Students gathered in protest yesterday outside the Teachers' College at Columbia University, where a noose was discovered hanging from the door of an African American professor's office earlier this week. The incident sparked stringent condemnation from school officials and even prompted a town meeting for further discussion of the matter. Naturally, it didn't take long for details of the student rally to appear on Facebook.
As most users are aware, Facebook is no longer just a social networking site for college students. It's rapidly emerging as an outlet for fledgling student activism; members can organize not merely parties, but rallies and protests. They can even promote awareness and raise funds for the causes they support right off of their profile pages.
Some regard the movement with skepticism, convinced that appearance is replacing genuine involvement, that a cause is no more than a badge to display. The title of one Facebook group, ironically enough, says it all: "Our generation uses Facebook groups as a copout for meaningful activism." Involving minimal action and zero commitment, joining a group is quicker and easier than donning an awareness bracelet -- and so is leaving one.
Yet questions also arise about the effectiveness of the other sort of activism -- the real, consequential kind. Like the emerging brand of Facebook activism, can it actually do more harm than good?
On a Facebook group discussion forum, one student posed the suggestion that public demonstrations only aggravate the issues they're supposed to address. Requiring the time and energy of the community at large, rallies end up gratifying only a small number of people seeking attention through the perpetration of these crimes. From this standpoint, why should anyone bother to attend a sit-in? Beyond that, why trouble ourselves to attend a big long meeting, where everyone's going to be talking about how they feel? Why should university officials be expected to reiterate the fact that racism is evil when it's already been said before?
I think we've lost sight of the point.
What a protest solves is, sometimes, totally immaterial -- if Congress hasn't yet managed to draft a wonder resolution that will "fix" social injustice once and for all, I don't think any of us are banking on it happening just because we camped outside for a few hours with picket signs. But I don't think the people who commit crimes of hate are seeking attention. The real goal is exactly what already happens: for people to sigh and think, "Gosh, racism's bad," but do nothing. Opting for apathy is as good as declaring that a threat like this doesn't matter.
Always there is the assumption that other people are taking care of it. I can feel safe, choosing inaction, when I know that a handful of other people are doing the work -- donating to charities, organizing fundraisers, and attending candlelight vigils. There are a lot more of them, and they're a lot better qualified to be doing what they're doing. Yet, it only took one person to hang a noose on a door. And for that one person who acted, there was another of like mind who did not.
And for that reason it is essential that we rally, to reach out to each other and to find strength in numbers, to let the message be heard that death threats based on racist bigotry are intolerable and unforgivable. To prove that more people than ever in history are willing to assemble together to combat acts of cruelty carried out with prejudiced assumptions. We were urged to respond to terrorist threats with the refusal to let fear ravage our daily lives. So, too, must we answer actions of hatred with the united affirmation of life.
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