Tiny Revolutions: Leveraging Personal Spheres of Influence for Positive Change
There are times when it is all too much. Systematic injustice is deeply ingrained and doggedly unrelenting. Inequities exist and compound: racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, ableism, and more are inextricably intertwined. This inequity manifests itself in large scale tragedies that shake the very core of our understandings. Fighting back is hard. Often, revolution can be intimidating. Understanding how you can affect positive change can seem impossible. The privileged desire to go back to sleep in the face of powerlessness is overwhelming. Yet staying engaged is critical.
Last winter, I attended a training given by Black Lives Matter: Cincinnati. The facilitators emphasized using your own personal spheres of influence for change. This beautifully simple, yet innovate framework reconstructed my understandings of activism. I considered protests and sharply worded political rhetoric to be paramount within social change; and while they are critical, they left me feeling undernourished and hopeless in the menial and everyday interactions I had on campus. It may seem too simple a concept to be revelational, but I constantly needed reminding: activism can be small in magnitude, and deep in impact. It can be:
- Pulling a floormate aside and raising the problematic consequences of the sexist/racist/homophobic/etc. joke they made in the common room.
- Planning a film screening and discussion regarding identity politics for your floor.
- Asking your fellow brothers and sisters to acknowledge the heteronormative space that is Greek life which often perpetuates exclusion, gender-norms, and white supremacy.
- Reminding your cousin about his privilege at the Thanksgiving dinner table.
- Acknowledging your own privilege.
- Being mindful about your identity and the role you should be playing in a space.
- Maintaining a supporting and listening role in order to learn from the needs of communities facing an issue.
- Intentionally soliciting businesses owned by marginalized communities.
- Respecting chosen identities and personal pronouns.
- Using inclusive, gender-neutral, and non-heteronormative language.
We all exist in spheres where we hold great social capital, power, and influence. With intentionality and empathy, we can leverage these personal spheres for positive change. Some inequities are so deeply ingrained, making it is easy to brush off little comments or justify a student group, system, or institution as “no big deal” or us being “oversensitive”. But every instance reveals deeper power imbalances and macrostructures of inequity. Every single act of oppression matters. Every small revolution matters too.