俄乌危机，多少人在“被逼表态”
2022-04-01 12:07阅读：
2月23日，我在地图上还找不到乌克兰的位置。2月24日，人们似乎期待我就俄乌冲突发表意见。身为一名作家，我的公共平台足够多，于是收到很多邮件要求我写一些关于乌克兰的东西。我不知道怎么跟他们讲——我刚刚知道，虽然“Kyiv”和“Kiev”都作为乌克兰首都的拼写，却存在政治差别。我知道，自己没什么建设性的话要说。
发评论是为了开脱
用又一个聒噪的声音来淹没消息人士或弱势群体的声音，对我真的有帮助吗？为了彰显团结，我是否必须在噪音中加入自己的声音？在一个悲剧时刻冲着嘈杂的社交媒体大喊，这不是我第一次感到此种压力。我们日益同步看到世界上的恐怖事件，期待也随之而来：点名谴责它们，揭示它们如何影响我们。我们已经学会在公众场合展示自己的悲伤。有时，我看到在悲剧事件中的发帖被框定为“为没有发声的人发声”。但人们不是不能发声，而是被压抑、被忽视或者精疲力竭。
近年来，社交媒体展现“团结”的最奇怪行为之一是2020年6月2日的“周二停电”活动。为了回应弗洛伊德和其他许多黑人在美国警察手中被残忍杀害，大约2800万个Instagram账户发布了全黑图片，展示与“黑人的命也是命”的团结一致。许多人发布图片时不假思索地添加了“黑人的命也是命”的标签，这反而让使用这些标签的真正活动人士沉默了，他们被黑色图片淹没了。
这场运动引人入胜、错综复杂、富于表演色彩，也许这是一场仍能打动一些人的戏剧，但没能打动我。如果一个白人那天没有发布全黑图片，就连我也会心生质疑，不发全黑图片，我搞不懂他们在想什么。但我对那些发的人也感到不安。他们这样做是出于对黑人生命的尊重，还是为了不被视为种族主义者？
我认为，人们
对悲剧事件发表评论，往往是为了给自己开脱。例如，那年夏天，白人急着向我们保证：“我在，我听着呢。”但他们真正的意思是：“那不是我。我在表态，你在听吗？”当2800万人试图证明他们不可怕时，这个世界变得不聒噪吗？
“你的沉默并不能保护自己”
上个月，另一名年轻黑人男子被警察开枪打死。他叫阿米尔·洛克，长得像我哥哥。我浏览了现场视频。第二天早上，我查看自己的私人信息，发现有3个人问我：你能写点关于阿米尔·洛克的东西吗？为什么对阿米尔·洛克保持沉默？这些信息似乎一部分是指责，一部分是想转发我想分享的内容。我意识到，有时候，我们的表态对数字世界的重要性，只在于它们可以被使用和分享，让其他人觉得他已经尽自己本分“说了句话”。
历史每天都在发展，人们都在试图快速理解历史，证明他们站在正确的一边。俄乌军事冲突、关于口罩强制令的争论、对亚裔美国人的攻击浪潮等，每件事都值得关注，社交媒体是一种关注方式，但并非唯一。
美国作家奥黛丽·洛德有句名言：“你的沉默并不能保护自己。”人们（包括我自己）都说，沉默就是同谋。当然，有一种沉默源自懦弱，有一种沉默助长了压迫者的气焰。但有时候沉默是为了最终变得诚实。在沉默中，我们最终听到自己内心世界的声音，痛苦、麻木、内疚，或者什么都没有。
有时候，躲避是一件高尚的事
在一个充满创伤和恐惧的世界里，我渴望沉默，这不是逃避现实，不总是。你在沉默中遇见自己的方式，比如写日记，与你在公共场合如何反思是不同的。治愈需要安静，在沉默中，我们可以包扎伤口。有时候，躲避是一件高尚的事。
一天早晨，新闻说非洲学生正在艰难逃离乌克兰，我感觉胸口有压力，于是绕着房子走了一圈。地面上还有雪，脚下的嘎吱声听起来像是咆哮，我闭上眼睛倾听……远处，丈夫和外甥在芦苇丛中嬉戏，几只家燕在鸣叫。当我们倾听时，听到了什么？有些时候难以言表。
You Don't Need to Post About Every
Tragedy
We have learned to perform our grief in the public arena. But
what if we have nothing constructive to say?
By Cole Arthur Riley
On February 23, I couldn't have located Ukraine on a map. On
February 24, it seemed I was expected to articulate my opinions on
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of it. As a writer, I have enough of a
public platform that I received a number of DMs demanding I write
something about Ukraine. I didn't know how to tell them that I had
only just learned the political distinction between Kyiv and Kiev.
