Consider the question: why aren’t more people using their online platforms to protest the genocide in Gaza?

The relative absence of online outcry for Palestine exists in stark contrast to the massive social media response to the murder of George Floyd. In the spring of 2020, an innocent black man was killed by police in the city of Minneapolis. A video of the up-close-and-personal murder, taken by witnesses on a personal cell phone, was shared and went viral online. Public witnessing lead to a rekindling of the ongoing movement for civil rights in the United States. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets during the global pandemic to protest police brutality, especially towards black lives. This sparked conversations about systemic racism both on and offline. In particular, videos of police officers spraying tear gas and shooting rubber bullets at crowds of peaceful protesters lead to cries for policy that would defund overmilitarized police departments.

Reactions to the protests became politicized along party lines that correlate with popular media coverage. Right wing platforms like FOX news emphasized supporting police with the slogan “Blue Lives Matter,” sharing footage of the instances when Black Lives Matter protests became destructive. Selectively curated media coverage fueled the false image of civil rights protesters as inherently violent and dangerous. It also reinforced the false caricature of the black personality as threatening, which has always been a useful motive to incarcerate people of color in the prison industrial complex, wreaking havoc on communities of color while providing the unpaid prison labor on which our economy so heavily depends. (See also documentary 13th). Republican president of the United States in that year, Donald Trump, vocally called for “Law and Order…” a phrase with deeply racist implications which echoed the Reagan administration’s War on Drugs. Law & Order rhetoric was responsible that era’s unjust mass incarceration of black people and the anti-war left.

While popular media made protesting violent injustice seem like a bad thing, a counter movement persisted. Many people responded to the protests by trying to create positive change – as they have done since long before the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement after Ferguson, long before even the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. The parental instinct to create a world that is safer and more just for everyone is not new, and it isn’t going away any time soon.

Many object that the “online activism” which accompanied the Black Lives Matter movement was not true activism, as it almost exclusively deals in spreading awareness of real world problems and gives people a sense that they have done something to help without actually lacing up and doing something about what needs to be done. Sharing articles and memes on social media also tends to contribute to the phenomenon of political polarization, as even the most carefully nuanced points of view do not tend to break through the walls of internet echo chambers. Social media algorithms which show people more of the content they already interact with, trap scrollers in epistemic bubbles where their beliefs are reinforced by hearing more from people who agree with them and hearing less from people who disagree. Some compare internet activism to the mindless sharing of propaganda which radicalizes in ways that aren’t always helpful. As I scroll through Facebook accounts of people I no longer follow, I find this argument troublingly impelling.

On the other hand, there can be no constructive conversation about how to make change if we do not speak up. We will not change problems we know nothing about. Even if we cannot reach everyone or make everyone agree with us about the things that need attention and care, we are empowered to start conversations and share knowledge and perspectives with the technology we carry with us in our pockets. This is the gift of technology and free speech, of the innovation and of freedom from censorship, which we were promised.

Wouldn’t it be fascinating to hear from a living relic from the civil rights movement who could speak to the way social media influences activism in real life? As it turns out, we can do that.

The State University of New York at Geneseo recently hosted a moderated discussion with civil rights activist elder Angela Davis. In her youth, Davis was arrested multiple times and put in solitary confinement for protesting the indignities of anti-black systemic violence in her youth. Angela Davis eloquently protested the injustice of racism; powerful white men of the government of her time advocated that she receive the death penalty. Unlike many civil rights activists of her time, she has survived into her 80’s, and in the meantime she has written eloquent and precisely researched works on prison abolition, including a slim but powerful volume simply titled: Are Prisons Obselete? in which she makes a compelling arguement for the affirmative.

At her recent talk at the college, she was asked to share her thoughts about the intersection of technology, social media, and activism. I did not record that question verbatim, but my notes on the answers she gave to this question are paraphrased here:

“People are afraid of new technologies. We ought to make these technologies capable of making progress possible, but we ought not allow ourselves to be utilized by technology. Young people who have never known anything other than social media are afraid of getting canceled. Many consequences of technology are negative, but some of them are full of possibility. We can tell what’s happening in other parts of the world. It used to be that activists had to write letters in order to know what was going on. Now we can, for instance, witness the genocide in Gaza. We are thankful to know what’s happening and this witnessing also creates a lot of pain. The pain of witnessing is crushing, and is sometimes… counterproductive [?]. [I think she means we look away because watching hurts too much.] The pain of witnessing sometimes urges people to get involved and put pressure on the US government, a major ally of Israel. People ought to be allowed to criticize Isreal without being accused of antisemitism. People don’t realize that many Jewish citizens of Israel are doing so much to criticize their own government. While we should be thankful for the possibilities brought about by new technology, I am fearful that people assume organizing happens only through social media. Young people need to understand that a million likes does not equal a movement.”

None of this is meant to negate the worldwide protesting for the victims of US-funded genocide in Gaza, or the loud and very public cries for ceasefire, or South Africa’s valiant attempt to expicitly call out Isreal for perpetrating genocide. The videos of an anguished and deeply traumatized people who have lost their families, lost their homes, and lost everything, are indeed deeply unsettling to watch. An article called “Nice and White During a Genocide” observes that it is a privilege to be able to look away, to log off, when the violence is happening far away. Our lives are safely far removed from the urgency to take action which is felt by the mother who has lost a child, or the child who has lost a mother.

Since Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke out against the war in Vietnam, the movement for civil rights and the anti-war movement have been inseparably intertwined. To hear a beloved elder from the civil rights movement like Angela Davis speak about the way we witness the genocide in Gaza and how we ought to respond, and especially how our responses are not limited to social media – this was a powerful experience for me, and I want to share that experience the only way that I know how, which is in writing.

I most loved what she said about witnessing being a painful thing, but also a useful one. I think the pain of witnessing what is happening in Gaza as a motivation to take action and speak truth to power is a useful thing. But even Angela spoke to the fact that it can be so painful to watch, to be constantly inundated with the pain of people from the other side of the world. I think this may be one answer to the original question of why more people aren’t using their platforms to speak up. There’s more to it than that, of course.

But “there comes a time when silence is a sort of violence,” to paraphrase King’s thoughts on Vietnam.

So, as you witness, when you witness, fortify yourself with the strength you are going to need to speak up and do something about it.

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“I could do this all day.”