I Quit Facebook and No One* Noticed
*Fewer than a handful, anyway
It all happened so fast. I saw the post and I debated on how to react. Should I give it an angry reaction? Should I comment? Do I call my friend out in public, or do I do it privately? Will he even understand? Will he try to understand?
I threw my phone down and screamed in frustration. I was exhausted at having this conversation and I just could not bring myself to do it again.
I picked up my phone, scrolled to settings on Facebook and deactivated my account. I was asked my reasons for quitting. Of the options Facebook gave me, I chose “I don’t feel safe on Facebook” because it seemed the most appropriate. After all, I was quitting because I grew tired of seeing things posted mostly out of ignorance, but always rooted in racism.
Since the murder of George Floyd, I made a decision to stop being the friend who made excuses for my white friends for both being ignorant to our race issues and for making comments that were not overtly racist, but still racist in nature. I figured that it would be easier to make loving and gentle corrections with my friends than random strangers on the Internet.
Save for a few, most of my friends were pretty receptive to what I had to say when I pointed out how certain actions or words were either outright…
