5 Sharing Is Daring

THE EASE WITH which we share information—responsibly and thoughtfully, of course—enables us to move on social justice issues at speeds that were previously unimaginable. That speed, combined with the bias that each of us brings to the table, and our own fears and hesitancy, can come with traps—both perceived and real. Maneuvering around old-style thinking that can keep us out of conversations that desperately need us—and can unintentionally marginalize others—is critical to ensuring that we connect with one another in ways that will support changing the world.

Free-for-All Organizing, and the Secret Tyrants We All Are

One weekend in April 2009, Amazon.com removed 58,000 books from its sales ranking system, effectively removing these books from the website. Most contained feminist, LGBT, and sex-positive content; they mysteriously received an “adult” flag while heteronormative sexual products, like Playboy calendars and antigay screeds, remained untouched.

Murmurs began on Twitter. Authors were confused when their books could no longer be found, and consumers started posting about failed searches. Through the use of a hashtag (in this case, #AmazonFAIL), participants were able to track all of the related posts about Amazon. Within a few hours, enough information had been gathered to show the types of books that were being flagged.

“Have fun stormin’ the castle!” (Miracle Max in The Princess Bride)

The flames were fanned higher, and soon various “web celebrities” took up the cause, using their social capital and influence to share stories about books that were being, in effect, digitally banned. Not long after, several newspapers caught wind of the firestorm—the Los Angeles Times blogged the de-ranking that Sunday evening—Easter Sunday, as it happened.¹ By later that night, Amazon couldn’t help but make a statement in response. A spokesperson told Publishers Weekly² that the de-ranking problem was a “glitch” and that Amazon was looking into it.³

Now, imagine the same scenario just 10 years ago. Amazon, even then, was a popular online retailer with a good amount of credibility. If a huge swath of books had been removed from the site in 1999, how would people have protested? It would have been through angry e-mails to the corporate offices. Op-eds might have been pitched to various newspapers, and over several days and weeks, various civil rights groups might have gotten involved. In short, everyday people would have had to rely on a slow-moving hierarchical system with lots of gatekeepers along the way deciding if this was a worthwhile issue.

Instead, in 2009, these voices slipped into the consciousness of the web, created a campaign without any organization or funding, and forced Amazon to respond within 24 hours. And to ice that cake, the mainstream media played catch-up in the following days, scrambling for scraps of the story.

Score a big one for social networks!

Before we think that this success story proves we’ve mastered the art of instant, free-for-all organizing, let’s remember that we’ve been down a somewhat similar road before, and we learned some lessons that can carry over to social networks and social media. Endeavors organized on the fly, without constraints or guidelines that organizations bring—like the Amazon uproar, in which no advocacy group orchestrated any of the actions that were taken—often ignore or silence voices that must be part of the conversations and movements we’re creating.

Remember chapter 3’s discussion of consciousness-raising in the women’s movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s? Though women’s groups often illuminated a path toward activism and organizing, these groups also marginalized the voices and experiences of women of color and queer women.

Let me give you a brief rundown of what happened: Feminists decided that the societal structures in place were largely restrictive and oppressive to women. Therefore, the best way to break free was to organize without formal hierarchies and leaders, which were considered the source of the oppression.

Funny thing: When you remove explicit structure from a group—leaders, hierarchies, process—it turns out that implicit structure arises. What do I mean by implicit? Well, people’s personal biases, for starters. Sticking with our historical study, many of these groups organized around the concerns of mainly white, middle-class, straight women, choosing (either consciously or unconsciously) not to include other voices.

When implicit structure takes over—for example, the idea that we are all equal on the Internet and it’s completely up-by-our-bootstraps—we run the risk of entering a series of vicious cycles that prevent fundamental, systemic change from emerging. By pretending that these implicit biases don’t exist or don’t matter, we ignore the voices of those most affected by the issues we care about, and we reinforce the very power structures that we seek to break down. In a critical 1970 paper, feminist scholar and author Jo Freeman labeled this phenomenon of marginalizing minority-represented voices “the tyranny of structurelessness”:

