Facebook captures examples of inequality and makes them available for endless replay. Twitter links the voiceless to newsmakers. Instagram immortalizes the faces and consequences of discrimination. Isolated cruelties are yoked into a powerful narrative of marginalization that spurs a common cause.
Interpretation
This quote highlights how social media platforms expose and connect issues of inequality and discrimination, uniting voices for a common cause.
In this quote, Stacey Abrams emphasizes the role of social media in bringing attention to inequality and discrimination. By capturing and sharing examples of marginalization, platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram create a collective narrative that not only highlights these injustices but also empowers individuals to rally together for social change. The interconnectedness fostered by these platforms can amplify the voices of the marginalized, ultimately contributing to a stronger, unified response against societal issues.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of social justice, one might refer to this quote to illustrate how social media drives awareness.
I grew up one of six children with working-class parents in the Deep South. My mother was a college librarian, and my father worked in a shipyard. I never saw them balance a checkbook, but they kept a roof over our heads and got all six of us into college.
I do not Google myself, I do not read comments, and I barely look myself in the eye when I look in the mirror.
My being a black woman is not a deficit. It is a strength. Because I could not be where I am had I not overcome so many other barriers. Which means you know I'm relentless, you know I'm persistent, and you know I'm smart.
The basis for sustainable progress is legal protections grounded in an awareness of how identity has been used to deny opportunity.
I like to solve problems. I know it is a skill set, but it's also an obligation. I grew up with parents who believe that you don't simply complain: you try to find solutions and fix what's in front of you.
Here in Georgia, we continue to grapple with our own vestiges of hate. The image carved into Stone Mountain, like Confederate monuments across this state, stand as constant reminders of racism, intolerance, and division.
What I think is different today is the lack of political connection between the black middle class and the increasing numbers of black people who are more impoverished than ever before.
Before the Civil War, the Negro was certainly as efficient a workman as the raw immigrant from Ireland or Germany. But, whereas the Irishmen found economic opportunity wide and daily growing wider, the Negro found public opinion determined to 'keep him in his place.'
I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down, Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town.
Affirmative action is the most important antidiscrimination technique ever instituted in the United States. It is the one tool that has had a demonstrable effect on discrimination... Affirmative action, by all statistical measures, has been the central ingredient to the creation of the black middle class.
Things have become considerably better for men of colour since I was born. But I'd say that we'll be really getting somewhere when things get better for women of colour.
Exploitation. Now, there's a word that has been scrubbed out of the poverty debate.
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