Showing and doing are two different things.
In acting, we call that telegraphing. It’s when you are deliberately showing everyone your intentions and making a display of your actions to the audience all the way to the punchline. In comedy, it’s the fastest way to kill a joke. In most work, it turns off the audience because it makes them feel like they are so stupid that you have to be “extra” for them the understand the point.
This behavior is an extremely easy trap to fall into on Instagram. In the early days of racial unrest, I watched reactions pour in. From my “people”…ugh I’m going to pause there. I hate being classified as much as anyone else. I am a white woman. Gifted with privilege at birth because of my skin, raised in a time when the generations before me had made solid strides towards equality. Maybe it was due to the work of my parents, maybe it was due to teachers that invested in me, maybe I’m just lucky and had the right combination of life experiences, but I have never thought less of a person because of the color of their skin.
In the early days, messages spread like wildfire. Post a black square. Profess your antiracism. Join the BLM movement, but wait, don’t take the BLM movement on your black square because it’s drowning out the posts that need to be seen. Send money here. LISTEN to these people. Mute your feed. We were all trying SO HARD. And many of us were messing up left any right because it was hard to keep up with the ever changing instructions on how to be antiracist.
I paused, but I didn’t post that I paused. To me, it felt inauthentic. It felt like a big show. I don’t have thousands of followers. I’m hardly an influencer. So for me, “presenting” that I’m muted and listening just looks like I’m hitching onto the bandwagon. At least those are the optics from where I sit. Isn’t the point of muting to give the stage to those who need to be heard?
I did feel the need to do something. So, here is what I did:
Connected to my neighbors, who are black. We had an open conversation about what it going on. I am grateful for them because my son will never have to find out unlearn anything. Our neighbors are wonderful and we have a very easy friendship. I didn’t meet my first black friend until High School.
Contacted my alderman. Learned about the details of the Evanston reparations program.
Contacted my PD and learned about the community review board that has advisory input on policing methods.
Journaled, journaled, journaled. I needed a space to sort out my thoughts free from judgement. You can’t weed out bad thoughts or behaviors if you have to always filter.
The metaphorical street is very necessarily one way right now. Centuries of hurt and rage are rolling out and the only thing that I feel right doing is letting it roll and try to stay safe in the process.
We have a long and challenging road ahead of us. I’m facing it openly, willing to get my feelings hurt, and ready to stand up for what is right, but I didn’t need to tell you that because I’m just going to do it. Activism is not a show. It’s action.
Lisa Moves 