R8: Small Changes?

R8: Small Changes?

Central Argument: Motivation vs Participation. Acknowledging the level of participant activism is higher than ever due to social media but the motivation to be present. The difference between signing a change.org campaign to staging sit-ins that can lead to heavy violence.

It's interesting, I agree and I disagree with Gladwell's main argument. When it comes to the Western world being motivated to helping those in other countries there is more participation than motivation for a couple reasons. One reason is the distance, if you believe women in foreign country deserve to be unveiled then you can sign it and hope it becomes a conversation and helps "free" who Western people believe should be freed. Another reason is distance, its difficult to walk and march with anyone who isn't being heard in another country sometimes its more affordable to do this instead of booking a flight 12 hours away to an unknown area. However, I've witnessed first hand how social media can be used to organize events or protests. There is a large participation when it came to the Dakota Pipeline, Black Lives Matter, etc. Many people drove, rode buses and flew to be with those who were being marginalized. When people feel cornered they do fight back and they do stand for each other.

I actually thought a lot about this yesterday when the new broke about Jordan Edwards. In every Instastory there were pictures of him, information and hashtags like #sayhisname and more. I was one who participated by retweeting and simply placing his name on my Facebook status as I notoriously never do status updates. What have I done? I have shown people I am aware and hopefully they become aware but we are all missing something.

What's missing is this strategic activism Gladwell discusses, we make these posts and they are powerful, we cry, we mourn, but then it disappears from the top trending. You were forced in days of the Civil Rights to meet with your community, develop relationships, and move in a smart manner. Today our meeting places are social media based, unfortunately when you have people meeting to protests and you aren't on the same page of what the goal is, you can be labeled a rioter. You are angry, misunderstood and feeling defeated and at times the first reaction is to destroy. While I'm sure this happened in the Civil Rights and was even painted that way when it wasn't you saw so many people from different races gathering together in public on the streets and holding hands you can't ignore that. With the media you can take the good from a protests and infect those who are on the fence to distrust your motives. A great example is Black Lives Matter, then people changed it and used All Lives Matter, people manipulate a movement, "But weak ties seldom lead to high-risk activism. We do see glimpses of high-risk activism, truly beautiful moments of sacrifice but we do as a large sit behind a computer and believe our emotions are enough and unfortunately they just aren't.


Gladwell, Malcolm. "Small Change." The New Yorker. The New Yorker, 12 May 2015. Web. 03 May 2017. <http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/small-change-malcolm-gladwell>.

Opam, Kwame. "Building Tools for Digital Activism | Deeray Mckesson." TheVerge.com. N.p., 29 Nov. 2016. Web. 03 May 2017. <https://www.theverge.com/a/verge-2021/deray-mckesson-interview-black-lives-matter-digital-activism>.