lead to them being able to put themselves into the shoes of people that they don’t relate to. Does that make sense?
Maybe, instead of bemoaning the lop-sided lack of diversity at the heart of the people, we can remember that we are the people. So be the diversity. Be the person who cares about everything. Be the person who cries at all the news all the time. But also remember that there are a lot of people in this world and there is a lot of caring that goes around. Just because it hasn’t reached your timeline doesn’t mean that it does not exist. You can choose it for your timeline though. It’s a challenge but it’s doable.
My face is red white and blue today. It’s a small thing that I can do. It is essentially useless, but useless in the face of something that requires absolutely no use from me. It is a simple cosmetic nicety.
The victims of the conflict in the Middle East don’t need me to put a flag on my face. They need me to feed their children. They need me to save them from drowning. They need me to protect them from violence. To shield them from bullets. They need me to nurse their wounds. They need me to understand that Islam and ISIS are not the same thing.
I can give them nothing but that last one.
So I have a flag on my face today. To me it means that ISIS will not win. To me it means that not only France but every nation who has taken in a muslim man and called him friend will stand tall. It means that the Western culture is ready to stand together with the Eastern culture and topple these terrorists.
Please don’t try and shame me out of that. Because today the French flag is not only about France. It is about peace.
Read more here: Keep Passing the Open Windows
Review: Lost Lake by Keep Passing the Open Windows:
Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I fell in love with Sarah Addison Allen in about 2010 when I discovered The Girl Who Chased the Moon. Her view of the world shifted something in me that I cannot quite express. It was a sort of “oh…there it is…” kind of thing. Like I’d been looking for her this whole time. A little bit like falling in love, I guess. Where you meet your soul’s counterpoint and it’s like they were there all along. I didn’t know I was missing you, and yet now I can’t imagine my life without you.
Every time I read a Sarah Addison Allen book I feel like it’s her best one. Lost Lake is no exception. I imagine that when I pull myself out of the mini depression hole that I got lost in this week that my NaNo efforts will be brushed with the influence of Sarah’s magic once more. I can only hope so.
I may be wrong but Lost Lake seemed even more magical. Like everything was magical. Everyone had this special thread of something beautiful. How could I not fall hopelessly in love?
I will always be grateful to Sarah for her works. They mean so much to me.
Read more here: Keep Passing the Open Windows
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Port Elizabethan
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