More on reacts!
This is part of the discipline it takes to be in this space.
And it’s not just about the react emojis themselves.
If we moved to another medium, like we’re going to be moving to the lace on Race. Com website, welp-the same discipline is going to have to apply.
This is about who we are in this space Oh, and it’s also about who we are outside as well.
Most people have not had the opportunity to be under the leadership of a black woman, and when they are under the leadership as in this case they will do familiar behaviors to sabotage and undermine that.
One reason that I am harping on this is that it is a symbol for larger behaviors, convictions, and practices.
People who are here know that this is not a 101 space, that is, they feel as though they have at least a working knowledge of what it is to be anti-racist.
These emojis show that that’s not true, and that’s not just for dominant culture- people it’s true of everyone.
In truth, the prevalence of emojis has gone down tremendously.
I want it down to zero.
Because we can make some predictors from people who use emojis.
For one they probably haven’t done the major work that this space is designed for. That is to say they probably haven’t engaged with the relational ethics series, they probably haven’t done substantial comments.
As well, and even more importantly, they haven’t really engaged with the material itself.
If you can look at a given Meme or post and then press an emoji and then scroll and roll in 5 seconds I guarantee that you are not going to remember it, and you certainly will not take anything substantial from it.
I’ve said this before, and I will repeat it. This is not an entertainment space.
The only way you will get durable benefit from the space as if you engage in the way we have prescribed.
It is hard enough to retain and to incorporate and internalize what you are presented with on Facebook.
That’s kind of part of the point. It’s by FB’s design.
Facebook doesn’t want you to be discerning or intentional about what you consume.
We are doing it differently here, and our insistence on no reacts is away does much to subvert the harmful Facebook manipulation of your mind and of your behaviors. If you allow it to *following the directive*.
This is a lab space; a rehearsal space and it’s okay to get it wrong, but one of the lessons here is that you need to continue to get it wrong *in different ways*.
Getting it wrong in the same old way says something about your Praxis and it says something about your commitment to this work and do the people you say you stand with.
That includes good old-fashioned white supremacy, and it also includes internalized racism is well for people who are not white.
Pretty much everything I do here is for a reason, including the insistence upon no reacts.
If you are doing the bulk of the prescriptions here in the space, which are engaging mindfully, refraining from the dopamine hit that is a react, putting your own skin in the game by engaging financially for the health of this community and for the health of other communities when we do individual an organizational asks, you are walking forward. And it will show up in your offline life.
One of the things that my harping on the issue also does is it makes people come up short against what it is exactly they are not willing to do in service of what they say they believe in.
This is also a big deal.
So little is asked of white people.
So to be confronted at this point on a daily basis with just how little they’re willing to do here, welp, it’s important.
They may decide if they don’t want to walk with us anymore.
That’s quite okay.
It’s hard to speak to 4000 people, even when you boil it down to the smaller number of people who regularly actively engage in the space.
I’d be happy with a fewer number with more commitment.
And perhaps if they self-select out we can move faster and with more intention.
But I’m not going to kick them out.
If we say that we will meet you where you are, but not necessarily let you stay there, we need to mean it.
And for every person who continues to do Emojis there are more people who have chosen not to because they understand the reason for the prohibition.
It’s all part of the work.
It’s all part of being less harmful in your offline life, and if we make it easier for people to comply they are not stretching themselves and using the muscles that they need.
As we say here there are two ways to make for congruence where there isn’t any, the first is to change one’s behavior, and second is to change one’s values.
They’ll keep getting confronted because I have faith that behavior will change.
Or that they leave.
Either way it’s a win for the community.