CAROLINE: Hi, my name is Caroline.
NATALIE: My name is Natalie.
REGINE: My name is Regine, and this is Me/Us/U
Today’s episode will feature three distinct voices talking about issues that are important to them and how each individual has used a passion for those issues to become activists. This is Roots of my Activism.
[music plays]
CAROLINE: Hi my name is Caroline Beohm and I am currently a junior at Susquehanna University where I major in political science. Today I’m going to focus on where my activism came from, what type of activism I do, and what it means to me.
I will never forget where I was the morning after Election Day 2016. I only vaguely remember falling asleep, somewhere between CNN staying optimistic about Hillary’s chance, and CNN declaring Pennsylvania was reporting back red. My alarm went off around 8:00AM, to which I groggily opened my phone, and googled the asinine phrase, “who is the president of the United States?” The answer I got was not the one I had been wishing for. I cried the entire time I was eating breakfast, and gathering my things to go to class.
The entire world mourned. The gray clouds obscured the sun from view and the clouds wept for the whole day. I climbed out of bed and began to face a day that seemed insurmountable. I held the door for two other young girls walking out of my freshmen dorm building. We commiserated about the new presidency and shared how we wished classes could’ve been canceled so the human race could take a breather after such a heartbreaking loss. I made my way across campus to my 100-level survey course, unaware of what would meet me there at 8:45.
I walked into the class; at first glance, it seemed relatively normal. Most people were in attendance, notebooks out, people playing with their phones, waiting for the professor to walk in. I’m not quite sure what I expected from a religion expert, but what came out of my professor’s mouth is not exactly what I needed to hear.
“For those of you who are happy, it’s not as good as it seems; for those of you who are sad, it’s not as bad as it seems.”
At the time, I couldn’t wrap my head around the ramifications of a comment this passive. While it seems hopeful for those of us worried about Trump’s potential policies, I thought it could also stand as a slippery slope kind of passive bystander behavior during what could potentially become an undemocratic regime characterized by bigotry and hate. At the time, I remained silent.
I wish I would have said something, no, not argumentative, I just- wish he would’ve had a little bit more to say than “it’ll be okay in the end” because to me, it didn’t seem like it would be okay.
I grew up in a relatively homogenous, white, male-driven county of Pennsylvania where the young men were coddled by their mothers and constantly praised by their fathers.
[record scratches. Narration pauses]
CAROLINE: Hold up just one second. When I use the terms “white male” “white men” or “white masculinity,” I am not referring to a single person or group of people, rather a system of oppression in America, that grants white, middle class, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied men immense amounts of privileges often times to the disadvantage of women, people of color, persons with disabilities, and members of the LGBTQ community. This system has been dubbed the patriarchy by gender scholars such as Allan G Johnson and Peggy McIntosh. For the sake of brevity, when I use the term “white male” or “white men,” I am referring to this power structure that exists within American society.
[record scratches again]
CAROLINE: There was hardly a consequence that any one of them had to face, and as a result of this, most of them grew up into being staunch Republicans, or so unbothered by politics that they chose to be civically inactive. My greatest grievance in this circumstance is the fact that their male whiteness has allowed them to skirt through life unscathed by the difficulties of what a political climate such as that in 2016 could inflict upon people. How pleasant it must be to be so unaffected by politics that you can afford to not care about it. This white, male, professor of mine stood for the exact kind of passive political thinking that is afforded to those groups of privileged peoples.
I tell you this to help you understand what sparked my interest in political activism. I was lucky enough to be born in a relatively moderate household; my mom was fairly liberal, though my dad (being a white male) never felt the pull towards politics. My brothers and I were afforded the chance to make choices for ourselves, a concept I found lacking in my peers. I spent hours of class time pouring over news articles, googling case law, researching pending legislation, and contacting my Congressmen in an attempt to form my own opinions. I had always been motivated in this way, but nothing lit the fire under my butt quite like the rise of Bernie Sanders, alongside the rise of Donald Trump.
