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This morning I posted on FB and Twitter about writing letters to Members of Parliament, specifically the NSW Police and Corrections minister regarding black deaths in custody in Australia and the Royal Commission of 1991, whose recommendations were never instigated.
I took it from Common Grace's form letter about indigenous deaths in custody because it has all the names, emails, mailing addresses, and phone numbers, along with the state and the title that the ministers in question hold.
About 15 minutes after posting, I got a driveby 'white lives matter' comment on FB. I promptly hid the comment, mostly because I didn't want my friends to engage with it.
I'm not a high profile person, my audience is pretty much the people I know from online (mostly left-leaning) and the people I know in RL (probably consider themselves left-leaning but rather more centrist). I'm mostly looking to reach the people I know in RL, but they're not the kind to post about social justice, really. Partly they don't have the time or energy, and partly they're not going to broadcast their thougts on the internet, while after 20 years on LJ and DW, I'm accustomed to emoting on the internet.
I figure that the driveby comment was literally a 'drive by' by someone who did a search for posts about 'black lives matter' and then went around being an asshole. (Assholes on the intarwebs; who'da thunk it?) There was no context, no argument, no common connection, so I just ignored it.
The NSW Supreme Court declared that the BLM march contravened COVID-19 restrictions; and yes, I had concerns about that, even if I'm not in the risk area.
Also, a march is all very well to give an indication of numbers, but I feel like this current crop of politicians only respond to threats at the ballot box...and too many of the MPs in our area are rusted on and barely have to turn up.
So I've been pushing letter writing, phone calling, and contact. It's not very public. It's not cool. You don't really get to boast about it. But if I could get 20 people from my gardening group and another 10 from my local climate change organisation to send the Federal MP for our electorate the same message...
That's Saturday morning so far. And it's just gone 9am.
WHEW.
I took it from Common Grace's form letter about indigenous deaths in custody because it has all the names, emails, mailing addresses, and phone numbers, along with the state and the title that the ministers in question hold.
About 15 minutes after posting, I got a driveby 'white lives matter' comment on FB. I promptly hid the comment, mostly because I didn't want my friends to engage with it.
I'm not a high profile person, my audience is pretty much the people I know from online (mostly left-leaning) and the people I know in RL (probably consider themselves left-leaning but rather more centrist). I'm mostly looking to reach the people I know in RL, but they're not the kind to post about social justice, really. Partly they don't have the time or energy, and partly they're not going to broadcast their thougts on the internet, while after 20 years on LJ and DW, I'm accustomed to emoting on the internet.
I figure that the driveby comment was literally a 'drive by' by someone who did a search for posts about 'black lives matter' and then went around being an asshole. (Assholes on the intarwebs; who'da thunk it?) There was no context, no argument, no common connection, so I just ignored it.
The NSW Supreme Court declared that the BLM march contravened COVID-19 restrictions; and yes, I had concerns about that, even if I'm not in the risk area.
Also, a march is all very well to give an indication of numbers, but I feel like this current crop of politicians only respond to threats at the ballot box...and too many of the MPs in our area are rusted on and barely have to turn up.
So I've been pushing letter writing, phone calling, and contact. It's not very public. It's not cool. You don't really get to boast about it. But if I could get 20 people from my gardening group and another 10 from my local climate change organisation to send the Federal MP for our electorate the same message...
That's Saturday morning so far. And it's just gone 9am.
WHEW.
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