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Do you look to Twitter to find out what is actually happening on the streets?
How much do you trust what you see?
Craig Jenkins:Twitters like a river.
Theres different approaches to filtering, too.
Sometimes you get Dasani, you know?
GE: How do you filter?
(The gentleman was 34.)
But the thing is, Ive already seen this movie.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Anchors are doing a lot of heavy lifting of connecting the dots, thats for damn sure.
(Looking at you, Don Lemon.
Youre still not invited to the cookout though.)
This can be chaotic, but its about pulling back and looking at the aggregate as well.
GE:Have you noticed a lot of misinformation spreading?
What did you think when you saw that going around?
Like, thats not whats going on.
Its a cesspool of agendas.
The conspiratorial mind says, See, people are being shuttled in to cause chaos.
The rational thinker considers the fact that a large percentage of the young people in such cities are transplants.
GE: How so?
They can take advantage by creating whatever narrative they want?
Theyre exploiting these self-created crawlspaces Craig mentioned.
And its working beautifully.
Social media particularly citizen journalism can be useful in complicating that narrative and exposing it for what it is.
How do you see its role as a platform for activism in 2020?
DL:Its been most effective as a collective public display of pointing the finger at a problem.
Its a massive signal boost, but that doesnt mean its valueless.
Its also the language and currency of this era.
Cops (in one case) have been charged.
Theres also a lot of value in seeing your faves turn into grassroots activists overnight.
Halsey is a war nurse out of nowhere?!
John Boyega is an anointed civil-rights leader.
Kehlani is mobilizing on the ground.
Ive never seen anything like it.
What its all lacking is focus and organization.
EAJ:Right, its kind of this slowly moving mass of energy.
I do think theres a basic shift in that everyone has cameras.
If the cops are doing something, people are filming it.
The videos are so important.
Or liberal measures are inevitably adopted without a real reckoning with thestructuralpart of structural racism.
Its why de Blasio talking about structural racism seems like a comedy sketch.
Its a flimsy rhetorical cover designed to appease all of us who are on social media.
Unfortunately he isnt very good at it.
DL:Its also worth mentioning TikTok, which has proven invaluable as an educational resource.
When people say all lives matter this is a good explanation as for why its not.
Heres the TikTok video Im referencing.pic.twitter.com/8xKZjzpReK
We havent even discussed the K-pop stans yet.
K-pop stans are doing the work!
DL:And infiltrating cop zoom calls.
Did you find this surprising?
felt the need to make a statement to begin with.
EAJ:Or quite so literal.
CJ:Thank you, Whitney.
EAJ:Her impact is everlasting.
DL:Finally, accountability culture is replacing cancel culture.
EAJ:Accountability is a really good way to frame it.
The question is how deep this reckoning goes.
At the very least people are calling bullshit.
DL:To me, none of this is sustainable.
At some point, the performance has to call curtain.
GE: One thing weve been seeing on Twitter are the deeper cultural effects of the protests.
Not just making fun of companies.
Do you think people feel more empowered to speak up?
Is this something specific to the moment, where it feels like its open season on racism everywhere?
EAJ:Quarantine is making everyone give no fucks.
I also suspect this came after years of mounting frustration, and the dam just broke.
But this is not the time.
It caught a lot more eyes because what else is there to do on a Wednesday afternoon in quarantine?
Im deeply frightened of the consequences though.
GE: On Thursday, theTimesput out astatementsaying the op-ed was not up to their standards.
Which struck me as such a weird thing to say.
It seems theyre equating social media with people of color and general outrage without knowing what it means.
How does one rethink op-eds around social media?
They dont think about how this could affect their own co-workers who have a different life experience.
DL:They dont understand theres levels to violence.
EAJ:No, it can all be rhetorical.
Its the old fairness doctrine logic.
Also, it seems pretty obvious that there are conservatives gaming this tendency of the centrist press.
GE: In some ways, none of this is new.
Conversations about race and inequality have played out on social media for years now.
Looking back at this particular juncture, do you think its ultimately been a powerful platform for change?
Or at least, that it has all been moving toward something?
EAJ:Its also contributed to the radicalization of white supremacists and MRAs.
But social media has also been a breeding ground for people with sinister ideas and tendencies.
Its a tug of war.
(Good afternoon to my ex-legends Krist Novoselic and John Dolmayan of Nirvana and System of a Down.)
Everyone is on their own planet in a way, as much as many of us share common experiences.
How that shakes out is anyones guess.
Id like to see that next.
Fuck Al Gores internet.
CJ:Public noise is very costly when the economy is shrinking.
I dont know what the answer is.
EAJ:Thats where a lot of old-school organizing work is really going to become crucial.
How do we mobilize?
How do we change the institution not only for ourselves but everyone who comes after us?
(Or is the answer creating separate ones?)