Growing up, I heard and felt certain conservative ideologies that I knew I did not align myself with. Lancaster County Pennsylvania is incredibly rural, deeply religious, almost consistently red county. People in Lancaster value the nuclear family, going to church every Sunday, gun rights, Army enlistment and free-market economics above all. At its face, none of that necessarily seems all that bad. However, its manifestation in the people I grew up with rubbed me the wrong way. To me, these people lived lives so focused on structure, and tradition, that it was preventing them from seeing the benefit in adapting your lifestyle to fit the needs of a modern day society.
This sharp juxtaposition between my views and where I grew up is what sparked my activism, and my activism didn’t become fully fleshed out until my freshmen year of college alongside the election cycle.
I think the first part of my activism probably started as just being more politically engaged. I looked at a lot of CNN and NPR and tried to find viable and credible news sources to become more knowledgeable about what was going on in the world around me. Naturally, this new found knowledge led me to form more credible beliefs and I was able to back up arguments I was having with people around me. That eventually led to political engagement in classes and then political conversations I would have with my friends. These political conversations with my friends usually resulted in me registering them to vote, which at the time seemed like a small thing but when you think about voter registration laws in Pennsylvania, in particular, you have to be registered to vote, even in a midterm election, at least a month before the election. So by the time the midterms rolled around, I already knew of a handful of people who already had been registered from the presidential election or shortly thereafter, and they didn’t even have to go through the hassle of registering to vote.
Another part of my activism is what a lot of people would coin as clicktivism or digital activism. I’m pretty active on Twitter and occasionally on Facebook, though not as much cause the demographic is obviously way older than what mine is. But I go on twitter and I retweet and tweet things and to some degree yeah it’s kind of an echo chamber for what I believe in but also think it’s getting the word out its getting my opinions outs its supporting other people of my ideology and pushing party platform ideas.
A lot of people like to be condescending about clicktivism and say it doesn’t do anything and yeah while there’s no materialistic thing I can point to or no causal change I can point to, I still think it’s important that there a handful of people out there that are getting their voices heard and you can hear them.
That being said, I haven’t done the big activism. I’ve never been to a speech, I’ve never been to a rally, I’ve never been to a protest, I’ve never been to a march. Suffice it to say, I wish I could’ve gone to a protest, rally, or march, but living in Central Pennsylvania and being a full-time college student really puts a damper on my desire to participate in a large mass movement like that. SO I do what I can.
I talk to people, I register them to vote, I’m very active on the interne4t, and if anyone ever asked me for help volunteering for a campaign I would gladly say yes. So we come here to this dichotomy between lifestyle activism which I personally think I exemplify and definite4ly buy into that more and big activism which is protests, rallies, speeches, these big movements that you can go to, to support a cause.
I had the pleasure of sitting down with DR. Kirk Harris of Susquehanna University the other day and we kind of parsed out this idea between big activism and lifestyle activism and I was interested in the conversation because he kind of didn’t really think about activism the same way that I did. He kind of was surprised to hear that I would consider political engagement as a small form of activism and I think that’s where this idea and this dichotomy of lifestyle activism and big activism kind of came from.
DR. HARRIS: No but maybe I should right? So maybe like what Sarah Silverman is doing with this show “I Love You, America” like maybe, that’s, you know, she’s kind of doing that, she’s meeting with a whole bunch of different people and just talking with them about politics and how it connects to their lives and that’s an example of that kind of dialogue. So maybe we should see that as activism. I don’t think traditionally, from a social science perspective we do, its certainly not how I think about activism, but yeah maybe that is how we should think about activism, is like lifestyle activism, right?
CAROLINE: Right. Political activism is hard in Central Pennsylvania and I’ll give you that. But there are things that we can be doing, things that we can be saying, people, we can be talking to in order to bridge this partisan divide in our country. Dr. Harris for one, thinks that maybe collective action is the solution.
DR. HARRIS: Politics. Politics is all about collective action. It’s all about people coming together to accomplish a purpose and so if you want to enter with or engage the political realm you need to do that collective action you need you organize people together otherwise you are just shouting into a void.
