"Unfriending" Hate

Over the last couple of years I’ve been an avid user of Facebook. I started using it to keep me more “in the loop” with my kids and grand kids. It’s ideal for seeing the latest candid pictures of the family, and for just keeping up with friends and family in a relatively easy way. I’ve also used Facebook to share the link to this blog and many of you have honored me by reading my stuff through the Facebook connection. I have a fair number of “friends” on Facebook, but I haven’t extended that status to people I don’t actually know by “friending” friends (as they say in Facebook lingo) or just randomly inviting people into my Facebook world. On the whole I’ve had a great time using this incredible tool and learning how this brave new world of social media works. For an old guy like me, it has been an eye-opener. Facebook has changed a number of us and brought us to a new level of connectivity with old friends and new ones- and the world around us.

Sadly, Facebook can have a dark side too. On New Year’s Day I found myself doing something  I didn’t think I’d ever do (although I know of two occasions when it was done to me- I guess some folks don’t like my liberal leanings). On that day I “unfriended” someone from my Facebook account. I had finally had enough of the dark side of Facebook- and it really was a sad moment for me. The story is as follows:

The person I “unfriended” (that’s Facebook talk for banishing someone from your Facebook account) was a person I have known for years and a person I used to work with. I’ve always known that this person had different ideas than me about politics and many other aspects of life. My experience was that this person and I could have a spirited, but respectful debates. I’m guessing that we might still be able to do that face-to-face. But the dark side of Facebook reared its increasingly ugly head and I finally had to say, enough! You see, on New Year’s Day this person posted one of those links to a website that featured a “joke” along with a picture of The President, his wife and Oprah Winfrey. The joke was that the three of them were in an airplane talking about throwing money out of the plane, and what denominations they would each throw out to make the most people happy. The punch line was that the Captain of the plane overheard their conversation and said, “gee, if I threw all three of them out of this airplane I could make 250 million people happy”. It’s a dumb joke and quite frankly a bad joke- but I found the idea of throwing the President, his wife and Oprah Winfrey out of an airplane offensive and not very intelligent political speech. I found it offensive mostly because it fosters more of the hateful (and racially tinged) speech that revolves around this President.

After a few minutes of thought I decided that I don’t need that kind of hateful thinking in my life. More and more I have noticed that people are using Facebook and so many of those pre-made placards and links to express ideas that are down-right hateful, judgmental, and disturbing. There seems to be a cottage industry growing up around creating these pre-packaged slogans and sentiments we can attach to our Facebook page, thus spreading it to our friends and anyone else in their circle. Facebook has the distinct characteristic of being able to spread notions pretty widely-pretty fast. Thankfully most of what comes out on these pre-packaged things are amusing, clever, and harmless. No harm-no foul! Every now and then similar looking placards and links are used to express offensive material. Lest you think I’m being a little too sensitive, let me explain that I have never taken offense at someone who disagrees with me or has strong political views- even if they very strongly disagree with me. I don’t like conflict, but I know how to handle it- and I’ve always tried to manage conflict with respect towards those who disagree. But I cannot have respect for those who foster and spread hateful material- most particularly race-based hateful material.

In the last few years we have seen a remarkable uptick in the number of racist remarks masquerading as political speech. I know there are those who argue that these kinds of messages aren’t overtly racist- after all they don’t come right out and use the “n” word. But subtle racism is still racism. I firmly believe that having our first black President has unleashed the deep-seated racism in this country, and the racial element is at least partly responsible for the dysfunction in our government today. Each time I’ve seen this kind of thing get posted on Facebook, or someone has “liked” a post that promotes this veiled hate-speech I do a couple of things. I first go to the original site to see who’s really behind it and what kind of comments are common there, then I will either delete the comment to keep it from inadvertently spreading because of me; and I have, on a few occasions, sent a “message” to the person pointing out the aspect of the post that might be offensive. I don’t want to post those messages publicly because that just spreads the original hateful message. 

I often wonder if those who post and “like” these placards or links on their Facebook pages have taken the time to really look through the original page before hitting the “like” button. On the occasions when I’ve gone to the source page I discover these pages inhabited with comments and postings that are racist on their face. The insidious practice of these groups is to create a subtle message and put it out there for people to spread, when the more overt and offensive material stays on the original page for the true believers. A good case in point is a page I’ve seen “liked” promoting the idea that the US should be more active in defending Israel. Defending Israel (to a greater or lesser degree) is a legitimate political position and opinions can vary. But when you go into the original sites, you see the most hate-filled comments. Typically the source page have racist comments about President Obama being a Muslim (or a socialist, or you name it) and they contain vile or violent threats or images about the President. This kind of content disturbs me because the people who post it are my friends or family, and I would never have thought of them as racists. So I have to conclude that they just aren’t careful about whom they are associating with through these links, or Facebook has revealed a side of them I didn’t know. And that is the dark side of social media.

The proliferation of these Facebook hate-sites; or sites that promote unfair judgments about the poor, or people of certain religions, or economic class, or political ideals, is becoming almost overwhelming. I find myself longing for my Facebook friends to just express themselves, instead of relying on pre-packaged slogans of others. In fact, I think that’s what Facebook was really meant to do. I can understand why these sites are appealing. They often contain a simple message about a complex idea and it’s easy to just hit the “like” button and move on. They tend to strike an emotional chord that doesn’t require much thought. But either way, I’ve made a decision that I don’t want racist materials (subtle or otherwise) on my Facebook page. I don’t want materials that denigrate others because of their economic status, or belittles them because it’s easier to accept the simple false notions about people, than to really go for a deeper, more complete understanding of those around us.  This not a new phenomenon, but Facebook now spreads this kind of thinking far and wide, almost instantly.

It was bit painful to “unfriend” someone. This was someone I had enjoyed having in my life. But, when I became convinced that their ideas about the world were so tainted by racism, I just decided to rid myself of it on this medium.  “Unfriending” the messenger may do little to help rid the world of hate, ignorance, and racism- but it just might. Maybe if enough of us just stop associating with this kind of material we would send a message that we won’t tolerate it anymore. At least I have decided not to tolerate it any more on my Facebook pages.

Thanks for looking in.