MADELINE-
It’s incredible how little white people have to do to be “woke.”
Reblog some pictures of black people on your Tumblr on Blackout Day, call out a few people on Twitter for using slightly problematic language, post a picture of the absolutely savage sign you created for a protest on Instagram, and BAM: you get to consider yourself “one of the good white people.” Being a revolutionary is easy!
Except that you’re not and it isn’t.
Because doing all of those things is exactly that: easy. It’s comfortable. In a lot of cases, it’s even cool and trendy. I’m sure you remember the fiasco surrounding this Pepsi commercial a few months ago, which featured Kendall Jenner effortlessly achieving social justice by distributing a few soft drinks.
It’s incredible how little white people have to do to be “woke.”
Reblog some pictures of black people on your Tumblr on Blackout Day, call out a few people on Twitter for using slightly problematic language, post a picture of the absolutely savage sign you created for a protest on Instagram, and BAM: you get to consider yourself “one of the good white people.” Being a revolutionary is easy!
Except that you’re not and it isn’t.
Because doing all of those things is exactly that: easy. It’s comfortable. In a lot of cases, it’s even cool and trendy. I’m sure you remember the fiasco surrounding this Pepsi commercial a few months ago, which featured Kendall Jenner effortlessly achieving social justice by distributing a few soft drinks.
If you haven’t watched the advertisement before, click here for the full video.
The ad is pretty horrific for several reasons: it degrades and tries to profit off of the struggle of oppressed demographics to gain equality, it trivializes the problem of police violence during protests, and the people of color in the ad are essentially Jenner’s props. Naturally, Twitter went crazy. Pepsi had to pull the ad almost immediately and issue some half-hearted apology, but I think the company’s advertising team was onto something. They realized the trendiness of being a “social justice warrior” and tried to take advantage of it. It completely backfired, and rightfully so, but I think the observation that Pepsi made is absolutely correct. Making jokes about Trump, going to Pride or the Women’s March, and making memes about the insensitivity of a large corporation’s ad are all hip. There’s an entire growing subculture filled with young liberals – I’ll call it “Tumblr culture” even though it transcends Tumblr – that’s centered around doing these kinds of things, which means that white liberals are not revolutionaries for Tweeting pictures of prominent black people throughout Black History Month. We’re just being trendy.
This is not to say that any of the Tumblr culture activities I’ve mentioned so far are bad or completely useless. They’re quite the opposite: positivity movements for people of color, protests that get a lot of attention, and pointing out problematic language or content online are all important and can do a lot to end minority oppression in America. What I’m saying is that all of these things are also fashionable. It seems that people of color are creating these amazing movements to cope with and combat the oppression they experience, and then white people do exactly what Kendall Jenner does in the Pepsi ad: swoop in, participate, and bask in their own coolness and “woke-ness” while failing to do anything to combat systematic racism in real life that actually requires any effort or discomfort whatsoever.
That needs to stop. Participating in Tumblr culture is a good thing, but you shouldn’t do it for the sake of being considered cool or enlightened, and you should also be combating racism in ways that are far tougher and way less cool. A huge part of our white privilege sits outside the Internet and protest sign-making; we have it when we walk into grocery stores, go into job interviews, and cross the street. When you call out someone on Twitter while simultaneously being silent while your uncle makes racist comments to the cashier of color at a Whataburger, not only are you being hypocritical, but that real-life part of your white privilege is sitting dormant. Put it to use by having those difficult conversations with your white friends, not letting those bigoted jokes your dad makes pass, and defending people of color in real life. Those things are actually hard and uncomfortable, and they might not get you “invited to the cookout,” but they’re just as important as things that do. So do it: do the right thing and stand up for your beliefs even when it’s difficult and uncool, because that’s what people of color really need from us.
illustration credit: k-et
