One of the most under-looked solutions to today's most pressing issues. I truly believe that we can do amazing things when we're in the same room together, and stronger forces will do whatever they can to avoid this. It reminds me of this meme:
The pandemic has made organizing a whole lot more difficult since most things have to be online and retaining that sense of community online is very hard. I think we're less empathetic to our online counterparts than we are in real life. For example, Twitter has completely desensitized me. When I log on, I am thinking: what horrible thing is happening today? The sense of community in Twitter has become panicked and angry. People on Twitter have the capability of joining forces and becoming more powerful than the sum of its parts, but I don't see this often. What I do notice is people "raising awareness" But what does this mean? The same sphere of people are repeatedly seeing horrible news, that makes us go crazy, and quite frankly depressed. It disempowers us to believe that everything that happens in the world is nonsensical and you are the only person who cares. That is simply not true, but what does "raising awareness" actually do? I think it's awesome that viral tweets can get the attention of celebrities, politicians, and the media and become mainstream, but shouldn't we be more mindful of what becomes viral for a period of time and then forgotten?
I'm not saying that we should ignore the horrible injustices that have been happening such as murders, kidnapping, and evictions. What I am saying is that repeatedly retweeting these things without the appropriate action steps depresses and disempowers us. I think we should realize how much more control we have over this narrative. These are our communities and our world and your voice matters. We need to start connecting in more than superficial ways and build the community that we want.
Now, what is a community? A group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common. What is that characteristic we share? Is it hating the current system of government/economy? Is it love for one another and passion for ensuring everyone a just future?
My favorite quote from Get Together is "build your community with people, not for them"
So I want to experiment creating a chat room with activists and name it chat4change: https://discord.gg/Qbz5fp