I Googled Russia+Ukraine+conflict and How far does a nuclear bomb
go? I knew I had nothing constructive to say.
Would it really be helpful for me to drown out the sound of the
informed or the vulnerable with another clamoring voice? I had
reshared posts from sources I trusted. But does solidarity
necessitate that I add my particular voice to the noise?
This is not the first time that I have felt pressure to shout into
the cacophony that is social media in a moment of tragedy. Our
increasing real-time access to the terrors of the world has come
with the expectation that we engage with them: name them, denounce
them, show how they affect us. We have learned to perform our grief
in the public arena. Sometimes, I see posting amid tragedy framed
as being “a voice for the voiceless.” But people aren’t “voiceless”
so much as suppressed or ignored or exhausted. I’m exhausted.
One of the strangest acts of social-media “solidarity” in recent
years was the #BlackoutTuesday campaign of June 2, 2020. In
response to the brutal killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor,
and so many other Black people at the hands of police, about 28
million Instagram accounts—individuals, institutions, and brands
alike—posted a little black square. The concept is said to have
stemmed from two Black women in the music industry—Jamila Thomas
and Brianna Agyemang—as a way to disrupt business as usual, and
show solidarity with Black Lives Matter. But the general population
quickly co-opted it, many thoughtlessly adding #blacklivesmatter or
#BLM, which in effect silenced the real activists who use those
hashtags, flooding them with black squares. The irony, of course,
is that what was supposed to be a display of absence, of removal,
actually became a way for non-Black people to take up far more
space than they typically would in Black grief.
The campaign was fascinating, complicated, and performative, but
maybe it was the kind of theater that can still stir someone. It
didn’t stir me. But I think of that day as a significant turning
point in the demand for public commentary on tragedy. If a white
person didn’t post a black square that day, even I, who found the
campaign absurd, found myself a little suspicious of them. Without
the black square, I couldn’t know what they thought. But I was
uneasy with those who did post, too. Did they do so out of
reverence for Black life, or in order to not to be seen as
racist?
Too often, I believe, people comment on tragedy in order to absolve
themselves of it. That summer, for example, white people rushed to
assure us, “I’m here, I’m listening,” when really they meant It
wasn’t me. I’m not like them. I’m speaking; are you listening? And
do you know how loud the world grows when 28 million people are
trying to prove that they aren’t terrible?
Last month, another young Black man was shot by a police officer.
His name is Amir Locke, and he looks like my brother. I scrolled
past the video, which played without my consent. It was sandwiched
between a post about the Olympics and a tweet about Kim Kardashian
and Kanye West (or Ye, as he now calls himself). The next morning,
I checked my private messages to find three people asking: Can you
write something on Amir Locke? Why the silence on Amir Locke? The
messages seemed to be part accusation, part desire to repost
whatever I would share. I’ve realized that there are times when our
voices matter to the digital world only insofar as they can be used
and reshared to allow others to feel they’ve done their part to
“speak.”
History is unfolding every day, and every day people are at once
trying to make sense of it and prove that they are on the
right side of it. The invasion of Ukraine, the debate over mask
mandates, the tide of attacks against Asian Americans—each worthy
of our attention, and even our outrage. Social media is one way to
pay attention. But it isn’t the only way.
Audre Lorde famously said, “Your silence will not protect you.”
This wisdom has been taken to the extreme. To be silent is to be
complicit, people (including myself) have said. This can be true.
There is certainly a silence born of cowardice, a silence that
emboldens oppressors. But sometimes to be silent is to finally
become honest. To halt the theater. In the quiet, we at last hear
the sound of our own interior world. The pain or numbness. The
guilt. The nothing at all.
In a world of so many traumas and terrors, I am desperate for
silence. It is not escapism, not always. It is about meeting
oneself. The way you might encounter yourself in the silence of,
say, journaling, is distinct from how you reflect in the public
arena. In silence, a certain veil is lifted. We might realize that
the rage we feel in public is born from fear or despair in private.
Healing is a very quiet thing. In the silence, we can wrap our
wounds. There are times when taking shelter is a noble thing to
do.
On a recent morning, I wake up to news reports of African students
struggling to flee Ukraine, a video of a Black woman in a pink coat
crying out on a crowded platform as the train behind her apparently
rushes to safety, 11 people dead from a Russian rocket strike in
Kharkiv. I scroll for a few minutes feeling a pressure in my chest.
I close my laptop. Is that okay with you?
I walk the perimeter of my house. There is still a bit of snow on
the ground, and its crunch sounds like growling. The sky is bright,
so I close my eyes and listen. In the distance, my husband and
nephew are giggling and chasing each other in the thawing reeds. A
few barn swallows whistle and whir in the space between us. What do
we hear when we listen? Some moments aren’t for words.
