A few nights ago, I found myself up late, scrolling through social media. My usual bewitching hour of insomnia, inspired by the change of life. Given that I now sleep in two shifts, I have stopped fighting it. I almost always go back to sleep within an hour, and I have adjusted my daily schedule to allow for a later wake-up time, ensuring that I meet my goal of seven hours or more of sleep most nights. I usually take my waking time to either ponder the things of life or observe the world through the lens of social media.
While scrolling, I came across a clip on the X platform (the social media hellscape formerly known as Twitter) that seemed so absurd that I immediately went to Google to see if it were indeed an actual story and not one of the many sensational pieces of fakeness that now saturate the world of social media.
The clip that I saw showed a 28-year-old South Asian person—Riddhi Patel—in Bakerfield, Calif. A pro-Palestinian activist who was disrupting a local city council meeting to demand that the council use its power to advocate on behalf of Palestinians who continue to be under attack by Israeli forces in a modern day, live-broadcast genocide. Actions such as these have been growing in frequency over the last seven months as the world has watched Israel try its best to wipe Gaza off the face of the Earth in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas.
It wasn’t the initial disruption that caught my attention; I have no issue with activists activating and disrupting the status quo.
No, the story was newsworthy because Patel, who spoke during the public comment section of the meeting, said many things, including: “In the last five years I’ve attended city council meetings there’s never been metal detectors, there’s never been more cops. The only reason you’re doing it is because people actually don’t care if you guys don’t like them and they’re actually resisting so you’re trying to criminalize them. We’ll see you at your house. We’ll murder you.”
Most likely, Patel was caught up in the moment and filled with deep emotion as many are at this time. Especially around the absolute awfulness surrounding the Palestinians and the Biden administration’s complicit behavior in its ongoing support of Israel and tone-deafness regarding the Palestinians.
The thing is, when you show up at a city council meeting and tell elected officials that you and your crew are going to show up at their homes and murder them, such words are not merely brushed off as hyperbole. It also doesn’t help being in the heat of the moment while also being almost any hue of brown. Those words are considered a threat, and that’s exactly what happened.
Patel is now being held in jail on a $1 million bail and facing 16 felony charges, including intent to terrorize and threatening city council staff. According to various news reports that I read, they are also being represented by a public defender.
As an elder activist and ole head, this story is heartbreaking and, frankly, not surprising.
Our current movements, especially at this moment, are driven by the very real devastation and heartbreak over what we are seeing coming out of Gaza. The daily images are absolutely devastating, and the facts only underscore how bad the situation is. So many lives have been lost, and now widespread starvation after all these months is taking hold.
Our Palestinian brothers and sisters have asked that we share their stories and rattle cages so that they are not forgotten. A reasonable request. But in the hyper-alert world of social media which drives so much of our current activism, there is little nuance, lots of passion, and anger runs high. It’s a function of today’s social media; it is emotional and reactive, rarely creating spaces to be proactive and rally together—often to the point of dehumanization.
The thing is, it puts us in the position of seeking humanity for one group only to dehumanize so many others in the process—oddly enough, becoming dangerously close to that which we say we stand in opposition to.
As I reflected on the story, I found myself going down a web search rabbit hole to see who is standing with Patel. Who is organizing to help them make bail and tend to them? Where are the radical lawyers? Where is the National Lawyers Guild? After all, Patel did what many on various platforms are instructing their audiences to do. They did something. Albeit, they crossed a line, but they were passionate in their cause and don’t deserve to be simply discarded.
A search on TikTok revealed some videos ridiculing them and saying they“fucked around and found out.” The same on Instagram. What I have yet to find is anyone asking how they can be supported. This is not to say that there are not actions happening behind the scenes to support them, but given how deeply entrenched social media is in our work, to see virtually nothing in support of them is disheartening.
Where is our love ethic in movement work? In All About Love, bell hooks talks at length about a love ethic: “Commitment to a love ethic transforms our lives by offering us a different set of values to live by.”
For me, that is a respect and consideration for all especially in our organizing and activist spaces. It means working for the cause, campaign, or people we are trying to liberate as well as ensuring that we are taking care of those working on behalf of liberation for others.
How do we seek liberation and safety for some without considering the plight of those organizing on the ground?
We saw this play out in the era of Black Lives Matter, when eventually reports would come out talking about how movement stars were reaping material resources in places like Ferguson, while actual on-the-ground organizers who were literally on the frontlines were struggling with basic needs like getting rent paid and keeping the lights on.
As we would all later learn, there were a few people catapulted into new income brackets from that era but many, many more who were never even properly compensated—much less having their needs attended to from the trauma of the work, especially those who risked arrest or actually were arrested for their participation in various actions.
No matter what happens to Riddhi Patel, even if the charges are eventually dropped, the fact is that this story has received global attention—particularly from the Indian press—and no doubt this will dramatically impact their life. Along with time spent in the local jail before they even see freedom or a trial. I don’t think the response to their threat was unwarranted or extreme—but I do think those on the other side of the ideological fence who routinely threaten lives see better legal and other support most of the time, and that is sad.
Sustainable movement work cannot be driven by the rapid-fire nature of news cycles and algorithms. It is created in community with others who share enough of our core values that we develop trust, and that trust guides us in our work. We build at the speed of trust, not the speed of TikTok. It means knowing we are in community with others and we are mutually looking out for one another, while keeping our eyes on the larger goals. It means knowing when we are fraying and at risk of popping off, and trusting that those in our community will catch us before we fall. I am reminded so many years ago, when a comrade suggested I go to therapy. That suggestion literally changed my life for the better.
In my opinion, one of the chief failures of the Black Lives Matter movement was that it activated many across the globe but did little to provide a sustainable framework with support beyond the immediate moments. Now it’s 2024, and cops are still killing Black people with impunity. Just last month, in my hometown of Chicago, 26-year-old Dexter Reed was pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt. In less than a minute, he was dead after Chicago police fired more than 90 rounds into his car—for not wearing a seatbelt and tinted windows on his car.
A few years ago, this story would have caught our attention, but many have moved on, exhausted from the years of the Black Lives Matter era and, frankly, guided by social media which dictates what causes we focus on.
Black lives do matter to me because we are nowhere near a racially just and equitable world and, in many ways in the last four years, much of our racial progress has been rolled back. Palestinian lives matter to me as well, because none of us are free until we are all free, and the same forces that seek to dehumanize Black folks are dehumanizing our Palestinian brothers and sisters. I seek our collective liberation and my love ethic and community allow me to hold space for all who are oppressed under white supremacy, imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism.
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