Comments on: Maybe Ignorance isn’t so Blissful

By: Julianna

Julianna — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 21:33:17 +0000

I love how you are so open and honest with not only yourself but everyone able to read this post. As someone who noticed the class dynamic immediately I found it very funny, not in a this made me laugh way but in a way that was ironic, our class is about racism and we had all fallen into it just as much as we didn’t want to. I agree with your point on obligation, and the fear that not speaking up might come off a certain way never sat right with me, it reminds me of our discussion in class about influencers and if they should or should not fake activism, it was an interesting thing to discuss but necessary either way.

By: Julian Chaparro

Julian Chaparro — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 21:42:08 +0000

This is a super interesting blog post! I think it is very interesting how you noted that a lot of support for the BLM movement, in particular, was based on an obligation to support. This reminds me of a conversation that I had in high school with the BIPOC affinity group I was a part of, where we were discussing the black squares that were going viral on Instagram during the COVID-19 pandemic and the white students felt they were obligated to post the black square with the hashtag #BLM because they believed that if they didn’t, they would be picked out of the bunch who did post and thus be classified as a racist. You brought up a great point that there is a worrying presence of concrete thinking, meaning that people are centering their beliefs and actions around what is right and wrong according to perceived social obligations.

By: Albert

Albert — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 19:49:46 +0000

In regards to the BLM social media activity in 2020, I definitely fell into the trap of performative activism to appear “not racist” back then. However, it was my first real exposure to the issues of systemic racism in the US at the time, so the social media presentations definitely had their double-edged sword effects. I think they were beneficial in making more people aware of racism and getting some people to be more angry about the issues, but social media is only very limited in terms of promoting an antiracist future. Additionally, perhaps it was safer for people to be activists behind a screen during 2020 due to people being isolated in their homes and not having to face as many face-to-face confrontations about how they advocated / failed to advocate for BLM.

By: Melisa

Melisa — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 19:02:53 +0000

When it came to noticing how the students from minority groups and White student sat on different sides of the classroom, I noticed it right away but I was not brave enough to say anything about it. They are individuals who genuinely care combating and speaking up against inequality, racism, and equity but because of the way society pushes certain norms it can be difficult to grasp that there are White individuals who care or are doing it to go with the flow.