#fighting dissolution

Fighting Dissolution

Last month I wrote about being the hero for which you’ve been waiting. Today, I’d like to talk about fighting dissolution in the face of overwhelming opposition. Now more than ever, that has become imperative. I’m watching with pride as people come together to protest the wrongs being wrought across the globe. With them, my knowledge of being a better activist is growing. Part of that is accepting hard truths. Intersectional Feminism, for example, isn’t easy for a white woman to walk into and completely understand. Our empathy for the plight of women of color is present, but it comes with our baggage, and more often than not we step on toes—well meaning or not. Accepting that truth is necessary to our growth and the success of the movement. It ceases to be about ourselves and becomes about the goals we as a group set. Yet, personal feelings intervene and throw a wrench into the works.

With that in mind, I want to step back to being the hero, instead of waiting on one. In the last post, I talked about truth and  discovery. Political issues were discussed that increasingly matter. Groups are still holding onto misinformation, while they forge ahead, and though they are attempting to be the heroes, they are still relying on others and the false information those people gave them. It is not going to go well for those people, and it will affect the outcomes for other movements. Instead of taking it on the chin for their feelings and accepting fact, they side with easing their own discomfort. They fold back in to the lie.

For instance, social media groups (SMG) are being infiltrated by groups of individuals focused on spreading misinformation that supports the dissolution of the SMGs purpose. In other words, they troll the groups and create discord, tweaking the emotions of its members. Within each SMG is a vulnerable section of individuals who will fall easy prey to these trolls. This subset is usually suspicious and, though intelligent, may lack the skills of discerning fake news. They mean well, but function more on emotion than reason. It is their strength and their weakness.

Not every citizen experiences coursework that teaches them how to determine the value of the information they’ve come across. It was discussed extensively in my Masters Program during a course focused on teaching the students how to research and vet information discovered. This was a graduate level course. Not every college student experiences that level and not every student will go on to college. Frankly, I think our education system fails our young people by not covering this much earlier. It should be covered in Junior High School, Senior High School at the latest. Why? Because those students will be doing book reports and research papers in those years, and before they do, they should be taught expressly how to do so. It will benefit them in all areas later and is a life decisions necessity. It will inform their future studies and improve engagement, not just in their studies.