ISSUES ---- important discussions

Performative Activism

Performative activism is a huge issue today that stems off of other issues. What is performative activism? It's where a person will talk about supporting (insert any important issue here), but then not actually do anything about it. It sort of goes along with the saying "Practice what you preach." 

A lot of people I follow on Instagram do this, especially the popular white girls. Mainly, I've noticed it in regards to the body positivity movement, racism, and climate change. These people will repost stuff on Instagram with captions like "What not to say to someone with an eating disorder" or "What you can do to help stop climate change", but they'll never talk about these issues outside of Instagram. Even worse, if we focus on, say, racism, they actively contribute to it in their everyday lives. They'll exclude kids of color, and stereotype them as well. A thing I've noticed a lot is that they'll joke about the Asian kids being smart, and when one of them isn't in an advanced class or whatever, they'll be like "Oh, I thought you were supposed to be smart, you're Asian." 

And they don't have more than one friend who isn't white. I don't know if this happens as much in other communities, as the town I used to live in was made up of a lot of rich white Catholic (by that I mean the toxic kind) people, but it is still something that needs to be addressed.

This is performative activism.

It's a problem because even though you say you support a particular movement or a marginalized group of people, that doesn't mean you actually do. And it perpetuates the idea that we can still take part in racism, size discrimination, whatever, in our day to day lives as long as we actively put out the message that we don't.

The thing is, the support of non-marginalized groups is extremely important to the movements (not as important, of course, as those members of the marginalized group, but still important) because those who discriminate against that marginalized group are more likely to listen to someone who isn't part of it and hear their reasoning. 

As said in an article by Al Jazeera on performative activism when it comes to racism, "A social media post to market our own goodness and righteousness. Just another way to say "I'm not a racist," "I'm not a sexist," while doing nothing to dismantle white patriarchy, even unwittingly working to support it." In context, this quote is saying that the performative activism leads people to believe they're doing something with the littlest effort possible, and the actions are truly self-serving. In an article about performative activism by the UMass Daily Collegian, the author states, "Instagram had a reputation for the superficial; a platform for people to flaunt the best parts of their lives. Did the change from selfies to BLM awareness posts make it more genuine? I think not." This basically means that the BLM awareness posts were solely to tell followers that the poster is not racist and is supportive of the black community, even if they aren't doing anything about it.

On June 2 of last year, during Blackout Tuesday, I'm sure almost all of you who have Instagram had your feeds flooded with black squares and the hashtag #blackouttuesday or #blm or related tags. The problem with this was that it started a well intentioned campaign, created by two black music creators, but eventually devolved into a trend, and did next to nothing to uplift black voices, instead drowning them out with black squares. Many were misinformed and used the hashtag blm, thereby reducing that hashtag to nothing but black squares, when it was meant to be a hashtag that black creators could use.

And therein lies the problem. People performatively show support for national and global movements, but in doing so, push back the voices of those affected. So here is what you can do: Spread information that is fact checked and accurate, but don't stop there. Actually put into practice what information you post. If you post something that explains why non-black people shouldn't use the n-word, DON'T USE THE N-WORD AND CALL PEOPLE OUT WHO DO (if they're not black, of course). Write letters to lawmakers asking them to change laws. Actively support and uplift your friends who are part of marginalized groups, and for the love of everything good, don't try to correct those friends when they offer opinions on their own group. (For example, men mansplaining birth control. No uterus, no opinion. If they support a woman's decision to use or not use it, great, but if they try to tell her what she should do, their opinion is not valid.)

In conclusion, if you're going to do many of the actions that could be classified as performative activism, make sure it's actually beneficial to people (like infographics or news stories) and not just another trend (like the Blackout Tuesday squares), and make an effort to change in your day to day life. Thank you.