CAROLINE: Politics is collective action. Politics is all about people coming together to achieve one single goal I love that I don’t think Dr. Harris could say it in any better way. And while activism here in Central Pennsylvania is not quite what a lot of people would define as activism, I think we can still find small ways to improve our country right here in Central PA. Get out the vote. Register your friends, tweet on twitter, go on Facebook, tell your mom, yell at your racist uncle, hold people accountable, have these conversations sit down to dinner.
And when the time comes for you to stand up for your beliefs, stand up! I am by no means done with my activist journey. I have a lot of work to do and a lot of places I want to go; that doesn’t mean I’ll ever stop trying to be a better activist.
[relaxing music plays]
[ Soft piano/violin instrumental plays throughout]
NATALIE: Hi –my name is Natalie Arm – I am a Junior Spanish and Secondary Education English double major at Susquehanna- and I am passionate about the issues that run deep in our food industry… Practices are now so thoroughly unsustainable and knowingly irresponsible that there is basically no diet that one can live on and maintain a clear conscious. I began reading about these problems and I continue to learn just how politicized the commodities of food have become due to the prioritization of money over morals under capitalism… This all started for me when I became a pescatarian which—I guess –was 5 years ago now when my greater interest in the corruption of the food industry began to intersect with my opinions about animal welfare. A lot of this has its foundations in our societal norms that no one seems to question- like –why do we value the lives of some animals over others,– why hug the dog and eat the cow? Maltreatment of animals in the animal agriculture industry aside, I don’t think that this prioritization of some animals over others is a valid defense for the questions many people simply fail to ask. I think that a lot of times, people who are passionate about animal rights or the food industry more generally, either hold themselves on a smug pedestal or are assumed to be under the pictures of extreme protests from groups like PETA… throwing blood on passerbys in public spaces. But it is important to focus on that middle ground group of people too—where– I know my diet is not perfect and recognize that it does not eliminate all types of issues surrounding sustainability or human labor abuse within these industries. The foundation of these problems is so deep where even adopting a vegan diet –which may often seem to be held above other dietary choices–, remains imperfect in the fact that it still has its issues that result from the deeper corruption of the food industry as a whole. This segment, while touching on different lifestyle choices or topics of the food industry, has a focus that always ties back to these problems as they relate specifically to animal rights, and my activism for animal welfare that is such a big part of my passion for these issues.
My Junior year of high school’s American Government and Economic Systems class hit a real sweet spot with the assignment of current event presentations in 2015. In this time there was constantly updating news cycles covering events approaching the legalization of same-sex marriage and the continued terror coming from ISIS. Our class would sit through power point after power point of presentations covering the Keystone XL Pipeline, ISIS, and same-sex marriage updates. These were big topics that everyone cared about, and the news was splattered with new news on these topics just about daily. Even for a high schooler who was not passionate or even remotely interested in topics like these they could easily complete the assignment to its requirement by following that route…and they did. The day came for my first of two current events presentations and I stood in front of 20 of my peers and gave a presentation on laws to give animals the same rights as humans, and the movement pushing for legislation to this end. A few weeks passed and it was my turn once again. I walked back up to that same place at the head of the classroom and shared the current events regarding the Ringling Brothers’ circus decision to remove animals from their acts. Half of the class might have been sleeping with their head propped so the teacher wouldn’t notice, but I was standing there presenting pictures of monetized animal abuse, and sharing radical ideas for a 17-year old that animals should have the same rights as you and me. The terms surrounding topics of animal welfarism may have flown well over the heads of Mr. Hoskin’s history class, but I was putting them out into the air. I was speaking my uncommon opinions unapologetically and taking the initiative to change a basic assignment into a form of activism.
Animal rights activists and experts alike have so much to contribute to the conversation surrounding issues of animal welfarism and environmental sustainability that is so severely affected by animal industries. The roots of people’s activism– even when it comes to the same issues can vary greatly and they are all valid ways of coming to the same conclusion to become more active. Expert contributions can be eye-opening and make non-activists reevaluate what they might be able to do to help through their lifestyle choices or simply become more aware of the reality both animals and our earth are facing. Activist and expert voices constitute both sides of what makes people care about animal welfare…as it draws the connection between facts and personal experiences. I reached out to a couple of friends who have also grown to become activists for animal rights and have changed their lifestyles as a result. Emma and Anastasia both gave me statements that answer questions like why did you become an animal rights activist and how have you grown to become a lifestyle activist for animal rights. I also pulled a couple of segments from the documentary Cowspiracy that can be found on Netflix, that have expert opinions and research on the impact of animal lifestyle activism. This variety and combination of voices, both personal and expert, are so deeply important in the fight for placing a greater importance on animal rights… and it is only right to sit down and listen to those voices.