This means that to strive for a “structureless” group is as useful, and as deceptive, as to aim at an “objective” news story, “value-free” social science or a “free” economy. A “laissez-faire” group is about as realistic as a “laissez-faire” society; the idea becomes a smokescreen for the strong or the lucky to establish unquestioned hegemony over others. . . . Thus “structurelessness” becomes a way of masking power.⁴

Because of the social stratification that currently exists online, as discussed in chapter 2, we are seeing the repercussions of digital structurelessness manifest in many ways. Our tendency to congregate around like-minded folk is understandable and very human, but it can be dangerous when organizing around issues for change. I’m not advocating reaching out to opposing viewpoints at every juncture; I’m recommending making sure that a number of diverse perspectives are in the echo chambers we’re creating.⁵ In many cases, we need to look hard at who is most affected by the issues we’re working on and ensure that they’re being heard.

People with any kind of privilege—social, economic, even technological—tend to believe that the work they are doing on behalf of those with less privilege is helpful, because they know better. Thinking you know better doesn’t win change, it wins you an ego trip. In fall 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a health care reform bill that included an amendment, sponsored by conservative Democrat Bart Stupak, containing the most restrictive legislation on reproductive rights in over 40 years. On social networks, women expressed their outrage at having been “thrown under the bus” in favor of pushing through the reform. Some men were sympathetic to the pain that women were expressing, but many sought to explain why the amendment was passed, how they were sure it wouldn’t pass the Senate, and other legislative nuances of the situation. Instead of expressing empathetic outrage, they chose to teach women what they felt must not be clear about the situation—which only intensified women’s alienation from the process, and their overall shock and disillusionment. Engaging with, listening to, and hearing people who have different backgrounds from yours starts a fundamental process for change, and social networks hold a lot of promise for making the networks we belong to more diverse.

How do we engage with diverse groups of people in online public spaces? The power law tells us that those with the largest audiences will continue to build their audiences exponentially.⁶ The sneak attack, though, is that we’re not talking just about audience size; we’re talking about multiple conversations, and effective ones at that. In order to have those effective conversations, though, we have to chart a course of action to acknowledge our biases, so then we can start reaching out and connecting with people who don’t share our same points of reference.

To be clear, we won’t ever eliminate our biases. But we can begin to be explicit about what we learn about ourselves and our social spheres when bias rears its ugly head. Social technology researcher danah boyd suggests a series of questions for that explicit discovery process: “None of us is going to be unbiased. There is no way to be unbiased. The question is: Can you account for your biases? Can you recognize when they get in the way? Can you open up a dialogue, even if it makes you uncomfortable, with people who aren’t like you?”⁷ Opening ourselves up to that process and beginning to break out of the way we’ve been thinking about how we assume the world operates (simply because it’s operated like that for a long time) is crucial. We need to listen as selflessly as possible to what others are sharing and make sure that we’re not perpetuating restrictive social structures. It’s important to start by recognizing what it feels like when you’ve been triggered to react, as many people who practice meditation do. For me, I can feel my chest tighten and my ears burn, as if I’ve been deeply wronged in some way. Before I react outwardly to that feeling, I try to step outside of it and observe it. Then I always seem to remember something my mom asked us when we were kids and were caught making fun of or picking on someone else: “How would you feel if that were you?” It makes me realize that often those moments are not about me at all—they are about larger injustices that I have a role in changing or stopping altogether, and it’s my job to figure out how to do that.

Addressing one’s biases is a deeply uncomfortable process. There, I’ve said it. It’s hard, and it requires a lot of psychological work that nobody wants to deal with. Because really, no one wants to feel like or be called a bigot, right? Or at least, most sane people don’t want to.

How to Be a Useful Agent of Change

None of us are off the hook here, folks—regardless of whether you’re a liberal blogger writing tirelessly about health care reform, a person of color working for racial justice in media, a feminist advocating for reproductive freedom, or a queer activist lobbying for marriage rights. Yes, you get good karma for doing that work, and you’re a better person for it (that’s your gold star for today!). But none of us are above anyone else in this big-picture struggle. Don’t assume that your status in one arena you are passionate about somehow makes you invulnerable to having privilege, and bias, in others. You’ve got to take your blinders off if we’re going to have half a chance with this.

The first step is to recognize that we have a problem. Say this out loud: “Hi, my name is ______ and I have many biases.”

