The Mirage of Pain: How Social Media Discredits Social Issues

Domino's Pizza, 2-liter sodas, tossed salad, and a mix of Generation Xers and Millennials.  About 30 of us packed in a warmly lit room to just...talk.  The organizer asked for everyone to write down a topic on a torn piece of paper and toss it in the "bucket of discussion" for breakdown and evaluation.  Yep, you guessed it, police brutality was near the top of the pile.  Unlike the other topics that were approached with slight anxiety, this one was jumped on with force.  I wasn't at all surprised by the cliche-esque nature of the conversation...we were all African-American and mostly female (sorry...not sorry).  But I was a little frustrated by it.  I'd been seeing it all day on Facebook from these VH-1 groupies-turned-activists, and I was about filled up with the "my heart is so heavy" and "I have no words (right before a 17 sentence paragraph)" post.  So before a you guys can't be serious flew out of my mouth, I stopped the convo and asked how many people in the room had been brutalized (not harassed) by the police.  Out of 30 only myself and another young lady raised our hands.  The conversation turned into a lesson after that point.

One of the concerns my mother had about my deep interest in rap music, particularly the kind that's been affectionately termed "gangsta", was the possibility of me internalizing issues that weren't necessarily mine.  Gangs, drugs, consistent violence, and other things were items that we all new and even were familiar with; but it wasn't part of my childhood.  In fact, the aforementioned wasn't apart of my adolescence until...well...I started rapping about it.  So my mom had a point; but I enjoyed the story around it...the drama...so much that I didn't realize it was utter foolishness until it was too late.  I hadn't considered my roll in hearing the music, which was probably more geared towards assisting the problem, until I became a part of the problem.  I was immersed without intention.  

Relatably and sadly, news media has the same effect.  Although a person may live in the northwest corner of North Dakota, seeing enough activity in south central Los Angeles can convince that person he or she is connected to the issue that truly only directly affects people thousands of miles away.  Being able to racially or by gender identify with the people dealing with the issue only heightens the sense of connection.  This, my friends, is what we've experienced last week.

I'm willing to bet the percentage of African-Americans who've actually experienced police brutality is about the percentage in that room...around 7%.  Yet somehow many of us have expressed a strong connection to the problem.  And while it is a problem, the issue of black on black crime, and to go even further...murder, greatly increases the percentage of experience.  But that connection doesn't appear to be as strong.  Are we being duped?  Even in that meeting, with most of us vividly remembering the Rodney King incident and the subsequent trial, we had quickly forgotten how video-taped police brutality was nothing new.  We also remembered the narrative then that to many blacks that happens often, it just was the cameras weren't available.  How did this become a phenomenon all of a sudden....one that's jumped over the more constant one of interracial murder?

Facebook and Twitter.  There's no deep answer to it.  Facebook and Twitter made us feel like everyone has gotten beat up by cops.  Facebook and Twitter convinced us that only black people get shot by police.  Facebook and Twitter told us that civil rights activists have never gone to jail before last week.  Because it's not professional, but it's just people, we think it's real.  When many times it's actually more false.  Last night I read a post from a satirical site about a conversation between Donald Trump and Serena Williams.  When I notified the poster that it was satire, the individual responded something to the effect of just because it's satire doesn't negate the racial mindset.  Huh?  Are we really that social media hypnotized that we'll promote a fake story to continue the Black Power rhetoric?  Doesn't that make us as bad as them?  Aren't we smarter than that?

Look, I'm not suggesting to ignore the issue.  I'm saying evaluate is it really your issue without the assistance of a social media website.  It's clear that many of us believe more frequent African-American problems that most of us are actually closest to...aren't our issues; and that appears to have it's roots in it not being promoted by Facebook enough.  I mean, the same people that have posted videos of fights between young women are now flooding timelines with Black Lives Matter memes.  Rappers who've spent 10+ albums drilling murder music in our ears are "talking" unity...while between yet another project of murder music.  We had mothers with 10 year old sons saying they now have to talk to them about being a black boy in this world.  You actually had to wait for a murder to do that?  The truth is that the model is brilliant because a successful business should generate that much intrigue.  But it's ridiculous, because we [should] know better.  I'll just make it plain, what problem in your community...better yet in your household...did you step over last week to give attention to police brutality...which is a problem you only saw on your timeline?  

Peace