By living a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle, I am an activist for animal rights and an activist for the environment. These issues became important to me when I was 15 years old and was exposed to the cruelty of the meat industry because it was featured in an episode of Oprah. Here, I was exposed to the violent, cruel, inhumane, and unsanitary conditions that were being practiced in meat and dairy farms all over the US. For me, this is when I made the connection between what is on my plate and what is sold to me in a grocery store. I stopped eating meat right then and there. Since then, my knowledge on animal agriculture has only grown extensively by watching documentaries and reading books about animal agriculture throughout college. Books like The China Study and the Omnivore’s Dilemma altered the way I looked at the food I was eating and the way that food affects my body and the world I live in. Although the cruelty of the meat and dairy industry is what sparked my passion for animal rights, today I think the driving force behind sticking with a vegetarian/vegan diet mostly for the environment. The negative impact that animal agriculture has on global climate change is massive and being vegetarian or vegan is one of the best ways to reduce my personal environmental impact.
To feed a person on an all plant-based vegan diet for a year…requires just one-sixth of an acre of land. To feed that same person on a vegetarian diet……that includes eggs and dairy requires three times as much land. To feed an average U.S. citizen’s high-consumption diet…of meat, dairy and eggs require 18 times as much land. This is because you can produce 37,000 pounds of vegetables…on 1.5 acres, but only 375 pounds of meat on that same plot of land. A high consuming meat-eating Californian saves 1.4 tons of CO2 equivalent per year by removing beef from their diet. They save 1.6 tons by going vegetarian and 1.8 tons by going vegan. This is more than switching to solar power for your home or driving a hybrid car. Only switching to an electric vehicle saves more, which still though few can afford. But, Unlike an electric vehicle, the savings don’t end with greenhouse gases. A vegan diet produces half as much CO2
as an American omnivore…uses one-eleventh the amount of fossil fuels…one-thirteenth the amount of water and an eighteenth of the amount of land. After adding this all up, I realized I had the choice every single day…to save over 1100 gallons of water, 45 pounds of grain…30 square feet of forested land, the equivalent of 10 pounds ofCO2…and one animal’s life every single day.
NATALIE: I first went vegan for health reasons, but with the more research I did, the more I found it to be an ethical issue. One of the components of a plant-based lifestyle that really resonated with me was the idea of compassion—particularly for animals and the environment. That’s when my plant-based diet became more of a lifestyle. Not only do I largely avoid animal products in my food consumption, but I also try to apply my activism to my everyday life. One of the biggest shifts I noticed was in my hygiene and beauty products. Although it was a learning curve, I decided I need to implement cruelty-free and vegan/vegetarian alternatives because no animal should have to suffer for the sake of vanity. The replacement process was gradual, but nowadays there are so many affordable products on the market to choose from. Some of my favorite brands are Moonrise Creek, Pacifica, Alba Botanica, and The Body Shop. I think another important lesson I’ve learned through veganism is that our food has a huge impact, especially on the environment. Not only is our industrialized food system cruel regarding animal welfare, it is immensely unsustainable. Conventional methods of animal agriculture is a top culprit of emitting greenhouse gases, causing deforestation, consuming vast amounts of water resources, and is also indicative of many other environmental detriments. My activism goal is not to preach about veganism, but to simply lead by quiet example; it’s also really just my hope to spread awareness that there are some pretty awesome alternatives to the status quo modality of living.
Eighty-two percent of starving children live in countries…where food is fed to animals in livestock systems…that are killed and eaten by more well-off individuals…in developed countries such as the U.S. and Europe. The fact of it is that we could feed…every human being on the planet today an adequate diet…if we did no more than take the feed that we’re feeding to animals…and actually turn it into food for humans.