Step two: Listen to the people around you. The best defense is not a good offense; it’s checking your ego and listening to what others are saying without assuming you’re in the right.

Meeting people where they are is critical to the process. You can’t force anyone to see your point of view, but making the effort to engage from a common-ground starting point can make all the difference in the world. Social media consultant and political blogger Cheryl Contee, partner and cofounder of Fission Strategy, points to President Barack Obama’s background bridging experiences while growing up in both black and white worlds as an example of finding common ground in action. “He had to learn to seamlessly create relationships with different kinds of people,” says Contee. “That skill is necessary online.”⁸ Our goodwill and intentions are not enough; in the work of ambassadorship, we have to recognize that other people’s perceptions of us are valid based on their own experiences. When we meet people there, the sharing we do has a greater chance of building bonds between allies.⁹

Step three: Remember that eliminating oppression is good for everybody. As W. F. Hightower, the father of my favorite populist pundit, Jim Hightower, likes to say, “Everyone does better when everyone does better.”¹⁰ Diversity is a strategic imperative for achieving collective goals. As diversity scholar Roosevelt Thomas notes, we all make better decisions—as individuals and as a society—when we account for differences and tensions.¹¹

Social media and social networks provide us with the tools to accomplish a whole lot. Once you’ve completed your three-step process, it’s time to sign yourself up as an ambassador to a social sphere that has nothing to do with your identity or what privilege you bring to the table. It’ll be very Stranger in a Strange Land for you, trust me. If you’re white, find people of color to follow on Twitter. Straight? Look at fan pages and groups of different LGBTQQI groups on Facebook.

It’s important for people of all stripes and places to engage with those who are different from themselves, but to be blunt, it’s extra important for those who are a couple of notches up on the hierarchy to go through this exercise. Remember, you’re not there as part of some sociology experiment, but because you get that progress is possible only when we participate. (Check out the resource guides for finding new people on social networks.)

A crucial part of cross-pollination exercises is realizing that your role as ambassador is not to defend your position in the food chain. That’s where a lot of us get into trouble—I know I have. Your job is to recognize what privilege you bring—whether it’s your gender, your class, your race, your sexuality, etc.—and figure out how best you can use it to enable justice for people who don’t share your privilege. Jessica Hoffman, editor of make/shift magazine, pithily captured our collective responsibility to engage in self-reflection in an article she wrote about a white feminist’s role in other social justice movements: “Inexperienced because of privilege, we hadn’t thought well on our feet, and we’d been in a certain denial about how bad things might get; we’d been pissed and well meaning, but not useful [emphasis mine].”¹² It’s the job of all of us to be useful.

This is the work, folks! The challenges are numerous. But without an honest look at structural divides, we can’t break them down. You’ll be digging deep as you go in, but you won’t be alone. Being together in this endeavor is the first part of tackling the challenges. The second is addressing—and overcoming—the fears that keep us out of the conversations that are happening on social networks.

Lions and Tigers and Bears! Oh, My(Space)! The Fears People Have

Fear of the unknown can add to the social divisions lurking in social technology. By far the most common complaint I hear from all different kinds of people is that their lack of knowledge about how something works causes them to distrust the benefits they might gain from it. The various waves of hype around children’s safety in social networks and when using cell phones, for example, are largely a result of parents’ lack of education about how the technologies function, and how they might work with the technologies within their families. Mainstream media’s number-one-selling product is fear, so they capitalize on parents’ fear of the unknown to sell their stories. Since the 1990s, the availability of porn on the Internet has been used as a scare tactic for news stories and legislation calling for the widespread restriction of access to the new technologies.¹³ If we had a better understanding of how technologies work, we would all be better equipped to address the role they play in our lives. But when fear of technology makes us hesitate, or holds us back altogether, the conversations about social change continue on without us—without the benefit of our experiences, values, and knowledge.

