I've Gone Dark. Not Silent.
Well, this happened.
Let me explain.
Last week I posted the following on Facebook:
“You know who oozes integrity and has my whole-hearted respect?” Michelle Obama. I’m taking a page out of her playbook. Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to stop fact-checking flies in the face of my own values of authenticity and truthful discourse. So, I’m deleting my account.”
Within 24 hours I received a message from FaceBook saying that they had taken my post down for “Misleading content.”
Censorship by an organization that recently pulled its content moderation policies because it didn’t want to promote censorship. Is that a mind fuck or what?
If the rather banal decision to take a public stand has been hidden from my 13 followers – what larger, more important issues are we no longer seeing? What else will be removed from our feeds, from our consciousness?
Information about the suffering in Gaza? The wars in Ukraine, the Congo, and Myanmar? The suffering in our own country among marginalized groups?
It’s not hard to guess Mark Zuckerberg’s motivation for deciding not to fact-check content (except as it relates to him). Heather Cox Richardson mentioned in a recent post that the WSJ had reported that,
“Meta settled a lawsuit Trump brought against the company after it suspended him because of his participation in the January 6, 2021, attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Meta will pay $25 million. …. Trump demanded the settlement…saying that the case had to be dealt with before Zuckerberg could be ‘brought into the tent.’”
$25 million. That’s the price Zuckerberg paid for his integrity and official membership in the plutocracy.
Is your head spinning? Mine, too.
The last few weeks have left me feeling like I just stepped off the tilt-a-whirl at an amusement park. I’m bent over; dizzy and slightly nauseous from the chaos wreaked by an administration intent on sowing fear.
Despair? Yes, certainly, but all that hand-wringing gets me is chapped hands and a sense of hopelessness.
One of my favorite writers,
, has written in her book “The Way of the Fearless Writer,”“As writers, we cannot exist only in the vicinity of crisis or still point. We have to know both the suffering of the outer world and the calm inner world to process and cope with difficult things…”
I don’t have to explain the word “crisis” to anyone who’s felt like the previous two weeks lasted two decades. But, the “still point” as Kempton defines it is the place where we go to gain clarity and objectivity.
I’ve been spending time recently seeking my still point. I’ve found refuge in walking the wooded path near my house, writing, reading writers like
and who have the ability to hold the terrible and the sublime in one hand, and eating Angel Food cake. I’ve been doing a lot of all that, and it's been comforting and necessary as a way to regain my balance in what feels like an unbalanced world.As much as I’d like, I can’t stay there forever.
My retreat to the still point provided a helpful reminder (otherwise known as a kick in the ass) that I need to walk my talk. For the past couple of years, I’ve carried a handwritten 3 x 5 card in my journal. It’s what I call my Standards of Integrity, and includes: Integrity. Courage. Dignity. Equity. Compassion.
I watched Michelle Obama skip the inauguration. I heard Caroline Kennedy mince no words in calling her cousin a predator. Both of those women stood on the world stage and declared what they would not put up with. They are clear in what they stand for, and they show courage in upholding their values.
My recent decision to delete my FaceBook page, an admittedly very small step in the face of injustice, was based on my realization that this is a time that calls for me to do the same.
Hold on tight because we’re in for a roller coaster of a ride.
The only way I’m going to get through without hurling is to continually ask myself the following questions: What responsibility do I have when it comes to policies or decisions that conflict with my values? What choices am I going to make when those conflicts arise?
I may have gone dark on FB, but I haven’t gone silent.
I wrote this post as a way to create awareness. If you are still on FaceBook (and no shade if you are) do me a solid. Post this piece so that others know that the not-so-insidious actions of our plutocratic oligarchy aren’t happening on the nightly news or in someone else’s neighborhood. They are happening to you and me. Right now.
BRAVE Q: How will I show up?
"I watched Michelle Obama skip the inauguration. I heard Caroline Kennedy mince no words in calling her cousin a predator. Both of those women stood on the world stage and declared what they would not put up with. They are clear in what they stand for, and they show courage in upholding their values."
I’m likely going to be in Facebook jail soon because I keep Reporting MAGA posts. They took down one of my posts talking about the insurrection on Rachel Maddox feed no less for bullying because I said how disappointed I was in the pardon of all those criminals and the MAGA population went crazy.