Tag: Ice Bucket Challenge

Raising My Hand

On By MezzoSherriIn Topics of StudyLeave a comment

Last night when I was writing about the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, I toyed with the notion of posting links to some of my favorite videos of celebrities doing the challenge. I decided against it for a number of reasons — my favorite celebrity may not be yours, and besides, anyone interested in looking up their own favorite celeb’s enactment of the challenge can do so with their own visit to Professor Google’s office hours (24/7, don’tcha know!).

But there was one video that stopped me in my tracks and that I had to share.

Orlando Jones explains in more detail on his Tumblr page:

I am, of course, talking about the disease of apathy.  If (and hopefully when) Michael Brown’s killer is brought to justice and convicted of 1st degree murder, it still won’t prevent this from happening again. We cannot accept this as the status quo. We MUST continue the fight at the ballot box, in the media and by working to create systemic change. I’m not naive to the dirty politics (redistricting, voter ID requirements, etc) that will try to prevent us from our goal. But I refuse to give up hope. My “bullet bucket challenge” is not about pointing fingers and it’s not about being angry. Every shell casing in that bucket represents the life of someone who fought and died in the goal for civil rights and human dignity. As a member of law enforcement (yes I really am a reserve sheriff) I will not stand idly by while others violate civil and human rights under the cover of authority and I will insist that other good cops rise to the same standard as well. As a black man I will demand more from myself and my community. I will not allow outsiders to co-opt our struggle in order to commit violence in our name. I’m channeling my outrage into action so I no longer feel powerless. It’s not about black or white. It’s not about rich or poor. It’s about us vs. them. There are more of us — from all races, genders and identities — then there will ever be of them. And we will be victorious.

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality”

And no, I’m not so entirely vapid that it took one of the stars of Sleepy Hollow to get me thinking about events in Ferguson, MO.  I even made a small post about the topic, a week or so ago.  However, I very much focused on one Pollyanna bright spot in the midst of everything — and events have certainly moved on apace since that moment of hope.

And I stayed silent. Not because I was completely oblivious to the unfolding events. Since multiple news sources — including Digiday, TechTimes and the Washington Post — have explored why there is such a sharp differential between what shows up on Facebook (ice buckets) and Twitter (police violence in Ferguson), and since I am about 20,000 times more active on Facebook than I am on Twitter, you might think that my silence was caused by obliviousness.

But no. Whether it’s the political progressiveness of most of my Facebook friends, or my own habit of posting/liking/commenting on politically progressive content and articles, or some combination of the two, Ferguson has never been entirely off my Facebook feed. And since I am also one of those old geezers who still uses traditional news channels (TV news, magazines, etc.), there’s been that avenue for continued awareness, too.

But I stayed silent. I didn’t know what I had to say that would be insightful or of value. I was painfully aware of the depth of my white privilege, and deeply afraid that I might say something ignorant, embarrassingly naive, or just generally bone-headed in its/my privilege-blinders. And so I stayed silent.

ferguson-or-baghdadBut I cannot be silent any more.

I can’t tell you exactly what pushed me over the line. Orlando Jones’ challenge/invitation. The infuriating news that, at least as of the time this article was published, the amount of donations for Officer Darren Wilson surpass those for the Michael Brown Memorial Fund. Perhaps it was the stark reminders of how appalling strong the strands of racism run in society: a society where people will misattribute the fraternity handshake of a uniformed officer (none other than the same Capt. Ron Johnson I wrote about last week) as “gang signs,” and where a CNN anchor wonders, on-screen and completely unironically, why police aren’t using “water cannons” to subdue protesters in Ferguson. (Because that was so appropriate and worked so well back in the 60’s.)

Perhaps most tragic and infuriating of all was Tuesday’s shooting of Kajieme Powell, as well as the release of cell-phone video documenting the event. As cogently analyzed by Ezra Klein for Vox:

But there is still something wrong with that video. There is something wrong that the video seems obviously exculpatory to the police and obviously damning to so many who watch it. The dispute over the facts in the Michael Brown case offers the hope that there is a right answer — that Wilson either did clearly the right thing or clearly the wrong thing. The video of the Powell case delivers a harder reality: what the police believe to be the right thing and what the people they serve believe to be the right thing may be very different.