Those who are reluctant to use social networks to effect change also frequently express fear over lost privacy. The challenges we face in maintaining some semblance of privacy while participating in the larger social movement can certainly seem overwhelming. We’re communicating more frequently and more openly with people with whom we may not yet have forged alliances in our own spheres. Talking to strangers—what you’ve been told you’re not supposed to do since you were a child—may also make us feel vulnerable as we share who we are as part of the work of change. Rinku Sen, executive director of the Applied Research Center and coauthor of The Accidental American: Immigration and Citizenship in the Age of Globalization (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2008), points out that these risks are similar to the risks that people working in social justice movements have always experienced; only the scale and intimacy have changed. “That need to address our fears and protect ourselves is a part of doing politics,” Sen argues. “The medium is different, and you can hear from strangers more often, but the fear itself is not different. It’s legitimate in both places.”¹⁴ While the fear feels different because it’s related to new technology and experienced in a way that we’re not used to, it’s the same fear that proponents of social change have always had to confront.

When choosing to do work that’s changing the world, even if it’s only contributing your life experiences and values to public conversations (which can be risky for some people), examine your network and ask the people in it to support you in the scarier moments. Sen urges potential organizers to have a frank conversation with their community—and themselves—about what level of risk they’re willing to take. “It’s better to take a risk when you have a lot of people around you watching what’s happening than if you’re by yourself,” she advises.

Other activists have found ways to balance caution and sharing as well. DREAMActivist.org, for example, enables students using social technologies to share stories of undocumented young people who face possible deportation despite the fact that they’ve grown up in the United States. These students recognize the political danger associated with online activism, but it doesn’t stop them from using social media to help folks understand complicated legislation. On Twitter, their postings have become a rich resource of news related to immigration issues.

Let’s be clear: Most of us don’t have to worry about severe political consequences of speaking out online. But each of us has our own valid concerns that need to be addressed. Every new technology shift inspires anxiety about how our lives will change.

Privacy fears are common; so are fears of reprisal. Will you encounter people who are rude or who seem determined to disagree with whatever you write?¹⁵ Maybe. Should this stop you? Absolutely not.

Remember that social networks generally provide a safe space in which to share our experiences. More often than not, sharing creates empathy, and through that empathy, each connection we make becomes part of a network of allies to call on when things aren’t so pretty.

The Monsters Under the Bed

Women, more than men, struggle with the effects of sharing. But before we get there, let’s talk a bit about what holds women back from participating in the first place. Some women still believe that the Internet is a dangerous place and people will come get us if we tell them who we are, what we think, and what we’re doing. While this attitude is changing as social networks evolve and more people of all ages join in, the fear still holds some women back. All of us—men and women—need to take basic precautions. But warning women away from something “for their own good” has long minimized their participation in the culture.

When women don’t participate as fully as men, social justice pays the price. One of the most striking examples of the participation divide is Wikipedia. Almost all of you, I’m assuming, have read something on Wikipedia. But do you know what the typical person who has edited something on Wikipedia looks like? There’s a more than 80% chance that the editor is male. This means that women are not taking advantage of the opportunity to define and document history.

Even a woman like me, who’s fairly freewheelin’ about what she’ll tell people, needed this information to wake up to the fact that women’s participation matters. Up until 2007, I used pseudonyms for screen names; I preapproved everyone who wanted to read my posts on Twitter; and I kept most of my information on other social networks private, at least to some degree. My epiphany came during a Women Who Tech workshop in 2007, when author and speaker Tara Hunt explained that even though I was sharing my experience with a select group of people, I wasn’t shaping the public conversation.¹⁶ My voice wasn’t represented in conversations on changing things that needed to be changed.

Many people have a “lightbulb moment” once they conquer their hesitation or resistance: They find that they have an entirely new landscape of possibilities open to them. Barbara Glickstein, a broadcast journalist who covers public health issues, views her first venture onto Facebook as a transformational experience. “It felt like I had crossed a boundary, which I realized I created in my mind,” she said. “Since getting involved in on social networks, the people there have provided me with radio show ideas, guests for my show, insights into progressive causes, and information I would otherwise not have had access to.”¹⁷ Once we get over our hesitation and the door to social networks opens, we’re offered the tools we need to make change.

Let’s look at some of the other fears that people have and figure out a way to manage them.

I don’t want people to know about my private life.

That’s actually 100% fine. A pervasive myth about social media is that its only purpose is revelatory; we use it to celebrate all our dirty laundry and naughty bits. While I’m personally not averse to the dirty and the naughty, that’s far from the whole story and not the reason we’re participating on social networks.

