That’s a long title. But let me give you an example.
Yesterday, I saw that an American pastor friend of mine had put a post on Facebook about FEMA. FEMA is the “Federal Emergency Management Agency.” It is a US government agency that deals with states of emergency particularly form natural disasters. My friend put up an image that changed the meaning of FEMA. I don’t remember exactly the adjusted acronym (and don’t want to take the time to look it up), but the letter A was short for “Aliens” and the other letters suggesting that the purpose of FEMA was to provide care particularly to Aliens (foreigners— human not extraterrestrial) who live in the borders of the USA. It was a joke but seemingly with an implied message. My response to that joke is,
“Wouldn’t that be wonderful— to have a government agency whose primary mission and purpose was to help the most marginalized peoples, foreigners including illegal aliens, within the borders of our country!”
That response makes sense to me, partly because I have lived for two decades as an alien/foreigner in a country… and even a few months as an illegal alien during the COVID lockdown.
However, “No” I did not put that up as a response to the posting. I have done that before and immediately got challenged (a bit shy of attacked I suppose) on my response. Why? It may seem reasonable to say that people challenged my principles, beliefs, or values on the subject of the post. However, based on the way people responded, it was clear that they were not really challenging what I was saying. Rather, they were challenging what they assumed my motives were. They assumed I was supporting a political party that they opposed, or that I supported a political ideological movement that they felt was “destroying our country.”
But that was not what I was doing. Their presumption that I was supporting a political agenda was false. However, that is a problem with online venues like FB or X. Communication is so truncated that it gets filtered through sociological filters. Things shift from the world of values and ideas to tribes.
I can’t pretend that I don’t do the same thing. I know that FEMA is a political hot-button issue right now, with members of one political party in the US seeking to support funding for it, and another seeking to undermine it. Therefore, when I see a joke that points to another hot-button issue in the US— status of foreigners, and particularly illegal aliens— I make the assumption that the joke is actually a political attack on FEMA, and support for their preferred political party. Based on many of the responses to that post, I am pretty sure that my guess was right. That being said, that does not mean that everyone feels the same way. Some people in that post thread may have no political agenda but simply see issues with the way FEMA does business that needs to be challenged… or at least satirized. There may be some people like that… but due to the nature of FB it is hard to identify them. Everyone just ends up looking like political “yes-men” or “no-men” or “Oh No-men.”
That is why I put my response here. I think I need to give a nuanced response, and the format of many social media platforms does not permit this. Is this simply shying away from the fight? Well, it is certainly shying away, but NOT simply. I AM rather pro-alien, pro-foreigner. I am even somewhat pro illegal alien. I could and perhaps should fight for their rights and care in a country that looks on them with suspicion. But to fight in a social context where it is framed as a support for one party (that I don’t support) against another party (that I also don’t support) does not help.
Unfortunately we live in a busy world that is getting busier every day. Even contexts where issues can really be hashed out, there is a tendency to devolve into sound-bites and face moves. I don’t like it, but I live in such a world whether I like it or not— and I am a part of that same world, so busy that I do the same thing that I complain about with others.
