what is to be done?

[trochee]

Not to get all Leninist with the title above, but I just ran across this horrible Facebook group ("Wondering why people with food stamps drive escalades") via cat_whisperer.

It's bad. it's like claw-your-eyes-out raw racist crap, (very) thinly disguised in a wrapper of outrage at 'welfare recipients'. and its Facebook user icon is a picture of a dollar bill with Obama's face, surrounded by fried chicken and watermelon. And it has 25,000 facebook fans, and growing.

let me rewind that for review: there are 25,000 Facebook users who said they "like" this semiliterate racist bile.

My immediate reaction is to shudder and turn away (and to pity poor cat_whisperer who may have gotten this link from a family member), but when I think about it, it feels like that's an exercise in my own white privilege -- that I can just ignore this, like I can ignore the ambulance headed to the ER: I'm not inside it.

My second reaction is to get righteous, and try to figure out what I can do -- is this a TOS violation? can I get it shut down? but then I realize that this too is an expression of my white privilege -- and might very well make these vicious idiots into Tea-Party martyrs.

What to do?

Comments

[eyeteeth.livejournal.com]

What to do is what you're doing -- be disgusted and express your disgust, not in a shrill and hateful way, but as a rational person who cares about others.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

yes. that feels a little helpless, though. I want to make more of a difference, but I see 26,000 people who need some consciousness-raising and I shudder and feel sick to my stomach.

[eyeteeth.livejournal.com]

Sometimes all you have is a teaspoon. Keep bailing anyway.