In chapter 3, we discussed authenticity: Nothing requires you to share your deepest, darkest secrets. The point of sharing who you are is not to aspire to reality-TV levels of exposure. It’s to immerse yourself—or a part of yourself that you feel comfortable sharing—in a conversation that’s important and relevant to your life.

Many people who participate in social media have made it a rule to share few, if any, bits about their lives that aren’t purely professional. They still have managed to cultivate a following by focusing on information that others find interesting and useful.

Presenting yourself online with your professional hat on not only connects you with people who are interested in the work you’re sharing (and responding to it); they also become part of a support system that makes life online a little more comfortable and enjoyable. “There’s an energy, a very natural way of working with social media, that reduces burnout,” says Allison Fine, author and social media consultant. “And I don’t think of myself as a tech person at all, which is the beauty of working in the social media world—if you’re a good sharer, a good connector, a good celebrator of other people’s work, you’ll be just fine in social media.”¹⁸ The more you enjoy yourself, the more productive and successful you’ll be with the time you spend on social networks. The professional selves we use on social networks should by no means be stuffy or loaded with organizational-speak, and relaxed conversations having insight and expertise bring renewed spirit to the work we do.

A professional style of online interaction works particularly well for folks concerned about privacy. You can participate fully without feeling as though your life is an open book, and you’ll be sharing your insight and ideas in important forums. Here are some people I follow on Twitter who contribute smart insights and personality without getting personal:

• Lynne d Johnson, @lynneluvah, is senior vice president of social media at the Advertising Research Foundation. You’ll find her talking technology, business applications, pop culture and music, as well as some politics.

• Johanna Vondeling, @jvondeling, is the editor of this here book and vice president of editorial and digital at Berrett-Koehler Publishers. She’s become a wealth of information for folks grappling with the changing nature of the publishing industry, as well as a source of good political links.

• Rob “Biko” Baker, @bikobaker, director of the League of Independent Voters, comments on social and electoral politics, especially as related to young people, and he discusses events in the hip-hop end of the universe.

• Amanda Terkel, @aterkel, deputy editor of ThinkProgress.org, posts about progressive/liberal/Democratic politics, with a healthy dose of D.C. attitude.

Additionally, sharing expertise allows you to develop your “voice” over time—you don’t have the pressure of showing up with a “personality,” as traditional media, or even blogging, often demands.

So maybe you’re not the type to share the moment that your daughter took her first steps, or that you hated the movie you just saw. That doesn’t mean that you can’t share opinions about the work you’re doing, or point people in your world to relevant and interesting articles about things you feel passionate about. And that’s exactly what you should be doing—building and developing a base of trust with your connections and networks.

I feel like I have to get everything perfect before I post online.

Oh yes, the deadly combination of perfectionism and not wanting to speak up unless you know everything there is to know about your subject . . . that’ll stop you from posting just about anything. This kind of perfectionism is more common in women than men—a 2009 study from Auburn University in Alabama showed that 38% of the women who were surveyed didn’t feel they “met the high standards they set for themselves” at their jobs, compared with just 24% of men.¹⁹ Our fear of judgment paralyzes us into spending every last ounce of brainpower on crafting the perfect post before unleashing it onto an audience.

Newer types of social media, like Facebook and Twitter, are much more relaxed when it comes to writing style. The medium is not about broadcasting a message to faceless audience members, but rather about conversing with acquaintances, colleagues, and friends. The conversational nature of social networks frees us up to be less concerned about perfect wording and more concerned with sharing relevant information.

