Silence: How Activists Feel About Themselves (A Media Experiment)

When thinking about why I chose this topic, I realized it was because I needed answers for myself. I have always been the type of person who is very accepting of other point’s of views and I consider myself to be nonjudgmental of others. However, when Trump became President that all changed for me. His presidency lit a fire in me. I could not understand how people could support someone who is so careless and heartless. The FACTS were clear to me. I felt like anyone who supported him clearly did not do their fact checking. They MUST not get their news from a reliable source. They MUST not care about anyone be themselves.

This is when I started getting involved in politics. I turned to social media and I started pouring my heart out. I posted many videos of myself crying and just very angry with people. I was upset. I was sad. And I was mad at the world. I was mad at white people. I am white and I was mad at myself. I felt like I should have taken a stand earlier. But all of this did nothing. I spoke up for people but I didn’t feel like I was making a change. In fact, I felt like I was just making people not like me. People who didn’t agree with me of course.

I felt like people that were close to me started getting mad at me. My grandparents didn;t agree with me. My boyfriend’s parents didn’t agree with me. And the people who did agree with me, like my parents, did not want to get involved on social media because they said it would just make them upset and argue with people. So instead they were silent. And soon I became silent too.

I decided I needed to take a break from all of this until I knew how to protest and advocate for social issues in a positive manner. But instead of giving up, I decided to do a project on this problem. I hope I can learn from other activists my age in order to help make a difference in the world.