Where Do We Owe Our Voices?
On speaking up, or knowing when to.
I think a very bizarre and somewhat bleak product of living in the age of social media and in clutches of the attention economy is we all feel like (to a certain extent) public figures. We’ve all become public figures by proxy who “owe” people statements when horrible things happen not only in our immediate vicinity but also in the world in general. This coupled with being deeply entrenched in the age of the infographic makes us all seem/think/behave as though we’re experts on shit we probably only understand a fraction of, or (more likely than not) do not understand at all. Maybe it’s because it makes us feel “good” or “right” or maybe we feel so deeply guilty of the seemingly never-ending atrocities in the world that we feel obligated to say something, anything.
I don’t want to make anyone feel dumb or silly for wanting to taking a stance on something but not always having their own words in order; that’s not what I mean. Making your beliefs known and heard is admiral, and a right.
I think anyone who knows me knows that I do my best to be informed, reasonable, measured, and wise enough to not express myself unless I feel confident in doing so. I consider myself a responsive person, not a reactive one. I do my best when saying something even semi-publicly to make sure I not only A) know what I want to say and B) feel sure in my ability to express myself exactly as I intend to. I hope even people who only know me through screens of various sizes or have only had minimal interactions with me would say the same. All of this to say, I am choosing each one of these words extremely carefully and am never closed off to discussion or feedback.
What I’m trying to get at is when we swim through yet another unprecedented time after unprecedented time, I get slightly overwhelmed by watching us all morph into self-appointed digital activists on Instagram simply by hitting “add to story” with our thumbs. To me, there is an undeniable level to it that feels hollow. To me, it makes me feel somehow more helpless. To me, it seems like scratching only the tiniest section of the surface in an effort to feel a little bit better, but not in any way that leads to us feeling uncomfortable.
So let me get right to it:
I am horrified by the news of what is happening in Israel and Palestine. Horrified. Paralyzed. Overwhelmed. I can only imagine how my Jewish and Arabic friends feel. I can only imagine how my immigrant and refugee friends feel. I vehemently am against ethic cleansing, apartheid, war crimes, and acts of terrorism. I’m also not naive enough to say that I fully understand a war and a conflict of a state that has been under Israeli occupation since the 60s. But no infographic is going to accurately capture that. And it feels…oddly empty to let them try to.
However on the other side of that coin, when we’re watching things like the eradication of an entire people in real time that our own government is literally supporting, how can you not say something, anything? The fact of the matter is Americans have to grapple with the fact that our tax dollars ultimately make us complicit and that complicity is something we have to unpack for ourselves. On top of that our own level of first world privilege has allowed us to be even unintentionally ignorant to so much of what happens outside of the confines of the East Coast and the West Coast. When faced with that reality, how can you not condemn that? How can you not speak up? How can you not try to find the words?
I said before that I do my best to be a responsive person rather than a reactionary one, and it’s not lost on me that part of the hesitation for so many in “speaking up” is likely due to the fear that they’ll be labeled as sympathetic to terrorism, or a zionist, or anti-semitic, or complicit in war crimes, or something else that will make your stomach drop. I get that by simply re-sharing something others are already affirming there is almost a safety net at play. But to that I would implore someone that with whatever they’re reading (even if it’s here!) to read further. To learn more. To challenge yourself. To ultimately find your own feelings and a way to articulate them outside of yet another so.informed post.
It should go without saying that I, like so many of us, have felt outside of myself watching everything that has taken place since last weekend. I am terrified for those in Gaza, 50% of which are children, who are not only being continuously bombed but are now without power, water, adequate medicine and hospitals, and food. Who are now trying to evacuate a state without passports with no way of knowing if they’ll ever return. Who are being doused with white phosphorus if they aren’t out in time. I am horrified by Hamas, who have committed atrocious acts of terrorism against innocent Israelis and who are in no way aligned with the idea of Freeing Palestine. I am appalled by the violence and want nothing but peace. I am scared for the ramifications of all of this which I don’t think we can adequately predict.
And I am…worried for all of us. Who I don’t think are fully grasping what we are watching unfold in real time. Who I think are grossly oversimplifying things at times. Who in two, three, five years will be saying (if anything at all) “How did that even happen?” when the answers to how have unfortunately been in front of us for a very, very long time.
Perhaps I’m being too hard on the age of the infographic, and on anyone who gets even the smallest sense of comfort by sharing them. No one has a perfect response, whether it be their own or agreeing with someone else’s. I think it just feels important to me to ensure we’re not dissecting ourselves away from reality, and that we are not using our own literal and metaphorical distance from situations to preserve our own privileged levels of comfort. Self-preservation in the case of our own comfort has never gotten anyone anywhere that wasn’t ultimately rooted in selfishness.
This newsletter and my own inclination to regularly put my own opinions and thoughts out there are not not a version of being an active participant in the attention economy. It’s not not a version of doing the exact thing I said I think is somewhat bleak at the beginning of this. The truth is this: None of us owe anyone a statement we do not feel qualified to make. We shouldn’t be expected to be an expert in a conflict dating back over 50 years simply because we have an iPhone.
But what I do think we owe each other is using what we can and doing what we can to even remotely attempt to leave behind a better world than the one we currently have. To call out atrocities like dropping 6000 bombs in six days on a state comprised, once again, of 2.3 million children. To condemn terrorist organizations murdering 1400 civilians in a single attack and kidnapping women and children while sullying the name of a movement unaffiliated. To disavow politicians using our tax dollars to aid and abed in war crimes and the dehumanization of an entire people. To form our own opinions that maybe that started from consuming several little squares filled with even littler text, but to go further. To push ourselves outside of the barriers of our own comfort levels and use our own informed, fully thought out words to say what we think, what we expect from those in power, what we believe, and ultimately what we hope for the future.
It seems, to me, like the bare minimum.
And still, like it always will, it seems like it will never be enough.
To read more on how you can support Palestine and Israel during this time, click here.
To find out how to call your congressional leaders, click here.
If you read this and want to have a discussion not in the comments of a Substack that is largely me yelling into the void you can reach me here. As I’ve said for many, many years my metaphorical door is literally always open. ♡