Depending on your networks, people may be insightful or humorous (or both), but no one is expecting you to provide a brilliant, in-depth analysis whenever you post. Another change to online culture is that people tend not to flame as much on social networks like Facebook and Twitter.²⁰ The infrequency of flaming may be because folks are likely already friends or connected in some way that makes them more respectful of each other’s views. Granted, not all online conversation is the most sophisticated, well-thought-out stuff on the planet, but the personalization that happens on social networks—combined with the empathy and trust we create—can minimize the more out-there discussions. For one thing, as discussed in chapter 4, the fact that we choose to follow and friend people makes a big difference in how we interpret what’s shared with us. Looking at how previous online conversations were structured—forums, e-mail lists—we didn’t have much choice in whom we wanted to receive information from when discussing a particular topic. When we receive challenging information from people we’ve actively chosen to share with, we’re likelier to think twice about jumping on them. Another theory points to our use of photos: With more of us showing ourselves (or our children or pets) online, readers are more likely to pause and remember that they’re talking to someone “real” before they respond or leave a comment. The use of these authentic personal markers, says Kevin Marks, V.P. of Web Services at BT, “taps into deep mental structures that we all have to looks for faces and associate the information we receive with people we decide to trust, through what we feel about them.”²¹ We’re able to add at least a couple of the missing physiological cues discussed in chapter 4, which builds our trust in and empathy for one another.

Additionally, many social networks have limited space for posting updates—you probably couldn’t present an entire analysis even if you wanted to. Thus you can feel free to post opinions casually. If someone corrects you, it’s not the end of the world. Conversations move at light speed with social media; your faux pas is past tense almost immediately. I’m not saying, though, that you should forget it: People appreciate honesty in these situations: Saying, “I didn’t know that, thanks” or “Good point, I see what you mean,” is actually a great way to build social capital.

I like maintaining my personal relationships, but I don’t like blending the professional and personal.

Some people have a different problem when it comes to privacy on social networks: They’re very convenient for maintaining relationships with friends and family, but the thought of blending personal and work worlds is overwhelming. I hear this a lot when I’m giving workshops, most often from women.

The good news is that tools are developing in a way that gives us more granular control over which people in which parts of our lives see what. The Share This! website (http://www.share thischange.com) has more information about how to manage settings with the current tools.

From a career perspective, pursuing a strategy of keeping your various lives separate may be detrimental in the long term. Increasingly, organizations are using social networks not just to find candidates for jobs, but also to see what potential new hires are up to on their social networks. Being absent (by hiding your entire profile from public view) seems questionable, especially for people under 40. It’s like looking up a business online now and discovering it doesn’t have a website. The expectation is that you can be found, somewhere, whether on a more professional social network site such as LinkedIn or the more personal Facebook.

While we need to be pragmatic and reasonable about what we share on social networks, companies and organizations are just beginning to grapple with the role that social networks will soon play in shifting their landscape. Occasionally we hear stories about employers turning down candidates based on what they saw in people’s public profiles.²² Certain things are obvious and understandable—you set fire to your apartment, and you post the going-up-in-flames photos to Facebook . . . yeah, that’s going to get you in trouble. But employers who frown upon their employees’ use of social media are setting themselves up for failure in a world that’s becoming increasingly reliant on reputation and recommendations. A 2009 Nielsen report conducted worldwide showed that 90% of consumers, for example, trusted the recommendations made by people they knew, and that 70% trusted online reviews, concluding that reliance on word of mouth had increased significantly.²³ Job candidates who aren’t out there sharing their expertise and building their social capital with these tools are going to fall behind in certain communication skills.

Additionally, social networks provide a window into a candidate’s personality that may be more telling than what gets presented in an old-school-style interview. Employers can see who might make a great match—even, perhaps, when they aren’t out looking.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t take any precautions, or that you shouldn’t have a certain amount of awareness, as you wade into sharing more of yourself on social networks. Certainly we’ve all heard about someone who’s been fired for blogging, or who got in trouble later for sharing too many spring break pictures on MySpace or Facebook. Those are the extreme cases, and they do occur; equally disconcerting, however, is the idea in the back of our heads that maybe we won’t get a promotion because of what we’ve shared of our politics, or maybe we won’t even be hired in the first place. Bruce Barry, author of Speechless: The Erosion of Free Expression in the American Workplace (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2007), suggests that in the long sweep of time, we’ll make cultural progress, but in the short term, it’s wise to act with common sense, depending on your situation. “In the United States, political opinion is not a protected class like gender, race, and religion, as it is in other countries around the world,” he says. “It’s not as much about the legality of what you can do online as it is about how corporations choose to regulate speech in the workplace themselves.”²⁴ Until employers begin to understand more widely the benefits of their employees’ sharing, we’ll need to make some peace with the fact that each of us must make our own decisions on what to share, based on our employers’ guidelines and overall organizational culture.

