Malcolm Gladwell: "Small Change"
I wanted to talk to my mother before I commented on this article. After a bit of cell phone cat-and-mouse, I got in touch with her on Monday. I wanted to know when she went to Biloxi as a college student, who she went with and how she found out about the program she joined. Before I spoke to her, I was reasonably certain she wasn’t part of the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964, since I’d never heard of it before reading Gladwell’s essay.
Mom graduated from Elmhurst College in Illinois in 1963 and went to Biloxi on a mission trip that summer. She credits both the college and the trip with changing her worldview, which was that of a fairly sheltered young woman from a blue-collar family in St. Louis. She chose the trip not because her close friends were going, but because “she wanted to serve” and because Biloxi was close to New Orleans and she was going to be in a wedding there in August. Basically, she was young and idealistic and had a ride as far as New Orleans and $50. She mostly tutored the children of poor white shrimpers, though she went once a week with the church to work with black children.
The mission director was an integrationist, sometimes to the point of forgetting his “real” mission with the shrimpers. He was willing to take chances and sometimes bricks were thrown at the mission. Through him, my mom met a black physician who was involved with the NAACP and went on bus trip to the Gulfport beach with a group of black children; they were met by the police and had to return home, even though they had sought permission beforehand. The Biloxi beach was, of course, whites only.
I wanted to know if my mom had strong ties to the civil rights movement and if she considered herself a risk-taker. The answer was no on both counts, but she came away from the experience with a different point of view and a better understanding of people. She said she wouldn’t have left the mission, even if she was uncomfortable sometimes, because she felt strongly that she was doing good and also that she “didn’t know enough to be scared.” The church was her tie; she heard about the trip through her college which was part of the United Church of Christ network.
As much as I agree with Gladwell on many of his points (I very much share his opinion of the Shirky example which I thought was appalling when I read it the first time), I don’t agree that social media defines activism any more than I think risk-taking defines activism. People have different comfort levels, different breaking points, and different relationships to various movements. I suppose part of what Gladwell objects to is the credit given to social media, the idea that “without Twitter the people of Iran would not have felt empowered and confident to stand up for freedom and democracy.”
He also criticizes campaigns that are considered successful because they don’t ask too much of participants. It’s true that there are a lot of them and that some are a bit ridiculous. But I also think that knowledge and awareness lend a lot of strength to a movement; the more people know and understand the less likely they are to criticize and maybe, just maybe some of those people will join in a more meaningful way. Social networks can communicate over distance and to a large number of people and do it quickly. If risk-taking isn’t necessary to convey a point, do the means matter? Small change is still change.
I wanted to talk to my mother before I commented on this article. After a bit of cell phone cat-and-mouse, I got in touch with her on Monday. I wanted to know when she went to Biloxi as a college student, who she went with and how she found out about the program she joined. Before I spoke to her, I was reasonably certain she wasn’t part of the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964, since I’d never heard of it before reading Gladwell’s essay.
Mom graduated from Elmhurst College in Illinois in 1963 and went to Biloxi on a mission trip that summer. She credits both the college and the trip with changing her worldview, which was that of a fairly sheltered young woman from a blue-collar family in St. Louis. She chose the trip not because her close friends were going, but because “she wanted to serve” and because Biloxi was close to New Orleans and she was going to be in a wedding there in August. Basically, she was young and idealistic and had a ride as far as New Orleans and $50. She mostly tutored the children of poor white shrimpers, though she went once a week with the church to work with black children.
The mission director was an integrationist, sometimes to the point of forgetting his “real” mission with the shrimpers. He was willing to take chances and sometimes bricks were thrown at the mission. Through him, my mom met a black physician who was involved with the NAACP and went on bus trip to the Gulfport beach with a group of black children; they were met by the police and had to return home, even though they had sought permission beforehand. The Biloxi beach was, of course, whites only.
I wanted to know if my mom had strong ties to the civil rights movement and if she considered herself a risk-taker. The answer was no on both counts, but she came away from the experience with a different point of view and a better understanding of people. She said she wouldn’t have left the mission, even if she was uncomfortable sometimes, because she felt strongly that she was doing good and also that she “didn’t know enough to be scared.” The church was her tie; she heard about the trip through her college which was part of the United Church of Christ network.
As much as I agree with Gladwell on many of his points (I very much share his opinion of the Shirky example which I thought was appalling when I read it the first time), I don’t agree that social media defines activism any more than I think risk-taking defines activism. People have different comfort levels, different breaking points, and different relationships to various movements. I suppose part of what Gladwell objects to is the credit given to social media, the idea that “without Twitter the people of Iran would not have felt empowered and confident to stand up for freedom and democracy.”
He also criticizes campaigns that are considered successful because they don’t ask too much of participants. It’s true that there are a lot of them and that some are a bit ridiculous. But I also think that knowledge and awareness lend a lot of strength to a movement; the more people know and understand the less likely they are to criticize and maybe, just maybe some of those people will join in a more meaningful way. Social networks can communicate over distance and to a large number of people and do it quickly. If risk-taking isn’t necessary to convey a point, do the means matter? Small change is still change.
I've also asked my parents about their experiences with integration in the South. A lot of the article is based on one definition of activism, which some people may not agree with. Like you say, "small change is still change."
ReplyDeleteI also incorporated kind of an outside perspective into my blog post about this article. I'd have to agree with you in that Gladwell was too harsh on his criticism of social media for what it can't do when there is so much it can do. I don't think the point of it is to prompt activism and risk taking, but it can make us more aware of situations that call for this type of action or where it might happen and we can pay attention and/or support it.
ReplyDelete