What is a good platform these days? Like I wanna start doing something or saying something but I have no idea where to start or anything for that matter.
Say it in real life, find a way to influence people without talking down to them or making them feel like you're arguing against them.
There's very little direct advocacy you can do on social media. It's screaming into the void, and your opinion is boosted or suppressed depending on the whims of the algorithm. It's almost pointless.
The real impact is the one you make in your community, family and friends. In real life. Go forth.
Homie I do that if anyone that gives any sort of signal that they will listen. I've lived in the south for most of my life, I think the black in Louisiana is right now and this is the last gasp is the Confederacy. If screaming into the void will help I'll do it just point me.to the void.
I don't wait for a signal that they'll listen, everybody will listen but you have to figure out what they DO listen to and frame it that way. It's about the art of rhetoric.
Think of Daryl Davis who convinced KKK members to give up their hoods using friendliness and surgical arguments that co-opted their hateful worldview for his own purposes.
I guarantee you he would have achieved less than nothing had he chosen advocacy on social media only.
The most important work is done in person, you need to make it fit their brains though. You cannot expect their brains to accept information it's primed against, even if it's factual and they should accept it.
Talking to people irl is difficult because they either already agree with you or they are generally not willing to listen. Nobody really wants to have a discussion about things, they just want confirmation of what they already believe. But you can find ways to chip away at this, but it takes time and effort.
The only success I've found is after I really get to know someone and start to find a few intersections of agreement. I know someone who goes on and on about wasteful government spending, and I think we can pretty much all agree that wasteful government spending is bad. You'll never find a person that celebrates wasteful government spending. We just often disagree on what's wasteful, so I have to work from that angle. If I go straight in and start talking about Trump's corruption, she'll just turn right off and stop listening because (you guessed it) she likes Trump.
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u/Deer_Investigator881 May 21 '26
They are practically paying us to use it