In the big picture, if companies expect us to hide parts of ourselves from semipublic view, it could have a chilling effect. Would LGBT lawyers have to recloset themselves to get hired by a power firm? Or would stay-at-home parents trying to reenter the workforce—most of whom are women—have to remove family photos to downplay dedication to their families? Such self-concealment would be dangerous and potentially damaging to change efforts already under way.

I advise those who feel comfortable blending the professional and personal to Go For It. I’m asking all of you to make a pledge together on this: Share your stories and your experiences. Tell others about yourself. For millennia now, many of us have had our stories misrepresented and marginalized. We’ve been told that our histories don’t count. We have not been visible enough to make our stories part of the larger cultural narrative. And without visibility, we are not valued. If we’re not heard, we can’t make a difference.

This kind of change is not going to happen overnight; we have to commit to being in it for the long haul. By starting now (or continuing where the consciousness-raising of earlier decades left off), we are creating the space for younger generations to follow.

The Benefits Far Outweigh the Hard Parts

Social networks make it easier to connect with other people around hot-button issues, but we must all recognize the trap doors that keep us from sharing fully. By being conscious of and confronting directly the bias and fears we bring to the table, we create the possibility for overlapping conversations across traditional social boundaries, cross-pollination of ideas, and the support we all need to get past the moments that make us question ourselves and hesitate.

Social media also helps us to learn more about people we already know, and in doing so, it demonstrates that even if we really wanted to, it’s nearly impossible to surround ourselves with people who think exactly like we do.

Before blogging and social networking, it also wasn’t as easy to see what the opposition was up to, or even what they really thought. It’s impossible to tackle deep-seated social injustices without understanding the beliefs of those who oppose fixing those injustices, and the Internet provides that opportunity. The Applied Research Center (ARC), a nonprofit racial justice organization that publishes ColorLines magazine,²⁵ gains insight from monitoring and listening to responses—both positive and negative—to their work. “In a non-web world, we can be disconnected and isolated from each other,” notes ARC’s executive director, Rinku Sen. “It’s not that hard to do progressive racial justice work [in that context] and never have to deal with racial conservatives. It allows people to pick and choose who they deal with.”²⁶

Sen has also reframed how hate speech online and other attacks influence the work of ARC. For her, it’s a clear lens into where she needs to focus. “It gives me some insight as to the level of emotional heat that is directed against racial justice efforts,” she says. “It reveals the rhetoric and arguments that get repeated in the opposition, and it gives me new questions to ask. For example, what is so threatening to people’s identities that they get so upset when we want to pass laws to make people more equal? That’s just not a question I asked myself eight years ago.” The cross-pollination that happens as a result of our stories’ availability presents new avenues and lenses to peer through as we tackle the world around us.

In the end, humans will always gravitate toward others like them. It’s a documented sociological effect called homophily—a fancy way of saying that birds of a feather flock together.²⁷ But homophily isn’t the only thing out there driving our social interactions, and as social media becomes more integrated in our daily lives, we have more opportunity to explore people and settings different from what we’re used to.

It’s up to us as a culture to decide, then, what we do with that information. Do we dismiss people whose views are different from ours? Is that even a possibility? We are increasingly exposed to our coworkers’ and neighbors’ lives. We are catching tidbits, sometimes entire chunks, about them. If we read something we disagree with, do we de-friend them? Block them? Hide them in our news feeds?

No. We don’t. In fact, we can commit to doing just the opposite: using these moments both to learn about the people who surround us and to gain insight into our own motivations and biases. Social media consultant Shireen Mitchell maintains that honesty will be key as we move forward. “We are uncomfortable about things, but we have to be honest,” she notes. “This is all of our issue—and if we all take it on, that honesty creates trust.”²⁸

Having begun the difficult work of acknowledging our social stratification and biases, we have laid the groundwork for creating public spaces where people of diverse backgrounds can contribute experiences, share ideas and values, and stir the pot on what needs to happen next culturally. With our eyes wide open, and having confronted the fears that keep us out of the conversation, we’ll find ourselves in a promising position to build trust across the digital spectrum.