Slacktivism Is Alive and Well

"Slacktivism" Heard of it? It 's a term used to describe online activism that has quite possibly little to no effect. The ultimate example has to be joining a Facebook group. Such an act is likely to make the person effecting it feel as though they have indeed taken action to change the world for the better, while it actually requires very little more expenditure of their time or effort than what's needed to click a mouse. Contrast such action to that taken by the student activists who many credit with launching the civil rights movement by their "sit-down protest" in February 1950, at the lunch counter in the Greensboro Woolworth store.
"With their very bodies they obstructed the wheels of injustice." The original four students,Joseph McNeil, David Richmond, Franklin McCain and Ezell Blair, Jr (now known as Jibreel Khazan)planned their protest carefully and put it into action on February 1. When they stepped into history the Greensboro Four were freshmen at the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina, now the North Carolina A&T State University. They entered the store, integrated for customers to shop, but with a lunch counter reserved for whites only. Blacks were given no choice but to stand while they ate. The four decided the time had come to do something about this racist state of affairs, so they bought a few items and then sat at the counter, ordering coffee. They were refused service and the store manager asked them to leave, but they remained there until the store closed. The next day they continued their sit-in, but this time they were joined by twenty-five others; a number that was doubled on the third day when the first white students began joining in. It jumped to over 300 on the fourth day. That increase is the 1960's parallel to the numbers that add up when people click to join today's Facebook groups, but the similarity screeches to a halt right there.
The students who joined the original four in their protest had nothing to stand in between them and the possible violence they knew they might face. By February 6, more than a thousand students were crowding the scene and the tensions began rising. Verbal abuse was the least of their worries, but witnesses actually detail one occurrence of it being directed at them by a black woman who washed dishes behind the counter. She was heard to shout at them that they were "stupid, ignorant, rabble-rousers, troublemakers." Someone who felt the need to escalate the abuse phoned in a bomb threat and the store was closed for two weeks. Not to be stopped, the students of Greensboro took their protests to other city lunch counters, in spite of growing opposition. No-one who practises slacktivism and joins that Facebook group has to steel themselves for verbal abuse or bomb threats just because they clicked that mouse. The activists of Greensboro had to face even more. Self-righteous white men harassed the demonstrators, swearing at them, spitting on them, and lobbing eggs at them. One protester’s coat was even set afire. The protesters were not afforded the anonymity inherent in the mouse click performed in the safety of one's own home. Some of them were even jailed because they dared to question the status quo. They took up positions on the front line and faced whatever was fired at them by those opposed to equality. Unlike the one movement of one finger needed to click on that mouse, front-line activism often takes repeated dedication of one's time and efforts. The Greensboro students, once started on their course, persevered until July 1960 when the Woolworth store finally agreed to desegregate its lunch counter, and the original four returned to be served on July 25. In contrast, how many of today's slacktivists occasionally even forget a group or two they may have joined?
The Greensboro activism bore greater fruit than the lunch served finally to the original four through the resultant wave of sit-in protests that saw more than 70,000people taking part in such activities in 55 cities in 13 states. Protests against the segregation of public gathering places such as libraries, and museums, parks, and swimming pools, finally led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. How many Facebook groups have been documented as leading to such developments or changes? Certainly, research should be done to get a count of any Facebook groups that might actually have achieved concrete results, but I rather think the Greensboro Four would feel equating mouse clicks with what they did to be little more than a poorly written joke.
A recent online poll conducted by the University of Toronto asked respondents if they thought the university students of today were more vocal or less vocal about social and political issues. 60% said today's students are less vocal. I agree. Slacktivism is alive and well.
What a shame.