One of the things that bug me about modern activism is the fact that many “activist” expect people to put their entire lives on hold for the sake of a protest and then shame people who can’t participate even if they agree with the cause... and often times results in people disliking or even not wanting to participate in the movement.
And when people point out how expecting people to participate if they agree even if it harms their daily life it’s always something that faults it back on the person who can’t participate or point out said faults.
“While it’s good that y’all are going on strike for women’s day it’s harmful to expect and shame women who can’t take a day off because they have to pay bills and feed their kids.”
“Well she should have had food prepared and some money put back to be able to participate. She doesn’t really care if she isn’t on strike with us.”
“While I agree with you, shutting down the highway just harms people because they can be fired for being late to work.”
“Bosses don’t fire people for being late to work one time, they shouldn’t have been late all those other times and if their boss does, they need a new one.”
“While I agree with the protest, we shouldn’t go around destroying property.”
“Well they have insurance so--”
See where I’m going with this? Too often in modern activism, people are willing to throw someone under the bus just for “the cause” and then blame the person they just chunked under the bus. They treat people pointing out these things as if they are “minor inconveniences”. A “minor inconvenience” is not being able to find a pencil or a stapler. Being concerned with losing your job, having your business destroyed, not being able to pay bills, feed your kids, etc. etc. because of a protest or other activism related thing is not a “minor inconvenience”.
It is so self-centered to expect people to put their entire lives on hold to focus on “the cause” and to be homeless, go hungry, be broke and jobless, etc. for “the cause”. It’s one of my biggest gripes with modern activism because most of the people who say things like this or expect people to put their lives on hold, are privileged themselves.
