I got the most interesting glimpse into how young people's mind work when I saw my 16 year old niece come to her mom, My SiL, looking for help about what to do in a situation.

The situation was the hashtag #justiceforizu kept popping up on her timeline (or whatever you call it on snap) and she didn't know what to do about it. She felt like she wanted to be supportive of this young man who was allegedly accused of rape and subsequently committed suicide but she also didn't want to discourage young girls from coming forward when sexually assaulted or raped.

We had never heard about the case and when we started googling it, the adults all kind of found it odd that there were no news stories about it and the details were very flimsy. Like it wasn't even clear where (what country) any of this allegedly occurred.

Given all of this, my niece was very confused and didn't know if she should like the hashtag or say something that was supportive of women coming forward.

her mom and I were like, "well you could just not comment on the matter at all." It had not occurred to her that was an option. She felt like she had to choose a side and even being silent was somehow endorsing a message. We assured her it was not. We talked to her enough about it where she got comfortable and was relieved by the decision to not post anything at all. Not even a like.

It was a strange eye-opening conversation but it was coming off the back of me seeing a lot of people on my facebook and twitter feed commenting on the fact that certain people weren't commenting on, or being vocally (and by vocal I mean posting), in solidarity with the BLM movement. I can't find it now, but I remember someone in particular tweeting "what is your (not me specifically) excuse for not tweeting in support of BLM?".

I thought it was just me noticing this until Dave Chappelle devoted a lot of time in his very short special defending why he didn't comment immediately on the movement (beyond his stated reason of letting the young people lead, there was also the obvious explanation he was working on a special to address).

Then sometime after that, J Cole released a track largely in response to feeling attacked, rightly or wrongly, for similar reasons.

The latest, more extreme, version I have seen of this is this whole Jaguar/Malik B thing. Initially started the video and cut it off when it seemed largely devoted to attacking Philly artist for, not just commenting on Malik Bs passing, but also for not commenting strongly enough about his passing.

This seemed strange to me for a couple of reasons. 1. Never seen someone weaponize how a person grieves the loss of someone they know. 2. It was quite clear that the Roots were estranged from Malik B. We don't know exactly why but if you have drug addicts in your life, you can easily envision how such a person could easily have done irreparable damage to your relationship to them no matter how close they were at one point. I know you should try and help and support friends with addictions but at some point, keeping such a person in your life is self-abuse. No one would tell anyone that they must support unconditionally a drug user. Now we don't know if it is all due to Malik B's addiction but it is enough to give pause about judging the current status of their relationship.

I don't know. It's a new phenomenon that I am starting to see more of it as we live more of our lives online (thanks COVID).

I am not immune. During the height of the protest it seemed inappropriate of me to share smiley happy pictures of my kids. There was such an amazing outpouring for the great and amazing John Lewis on his death and I didn't feel I had anything additive to say in my timeline but at the very leat I felt compelled to replace my profile picture with him.


These ideas have been stuck in my head for days and needed to unloaded. I am generally a very private person but it's my wedding anniversary today and I knew making a facebook post was a part of it (funny sidebar:A few months ago I happened to make a series of positive FB post about my wife and my homey reached out to me to make sure nothing was wrong between us).

I guess what I am really saying is, I would hate the idea that there is no difference between private and public life and I would hate to see people lose the fine art of knowing when to shut the F up.





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"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"