Not that this is necessarily unique to the activism surrounding animal rights, but there are so many avenues that people pursue and that you can follow to support these issues in different ways that are important to you. Some people utilize a vegan diet or stretch the vegan principles to apply to all of the products they are consumers of in their life. Some may choose to follow any variety of diets from vegetarian to pescatarian to lacto vegetarian to ovo vegetarian– that vary in what restrictions are placed on the food one consumes. However, even if someone was raised with meat being a major part of their diet, they may choose to use only cruelty free products and live by this rule in everything they buy. One may also be a conscious consumer that supports animal rights by not supporting the animal entertainment industry in events like circuses, zoos, or aquariums. Any combination or isolation of these efforts shows a certain level of animal rights lifestyle activism that anyone can choose to live out every day. Not only can you and your lifestyle and your consumer choices serve as a form of activism, but social media can make it really easy to promote your activism to others and make relevant information more readily available.
I was in 9th grade and my sister had stopped eating meat a handful of years before. She would occasionally talk about animal rights across the dinner table or mention statistics in related conversations, and this prompted me to look into animal rights issues for myself. I started doing research on my own and looking into issues of animal welfarism, following the same path as my sister and cutting meat out of my diet soon after. This has only developed further as I have been able to delve deeper into the problems that are now found so close to my heart. What spurred this initial action was what I learned about the practices of the animal agriculture industry. From there, the passion for animal welfare issues spilled over into different aspects and results of the animal rights problem, such as the animal entertainment industry, along with the environmental impact of the animal agriculture industry that is ignored in favor of the capitalistic society we live in.
Something within the sphere of animal rights that I struggle with at times is the rigid nature of the labels that people take on and how this makes it discouraging for others to try and be activists. There is a lot of judgement from both activists and non-activists that comes with the stigma around labeling oneself as something such as vegan or vegetarian. I think that while it is admirable to completely dedicate your life to living a certain activist lifestyle, it isn’t practical for everyone and not everyone can hold themselves to strict dietary restrictions. If I want to be vegan and I adopt that lifestyle I can do so and that truly is great. But if one day I really want a hamburger and I can come to terms with eating it, that does not take away from the other 364 days of the year that I do what I can to support animal rights. While it is counterintuitive and seems hypocritical, who are any of us to judge someone for changing their lifestyle for their beliefs if they can rationalize reverting back once in a while, that does not change the bigger choices they have made that still make such a big impact. Ultimately I think that people do what they can, and we should encourage people to do just that, what they can. Even if not every person in the world went vegan, if they cut small things out of their diet, or switched over progressively, or switched some of their products to cruelty free, collectively it would make a difference in the lives of animals and in the effects these industries have on the environment. The judgement placed on people who adopt these labels ultimately discourages people from changing their lifestyles to help the cause and people would be much more likely to make what small or large differences they can if they could live more flexibly within how they are supporting animal rights.
REGINE: Were going to be talking about activism and Hip Hop. I’m Regine Tomlin; I’m a senior Multimedia Journalism major at Susquehanna University and with me I have…
MO: Hello, I am Mo; Biochemistry major with an Africana studies minor and a sophomore at Susquehanna University.
REGINE: Ok, so to begin I’m going to start by asking: when you hear activism and Hip Hop, what song or artist comes to mind? And Why?
MO: When I think of philosophy and hip hop, I think more of like the NWA from back then and in the early stages of hip hop because they were very like direct in their messages with how they felt about activism and politics. They really stood out when it comes to hip hop and activism.
REGINE: When I think of hip hop and activism, I think of Tupac because I feel like he raped about what he was passionate about, he raped about social justice issues black people faced during that time, I mean still face and he also lived that life like whenever he had an interview he always said the truth or said what he thought was the truth and he would always stay true to himself, so I feel like that’s really what an activist is… Someone who like does the work and also lives that lifestyle.
MO: I agree
REGINE: Alright, so are artist responsible to use their art or platform to speak on black issues or political issues?