So: I cannot be silent any more. This much I take freely from Orlando Jones. #WeAreAllFerguson, and a core piece of standing up is (as he says both in the video and the accompanying Buzzfeed interview) to “listen without prejudice, love without limits, and reverse the hate.”

However, I know that I stand in the midst of my privilege, in the luxury of being able to “turn on” and “turn off” my awareness of systemic racism as it suits me. Ultimately, these are not my stories to tell. I am not the expert, and my voice should not be the loudest in this conversation.

But here, on JALC, my (white, female, privileged) voice is the only one. And I haven’t quite worked out how to speak authentically from my shoes without then going to that place where it’s all about me and not about the systemic evils of racism and militarization.

So for tonight, I’ll wrap up with a few last resources.

First, a detailed timeline from Josh Voorhees at Slate that presents

a day-by-day accounting of the specific law enforcement actions that exacerbated that pre-existing tension. . . . Here is our best attempt at a Ferguson timeline, with law enforcement behavior that ranges from the rational to the possibly justified to the highly questionable to the downright unconstitutional.

The timeline has links to other articles that drill into specific events or connected issues — if the timeline doesn’t bring you to a boil of outrage on its own, then the linked articles should certainly do the trick. (And if they don’t, then you and I see the world through very different lenses.)

Then two quick links — as much as for my own later reading and my own growth as for anyone else’s:

Listen without limits, love without prejudice, reverse the hate.

And speak up. Stand and be counted.

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Image credit: http://memegenerator.net/instance/53544872

 

 

Generosity Served Cold

On By MezzoSherriIn Gratitudes and Thank Yous, Pop Goes the Culture, Practicing in the Heart1 Comment

Mr. Mezzo did the whole ALS Ice Bucket challenge this evening.

glowing-ice-bucketYes, this is thoroughly behind the times and at the tail-end of the trend, but it has taken this long for said philanthropic faddishness to work its way around to us — an artifact of precisely how deeply middle-aged and uncool we are.

Obviously, this thing has been an incredibly viral phenomenon, and it has earned its share of fans and detractors. Head among the detractors is Will Oremus in Slate, who acknowledges that the campaign has raised some real dollars for ALS research, but also complains:

Yet it’s hard to shake the feeling that, for most of the people posting ice bucket videos of themselves on Facebook, Vine, and Instagram, the charity part remains a postscript. Remember, the way the challenge is set up, the ice-drenching is the alternative to contributing actual money. Some of the people issuing the challenges have tweaked the rules by asking people to contribute $10 even if they do soak themselves. Even so, a lot of the participants are probably spending more money on bagged ice than on ALS research.

As for “raising awareness,” few of the videos I’ve seen contain any substantive information about the disease, why the money is needed, or how it will be used. More than anything else, the ice bucket videos feel like an exercise in raising awareness of one’s own zaniness, altruism, and/or attractiveness in a wet T-shirt.

Arielle Pardes of Vice has a similar concern:

The idea is to dump a bucket of ice water over your head and “nominate” others to do the same, as a way of promoting awareness about ALS (a.k.a. Lou Gehrig’s disease). If you don’t accept the challenge, you have to donate $100 to an ALS association of your choice. It’s like a game of Would-You-Rather involving the entire internet where, appallingly, most Americans would rather dump ice water on their head than donate to charity.

There are a lot of things wrong with the Ice Bucket Challenge, but most the annoying is that it’s basically narcissism masked as altruism. By the time the summer heat cools off and ice water no longer feels refreshing, people will have completely forgotten about ALS. It’s trendy to pretend that we care, but eventually, those trends fade away.

Now, I don’t entirely disagree with Oremus’ or Pardes’ assessment. But there’s a lot that doesn’t track with my sidelines view.

