Over the past few years, I have learned a lot about social media and how I choose to conduct myself on various platforms. In the past, I was often baited into discussions, trying to disprove someone’s opinion and trying to prove my own. This type of discourse only left me feeling exhausted, unheard and angry.
Looking back, I could see that both sides of the discussion were rooted in a place that missed the mark. Both of us were more concerned with our own viewpoints, our own experiences and what made us feel good at the end of the day. Essentially, we were getting in our own way, trying to prove ourselves correct, both of us steadfast on being right, resulting in a rabbit hole of limited listening and constant thumb slams on our respective smartphones. Little progressive good ever came from these interactions and I definitely did not feel like the “everyday activist” I was trying to be.
Earlier this week, I came across a post in the Facebook group “The ORIGINAL St. Albert Chat.” It was stating that 99.5 per cent of police are good, COVID cases recover and people are not racist, insisting I focus on the positive and life will be just fine. This post really rubbed me the wrong way. It did because it failed to empathize with the people who cannot just choose to focus on the good while the bad is directly impacting their everyday lives. I replied to this post from that stance – not from my own experience but from that of the people disproportionately affected by the “bad” in question.
Regardless of the fact that the statistics in this meme are completely made up, the sentiment behind them and the impact of their words still holds true. Just because you are not directly affected by a thing, does not mean that thing does not exist. It is precisely when one has little experience with a topic, event or action that one should spend more time listening and learning.
To my surprise, a very large and informed contingency of St. Albertans jumped in to echo those sentiments. Regardless if the few people in the thread actually change their mind, it was heart-warming to see the numbers (that I have never seen in the past) chime in to speak. Not from their own experience, but mostly from a place of recognized privilege in solidarity with those who are experiencing negative impact from the items in this post.
St. Albert, we have a ton of work to do and I don’t think that is a surprise to most of us. However, the needle is moving in the right direction and I am confident that the city is full of people ready to learn, no matter how uncomfortable it might be. Recognize your privilege, and use it like a superpower to elevate and protect those without it as we all move closer toward the world that many of us thought already existed. Better late than never, right?