MO: I wouldn’t say they are necessarily responsible, but they should make it a priority because as a minority with like status or a voice, You should use that voice as a platform to help your people… Especially if like you were once just a regular person yourself and now like your community helped you like get to where you are by supporting your music. You can use your music as an outlet for political matters or things that matter to you.
REGINE: Yeah, I agree. I feel that… I feel that since black people are the biggest consumers of media in general. And if you are a black artist, I feel like it is kinda your duty to also to voice your opinion on certain black issues or political issues that affect black people because you are a person of color and the issues that an ordinary black person faces is something you will also face even if you are at a higher status. So I feel like it is kinda of their duty to speak on issues involving people of color.
REGINE: Can you separate the art from the artist?
MO: No. I do not think you can separate art from the artist simply because art is like incorporating your life into the form of like what you want it to be. Whether it be music, art, poetry, whatever… It’s a reflection of you. Most music is, at least, but nowadays its not, I guess. It’s more of an exaggeration or like a disassociation from their real life. So it becomes harder to distinct, but normally what people rap or sing about is things that they either like support or know of or have done.
MO: I suppose.
REGINE: Which artist do you consider problematic?
MO: I would definitely consider like, as of right now, Kayne West to be problematic because of like everything that’s been happening recently in terms of like social media and his appearance in the White House.
4:19
I guess he’s caused all those problems because he simply has this status to do. So as a popular artist in the industry, he can just like decide to call a meeti8ng to the White House… It’s kinda absurd, but it kinda brought up a lot of questions in the community because like he went to say things that would not necessarily support the majority or the entire black community.
MO: So people didn’t really like that because he was the one voice that was that close to the president and most people felt like he didn’t use the opportunity in the right way.
REGINE: I also agree with that. I see how problematic Kayne West has been recently, with just like the MAGA hats and saying things about slavery and things like that is problematic because he is perpetuating, I guess, negative stereotypes and ideology that white people already encompass in their day to day lives and he’s just kinda enforcing that. And that’s a double negative because he’s black and he’s enforcing white rhetoric and that’s not good.
REGINE: But I feel like another person that I consider to be problematic would probably be Drake because he is a biracial rapper, but he, I feel like, he’s only using his black side to perpetuate his rap persona and not necessarily doing it in a way to support black people. And I feel that he uses a lot of black culture vulture for one thing. He takes his hands to grab whatever kind of media is appealing in different cultures and encompasses that in his own music and that’s also not ok. But he also using his black side to gain capital and not necessarily care about the people in that community and he only picks his black side when it’s convenient for him. Cause he’s also… I think he’s like… Jewish? Yeah he’s Jewish so he can use that to get into white spaces that other rappers who are fully black or like also biracial, but don’t look as light skinned as he does, can’t go into those kind of spaces.
REGINE: So how do you feel about artist rebranding themselves as “woke?”
MO: I feel like… especially in these days it’s very difficult because like you said with the whole culture vulture thing. The kind of fashion that media is in now or that artist are in now is kinda hard to distinguish like whether people are genuine on how they feel about an issue or are they using it just to like gain a status or support from an amount of people for money rather than the actually supporting. So, it seems like a bad thing when they do that like if you want to be, I guess, “woke” you should just adversely support the issues that you are speaking about rather than just speaking about it because that proves that you’re an ally and that you actually slow commitment to doing so.
REGINE: I also agree with that. I feel like it’s one to, you know, wear a button that says I’m a feminist or wear a button that says that I care about breast cancer or donating money to charity that are trying to like fund money to people who have breast cancer or like give money to people who need financial assistance with the whole treatment thing or whatever.
REGINE: You’re not living the life of like an activist or just someone who’s woke because your only putting on a show that you care, but when it’s actually time for you to show your work you don’t have the proof that actually have the work to show that you are doing what you say you are in your songs or content.
REGINE: So What artist do you consider “woke?”
MO: Most artist are not using their platform to like support common causes or like if they are… They’re not being acted or displayed enough, like, rather than they’re controversial issues. Like 6ix9ine was actually an avid supporter of like education in the Dominican Republic and he was sending money and books down there to make sure the kids were learning, but you know he has his cases and his controversy back here and that gets more attention than that. You don’t really know like how to support that, I guess, cause again that’s where it becomes a little vague to decide whether they’re woke or not. Or like whether they just make these choices because of the media.
