ReThink

Turn it off. Talk to Each Other.

A guy we know posted on Facebook, “If we want to make America Great Again We Will Have to Make Evil People Fear Punishment Again.”

The text was over an image of a noose.

I was disgusted and angry.

I’ve known this guy for a bit. I don’t think he’s overtly racist. Doesn’t seem to be.

He is a guy who is frustrated with the state of the world and feels like his way of life is under attack.

It’s a complaint I hear from many white men in a fairly rural area.

But could he have missed the racial implications of this post? Really? Am I giving him too much credit?

A noose in America doesn’t just mean ‘punishment.’ It is the symbol of racial terror and lynching.

For some context, he grew up in an area that’s steeped in outlaw justice and Jesse James lore that glosses over James’ Confederate and racist history (I’ll write more about that another time). Is there any way he didn’t recognize the racial implications?

Far-fetched, perhaps, but not as far-fetched as people giving up their jobs and homes because a TikTok influencer predicted the Rapture this week. Again.

I’ve been thinking about all this stuff a lot.

Last week I wrote about guns. The shooting this week brought back many issues.

Based on some comments from that post, I want to delve deeper into how our news and social feeds influence what we see about the same events.

See what you want to see

Just as my Facebook friend may not have seen the racial implications of his post, many of us don’t realize how tailored our news and social media feeds are to our preferences.

I think most people are aware that when they log into Apple News on their iPhone, the content they see will be personalized to their tastes.

That seems obvious.

But I was talking with friends the other night, and they didn’t realize that their digital page of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times differed from mine.

My wife and I share things via text, much like Gen Xers, when we don’t think something has popped up on their personalized view.

We are only seeing what we want to see.

That’s bad.

And, yes, I’m going to talk about Charlie Kirk.

Heads or Tails - You Don’t Get to Choose

The Kirk assassination provided me with a clear view of our disconnect.

If you only watched Sinclair Broadcast Group’s “remembrance” of Kirk played on their YouTube channel, you would be convinced that Charlie Kirk “was known first and foremost for his faith in his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

If you are conservative, your Facebook/Instagram/TikTok, and even LinkedIn feeds will only show short snippets of that side of Kirk, from a staged “newscast” from Sinclair, complete with a “news anchor.”

Meanwhile, my progressive friends and I only heard him use bible verses in the middle of a transphobic rant or saying horrible things about people of color.

And, of course, we’re seeing the same filters when it comes to his assassin.

The Right has martyred Charlie Kirk. Shot down by a godless supporter of the trans agenda.

The Left has pointed to the shooter’s upbringing and connected the memes on his bullets to suggest that he shot Kirk because Kirk was too moderate (as some of the right-wing conspiracy theories had been suggesting for weeks before the murder).

And then there was Kirk’s memorial in Arizona.

The Right saw a grieving widow who called for forgiveness.

The Left saw a President who rambled through his campaign rhetoric and declared that everyone who was against him should suffer.

And we saw Stephen Miller paying homage to the Off-Off Broadway Flop “Joseph Goebbels, In His Own Words.“

How bad is the manipulation?

A different Facebook friend posted that the Kansas City Chiefs were hosting a vigil for Kirk at Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday, Sept 21.

The problem? It wasn’t real.

Some bot just cooked it up.

And that’s the drill right now.

Bad actors are exploiting the main feature of our digital existence and pushing us further apart.

They push chaos for money, or to further destabilize America (Russia, China), or just for kicks.

What we face is broader than Kirk’s assassination. And we need to act.

Truth is Messy

When I ran campaigns, if I had the budget, I used public opinion polling, focus groups, and gathering information at door-to-door knocking to get “an approximation of reality.”

I tried to bring that same kind of mentality to the Foundation world.

Social media has made it much more challenging to gauge reality. In many ways, we’re living in alternate realities.

Humans, by nature, are complex. Most of us are not 100 percent good or evil.

The jury is out on Stephen Miller. I’ll leave that judgment to something above my pay grade.

Charlie Kirk could be, in his mind and the minds of his followers, a devout Christian. And he could say things about humans that many of us would not consider out of love.

His killer could have been radicalized in such a way that he had elements of both far-right and left-wing ideologies. The reporting on it has been awful.

But whether it’s terrible reporting, intentional foreign disinformation, or local rumors, the feeds all hit our desire for simple stories and solutions.

So, if the truth is messy, what do we do? Not double down online. We need to get offline.

The Facebook Solution

I went back and forth on whether to comment on that guy’s noose post.

Did he mean for white people, too?

Who decides who is evil?

Did he see that a black student was hanging from a tree in Mississippi the very week he posted?

I resisted my urge to comment.

The comment section is generally a terrible place to have a conversation.

So, I’ll bring it up to him next time I see him in person.

Yes. An actual conversation.

Because that’s what we need. Moving beyond the anonymous to the personal.

Will it work? I think it will.

This same person had posted something harmful before, and we did have a conversation about it.

He had no idea that it was offensive. Just thought it was funny. Seriously. These things happen.

I genuinely believe he’s not a bad person. He’s got blind spots.

We all do. And they are all getting worse with social media.

Turn it off. Talk to each other.

Coming up on B Positive

I’m going a little deeper next week on cheating. I’m seeing it play out in politics and business.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of people riled up about it. We need to be.

After that, I’m going to come back to the President’s laughable, but tragic, press conference on Autism. But I need a little time to cool down.

Reading Recommendations

I read a lot to learn a lot.

Just two things this week.

First, I highly recommend taking the time to read “Generations” by Dr. Jean Twenge. It will help you understand a lot about how different groups absorb information and what it means for our collective future. I’m going to sort through it again.

I’m also asking you to read my friend Jason Kander’s thoughts on radicalization in the Kansas City Star. He offers some ideas, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on them.

Today’s Action(s)

Ok, here’s a checklist for the week. See what happens.

• Remove social media apps from your phone. I know. Just try it for the week.

• Pick up a news source outside your usual watch or read. If you only watch Fox, consider checking out The New York Times. And vice versa.

• Don’t comment on a post. If you know the person, wait 24 hours and then reach out directly with calm thoughts by email, phone, or in person.

To paraphrase the poet Robert Frost, the only way out is through.

We have to push through this mess together.