facebook – Unspoken Politics

New UU Facebook Group!

Due to serious moderation issues in the existing Facebook UU group “Unitarian Universalism – Faith of the Free“, which saw an influx of outright white nationalists, and a subsequent crackdown on both racist users and users pointing out said racism, a new Facebook group has been created to better introduce people to our living tradition.

red candle — Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

“Unitarian Universalism – Embodying Hope For One Another“ is a moderated space that joins with the new UU Discord chat, and a /r/UUReddit community that has new policies against bad-faith debating and hate speech. These spaces are evolving in an attempt to avoid monopolization by individuals showcasing white fragility, and spending their time litigating their grievances with the Unitarian Universalist Association. This sort of discussion does absolutely nothing productive to people curious about Unitarian Universalism, and actively drives away vulnerable and marginalized communities.

Clinton-Sanders and the Great Unfriending

In my decade on social media, there has been no reaction like this. As the Democratic primaries finished, and especially since the first day of the DNC last week, the battle over voting Clinton versus an alternative has never been addressed by more of my friends, for a longer sustained period of time with such emotion. I have no doubt that there has been a Great Unfriending, much like there is after a mass shooting or a young black person killed by police. The zeitgeist gets encapsulated in one particular event or process, and usually friendly individuals tear themselves into pieces.

Great Unfriendings are not always bad. They can help flush bigoted and ignorant people to the forefront, and it allows us to match our perceptions of friends, co-workers, and allies to their behavior. Social media, being so casual, also helps us understand privilege, and who we are when we don’t wear such a complex mask.

The DNC was a pivot point. The options and opinions have shifted. For all of Sen. Sanders and his talk of “political revolution”, the question until recently was about picking one of two people to be the Democratic Party nominee. The rhetoric had always been that Sanders supporters were part of a social movement rather than a straightforward election campaign. But that had never been tested. I personally thought that many Sanders movement activists spent far too much time on the primaries, if a grassroots revolution on all levels of government is the idea. And I wondered if people would stay together as this movement, or would they either get discouraged or shift to campaigning for Clinton.

Now the question is much bigger than the individual people will vote for in November. It’s about how much each of us is willing to follow political custom, or stand in opposition. It’s not the primary coming up on Tuesday. Now it’s about what our democracy should be. How a vote for Clinton, or Jill Stein, or Gary Johnson, or Donald Trump changes the status quo. It’s a much harder conversation to have, and many people have never had it before. Previously it was “Issue X: is Clinton or Sanders better?” Now there are no straightforward comparisons. Stein and Clinton have very different foreign policy agendas, but only one belongs to a party struggling to get on the ballot. It’s irrelevant whether Clinton gets 271 electoral votes or 350, but what Stein and Johnson receive determines whether voters in dozens of states will have alternatives to vote for. Ballot access through the Presidential vote is crucial, because third parties spend so much of their limited money and people tied up in litigation. Access, plus the millions of federal funds available to those that poll at least 5%, changes the entire dynamic of party politics going forward.

There have been deep questions about privilege and identity. Is supporting Hillary an act of privilege. Or is rejecting Clinton ridiculous, and a luxury for those who have little to lose from President Donald Trump? I’ve seen friends of color take both stances, and I’ve seen friends, both white and not, denounce them. Ultimately, I’m not certain. I have my own personal plan, but I really don’t wish to invalidate the opinions of people who, it is true, have much more to lose in November than I do.

This new stage is more radical and open-ended. And we learn more about those around us. This should be a positive. I’m not asking for civility for civility’s sake. But this moment should be appreciated as one of the most open periods of political discourse in recent history. Presidential elections make even apathetic people care about politics for a little while, and the Democratic primary battle, along with the rise of Trump. It’s a golden moment for organizers and social change. And it would be a shame if this moment were underutilized because we talk when we should listen.

My inherent issue with Facebook solidarity

So I didn’t change my Facebook profile picture for Paris. Or Beirut, or Syria, or Kenya, or anywhere else. Nor do I have strong feelings about what people should or should not do after a tragedy, as long as it’s not rooted in bigotry. For me, I have an issue because I know Facebook solidarity is incomplete, and that my friends only focus on certain types of events.

First, as people have pointed out before, there are many places on Earth in perpetual crisis. Syria recently, but also the Rohingya refugee crisis that extends from Burma into Bangladesh and various surrounding territories. Central Africa has been in a series of ongoing conflicts where rape is a major weapon of war. Billions of people are in varying degrees of poverty, most of which is long-standing. There is something ethically troubling about showing visible solidarity with other people when there is an acute incident. Haiti has never recovered from the earthquake several years back- we had a brief period of solidarity, money was raised, and much of the humanitarian crisis was not solved. It still hasn’t been, but our Haiti Facebook pictures have long since been taken down.

Second, since I am an American (along with my race, class, sex . . ) I have a bias towards places and people I can directly relate to. I’ve been to Paris, I’ve never been to Beirut or Nigeria. The entire way I receive information about the world is skewed, and even with wonderful outlets like Al Jazeera English, the lack of coverage of Africa, south Asia, etc. creates an unconscious tendency to think that even when atrocities are reported from there, they aren’t as important as events of a similar magnitude in the developed world.

Which is a long way to say that I feel not changing my profile picture is not a signal that I don’t care about terrorism and imperialism. Rather, it’s an acceptance that the world is immensely fucked up all the time, and only recognizing a tiny portion of the new evils introduced to the world seems somehow wrong. It goes without saying that ultimately fighting global problems on an individual level is about donating money, donating time, and standing against imperialism and exploitation. But don’t lose the past when the unpleasant present roars into view. Because the Haiti crisis is still here, and they don’t get their flag on social media anymore.

Live free, die free

A new feature was added to Facebook this week- the ‘legacy contact’. For the first time, the site will allow users to designate someone to formally manage your profile after you die- including a pinned post with key information.

In some sense, this is a new sort of civil right- we have traditionally had rights on how we live, but not how we die. Aid in dying has suddenly gained more widespread acceptance, including a potentially key legislative debate in California, after always being a fringe social movement. From legal changes to more informal recognition by institutions like Facebook, society’s sense of freedom is changing. The 20th century was full of landmark changes in the concept of rights and what a free society should look like. And even though the 21st has had serious conflicts over civil liberties, the debate continues to expand.

We can at least prepare our children for the future

I’ve now maintained a Facebook account for over six years. In that time, I’ve seen important events unfold in my news feed- the Virginia Tech massacre, the campaign and election of Barack Obama, revolutions in Iran, Egypt, and Syria. Many events have had scattered interest. Others bring out those primordial emotions that we mostly keep well-hidden.

At no point in those six years did Facebook become unbearable to visit; however, yesterday went far beyond my tolerance. The recent past yields misery, both in the United States and in relative isolation thousands of miles away. Yet as the early afternoon brought the events out of Newton, the anger was both fierce and widely spread. Normally apolitical people began posting their strong reactions. Clashes between friends mixed with communal mourning.

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