REGINE: I don’t know, I feel an artist that I would consider woke, I guess, would be J. Cole. Because I feel like he raps about like the black experience and his own experience and his own experience and he also kinda lives that life. He goes back to his hometown and like does like free concerts or like gives money to kids at school and stuff like that. So, I like he‘s someone I would consider like actively aware of the injustice that black Americans face and he‘s actually trying to do the work to help his hometown do better.
REGINE: How do you feel about cancel culture? Well, do you want to define it … Do you know what cancel culture is?
MO: I do.
REGINE: Do you want to define it?
MO: I guess I would define it as this new trend where a group of people like discontinue their support for an artist or company based on their actions, but my problem with cancel culture is like consistency, where it’s like I don’t believe that people actually consistent with who or what they cancel. Like they just say it in the moment just into be on the majority side of the media. Rather than like making choices for their actual self.
REGINE: Yeah, I agree with that.
MO: Because you would see an issue about one of your favorite artists, and you’ll be like “oh wow, I shouldn’t support his music anymore,” but then his album comes out next week and your defenitly buying it. So it’s just consistency again. Where like people are not actually getting canceled. Like Kayne West, another example was supposedly canceled by a lot of people, but his album sold numbers, so it doesn’t make sense, how that happened, you know? Like if people are saying that they’re cancelling him, but then talking about how good his songs are it doesn’t match up.
REGINE: Yeah, and people are still buying his like fashion… his sneakers…
MO: Clothes and shoes
REGINE: I do agree with what you said with consistency like people say it in the moment. I guess hop on the wave that like they’re against a certain artist when clearly, they’re probably going to listen to the album when it comes out.
REGINE: I feel like cancel culture would be successful if it was more of a collective thing, but since it’s just like some individuals…. Some individuals half cancel… not really… It’s just like something that sounds good, but wouldn’t actually work, I guess, because I feel like no one’s going to stay true to it. So, it’s just an idea that no one really puts action to.
MO: Right.
REGINE: How should we show an artist some of their statements are problematic?
MO: How we should show them?
REGINE: Or just like how do you think we can communicate that?
MO: I feel like a lot of artist pay a lot of attention to social media these days. So just like a collective group of people like talking about like how problematic what they did would eventually reach them. Because it’s a talked about. Liked it’s talked about now. So it’s going to be trending and about them. So they’re going to see it. And I think that …. that should help cause that in the eyes of like money. Like your losing money, so when you see that you make the choice like “ok I should do something about this.” Like the whole trending issue with Drake with the baby and stuff. He had to post like a note from his iphone to his story or Instagram… Cause people needed that closure; he saw that he was losing money so he had to address it as quickly as possible.
REGINE: I agree… One thing that we all have in common is that we consider ourselves activists in fields that matter to us, despite each field being different.
CAROLINE: Activism has no walls; it can be intersectional. It brings people together through collective actions that are all tied to a singular goal: positive change. We all have a desire to change the circumstances that we see as problematic in the world today, and though each of us have varying passions in this regard, we are all meshed together by an ideal, a hope, a dream, that one day we will effect change.
NATALIE: Activism, of all types, does not exist in a vacuum within a single person or their actions. In all of the activism I now find myself involved with, I was brought to that place through the effects of others’ activism. This has been manifested through interpersonal interactions, witnessing others’ activism, and reading activists’ writing. In this way, every act of activism plants seeds of activism to grow roots elsewhere. It can change, expand, and create activism wherever there may be potential for it.
REGINE: Activism is necessary for community engagement and change. Without activism, there would be no solution, no thought, no justice. This is why activism matters to us.
Additional sound bites provided by Cowspiracy, a documentary
Sound effects provided by freesoundeffects.org
Music provided by Angle of Light by David Hilowitz, 3 of Us by Ketsa.
Additional thanks to Dr. Kirk Harris, assistant professor of Political Science at Susquehanna University for his words and wisdom.