First off, the complaint that the rules of the game are for people to show off with this ice-dumping video as a way to avoid donating to a good cause. Except: I don’t know a single person who has done that. Instead, it’s been a yes/and movement: participate in the fun, plus make a donation. And indeed, some presentations of “the rules” makes that part of things explicitly clear.

Sure, there may be some show-offs who are seizing their moment of Internet fame and skipping out on the charitable cause. But last I checked (yesterday’s NYTimes), the ALSA had received $41.8 million in donations since this all started on July 29th. The newspaper provides a telling point of comparison: the Association only received $19.4 million in gifts for its entire FY 2013. So, whatever else this may be about, real honest-to-Gaia charitable donations are being spurred by the frivolity.

And, moving on to complaint #2: if folks are showing off their wonderfulness and their altruism while making a donation? Here’s the thing: “Looking good” and publicly displaying one’s altruism has been part of philanthropy at least since Carnegie built his first library in 1888 — and probably a good sight earlier than that.

As Tom Watson opines in Forbes (responding to the Pardes quote I included above):

I wonder if she’s ever been to a big ticket charity gala? Seen the big shots competing for auction items? Visited a local hospital or museum and noticed the wing named for well-known local philanthropist I.M. Arichguy? Watched the main stage at the Clinton Global Initiative? Heard of corporate philanthropy? And so on.

Narcissism is part of public philanthropy, though it may be too harsh a word. Enlightened self-interest is better — because it’s not just showing off. There’s a reason why people put their names on public foundations and new hospital wings and it’s not just ego; any fundraiser can tell you it encourages others to give. Given a choice of a named gift or an anonymous one, any nonprofit organization would choose the name. Public good works encourage others.

As far as I’m concerned, the ice-bucket videos up on Facebook (or Vine, or Instagram — or wherever the cool kids have fled to now that old geezers like me know about Facebook, Vine and Instagram) are just a new-tech flavor of old-style philanthropy. And considering how many seminars and books are currently being written trying to figure out how to engage “the younger generation” in philanthropic causes, it may be a profitable idea* to examine why this has been so darn successful instead of going into pooh-poohing mode.

And, finally? As far as the awareness-raising goal of the trend? (Complaint #3.) Again, I can see where detractors are partly-right, insofar as there being tremendous variability in how effectively folks’ videos identify 1) that the challenge is for ALS awareness; 2) what ALS is; and 3) why the money and the research is so strongly needed. Nonetheless, videos like Anthony Carbajal’s, which have been amplified by big-number sites like Upworthy and HuffPo, have done a tremendous amount to hit all those data points — and to suggest that the awareness-raising goals of the challenge, if not perfectly enacted by every participant, are still powerful enough to be noticeable:

Or, to quote Bo Stern:

Another headline whined, “Is the Ice Bucket Challenge Going to Cure ALS?”  Um, no (and – btw – that’s a stupid bar to set for any fundraiser.)  Critics complain that the challenge is really about feeding our American narcism and does nothing for ALS awareness or funding.  They assert that people should just quietly donate their money and move on with their lives.

I get that they’re cranky, but I think maybe they don’t realize what it’s like to face this insidious disease and then realize that it’s nearly invisible to the rest of the world.  As I watch my husband become entombed inside his own body, I feel desperate for people to understand that this sort of inhumane condition exists. . . . [H]ere’s the deal: We are in for the fight of our lives with this monster, and the very LAST thing I want is for people to give quietly, anonymously, and then slink away. Raise the roof!  Raise a ruckus!  Call all sorts of attention to yourself!  I will be happy for you and every Facebook like you receive, as you nudge ALS an inch or two closer to the collective public consciousness.

As with everything else on this planet, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is a mixed bag, with a dose of the good, the bad, the vain and the open-hearted.

Still, I think it’s more in the positive ledger column than not. ‘Cos when push comes to shove, I’m going to take the votes and voices of those living “on the front lines” over the opinions of any of the rest of us talking heads. (Myself most especially included.)

* See what I did there? I so punny….

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Image credit: Grant Fredericksen, shareable via a Creative Commons License (retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/chatterstone/9719565845/ )