Click Here to Share Your Views!

Well, I took one day off and my page views have gone up dramatically. Not just for the last post I wrote, but for every single one in the recent past. It’s as though someone in an office somewhere discovered a backlog of page views that had never gone through and awarded them to me retroactively.

Go figure.

*****

Folks, we’re having a rash of the following behavior in Howard County.

Aside from the influence of national politics, which is probably another whole post altogether, the influence of social media in this behavior cannot be ignored.

Social media’s business model is dependent upon clicks and engagement. Therefore it’s not enough to share information, feature images, or promote events. The machine feeds on clicks and engagement and it doesn’t matter whether it’s truthful or helpful.

And that’s where it intersects with our worst impulses.

It tells us - - no, begs us - - to have and express an opinion on things which we don’t know enough about and don’t really have a right to judge. It tells us that doing so is just fine.

When Black members of our community experience racist acts and bear witness to what happened to them, they are the victims. But on social media I keep seeing people deny these people’s lived experiences and publicly demand “more proof”.

This is appalling.

Whether it’s at a county sports match or on the UMD Tennis team, the victims of racist behaviors are 1. more knowledgeable about racism than white onlookers and 2. the victims of wrongdoing. To ignore or deny this compounds the damage.

Now the victims are still hurt plus the community that could have supported them chose to rally round to protect itself instead.

I see numerous posts from those who claim to be “really nice people who would never hurt anyone” while putting fingers in their ears and singing la la la rather than face the truth. This isn’t merely disappointing or mildly ineffectual. It’s just another kind of racism.

And social media convinces us that our own personal input is SO important that it couldn’t possibly be…

racism

criminal hazing

rape

…unless we’ve all had a say and agree that it is. There is no authority that takes precedence over our personal views. We feel justified to demand additional information that’s none of our business and, in some cases, to “call witnesses.”

Can you see how ridiculous this is? We can’t possibly admit that this is racism because Bob in accounting isn’t entirely convinced. So nothing will ever change.

This is an incredibly effective way to perpetuate harm. And it is so often employed against those that patriarchal white culture does not value. Even right here in Columbia/HoCo.

Village Green/Town² Comments

Comments

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents. When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...

They Can Wait

This is not a typical Saturday post. That’s because, in my community, it’s not a typical Saturday. Oakland Mills High School, after years of deferred repair, needs massive renovation. It’s pretty simple: when you don’t fix a problem it gets bigger. The school system itself said the the OMHS school building was "no longer conducive to learning" back in 2018. 2018 . But Thursday the Boad of Education voted to push it out of the lineup of important projects which will be given the go-ahead to proceed soonest. In my opinion it’s a terrible decision and sets a dangerous precedent. To explain, here’s the advocacy letter I sent in support of Oakland Mills High School. I was rather proud of it. I am writing to ask you to proceed with needed renovation at Oakland Mills High School in the most timely and comprehensive manner humanly possible. I have read the letter sent to you by the Oakland Mills Community Association and I am in complete agreement. You are extremel...

Separate and Unequal

Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not. It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...

Village Green/Town²

Search This Blog