Why Are We Only Activists When It’s Popular On Social Media?

Firstly, I wanted to caveat this post by saying I’m not calling anyone in particular out, if anything, it’s to hold myself more accountable for my actions – or lack of – and to educate those who chose to read this post about something that has been on my mind for a while. I want to use my platforms in an informative way, in order to show that I am trying to make myself a better person, and one that doesn’t shy away from conflict because it makes her feel uncomfortable.

I pride myself on being someone who has a completely open mind when it comes to race, sexuality and gender equality and I have my opinions on each topic, but when it comes to speaking up about issues that affect me, and more importantly don’t affect me, I’ve found myself being quiet from a fear of being judged, and not educating myself fully on the topic at hand.

I’m not trying to write this post for anyone to feel sorry for me, and hopefully not to feel angry at me either, but to really push myself to feel that ‘un-comfort’ that comes from reading up about topics that I’d usually shy away from – I’m calling myself out in order to be a better, more educated individual and an ally in areas that usually I would not.

Last summer when the Black Lives Matter movement started to take social media by storm, it didn’t feel right for me to post a black square. I took the decision not to because I knew that I didn’t know enough about the topic in order to form a substantial opinion on what was happening, and because it didn’t entirely impact my life, I stayed silent. Looking back, this was such a selfish move, but I felt as though I had to protect myself and not get into conversations or debates about topics that didn’t directly impact me, and ones that I knew next to nothing about.

When Sarah Everard went missing earlier this year, I shared every post I could on social media, to ‘do my bit’ and help her get found, but when I started to see other stories come out of the woodwork about other missing individuals who were not white, it started to make me question the reasons why 1) I hadn’t heard about these (cue the blame on the racist mainstream media here in the UK) and 2) what I could do to help.

When I started to think about it, the reason I was so quick to jump on the bandwagon and share the news of Sarah was that I saw myself in her – I too have walked home late at night, I am in my early 30s and I am a white woman working in Marketing – Sarah Everard was me to many extents. And it made me feel more comfortable sharing a news piece that I could relate to – but taking a step back, this should not be the case at all.

I am far from being an ‘influencer’ and do not have any particularly big following to write home about, but that doesn’t matter. I have a voice and a voice that I don’t use hardly enough to show my ally-ship with those who may be in a worse off position to me. I have friends from all different walks of life, some with different coloured skin to me, some with different backstories and I would never want anyone to feel as though I wasn’t someone they could rely on.

Although I would never class myself as a racist individual (even typing those words is making me feel uncomfortable, but stay with me…) I do have to admit that I have had a very easy life in terms of my white privilege. When this term started to come into my life last summer, I didn’t educate myself on what it meant because I assumed by not having racist beliefs, I therefore immediately didn’t quality for having white privilege, but this wasn’t the case at all.

All through my life, I have been very lucky to have never felt any hardship towards my skin colour or my societal positioning, and even without realising, I was benefitting over others just because of the colour of my skin. When I’ve started to read up on the meaning behind this term, I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t do anything to change my ways of thinking or acting because I was scared by doing so I would offend someone – so I stayed quiet. And I should have known better.

In the past few weeks, I’ve read more things on racial inequality, gender bias and LGBTQIA-phobia than ever before, and although there is still more to do, I feel as though it’s a step in the right direction. I hope to keep reading, keep learning and keep feeling as though I can do better in order to make the world a kinder, more equal place to live in.

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