silly facebook, tricks are not for kids

Oh here we go again. I am going to rant about Facebook… all the while, of course, posting this to my Facebook feed so people will read this to see how vexed I am with Facebook.

I shouldn’t be surprised, really, that someone somewhere came up with another gimmick to raise ‘awareness.’ And of course, the methodology of raising awareness is self-exhibitionism. Well, congratulations people, you made the world look at you. But you added a postscript that you were doing it to attract attention to child abuse. So your walk down memory lane is somehow… a philanthropic effort towards childhood fancy and not childish.

Of course, I realize, that by arguing against this, I am buying into the very absurdity that drives me crazy. And it does drive me crazy. Because… I’m sorry, world, putting a picture or an enigmatic phrase on your Facebook profile does not do anything except generate a lot of silly conversation.

Meanwhile, in the real world…

Thursday night my work held our semi-annual family celebration. It’s actually one of my favorite events of my job. Even if I spend the entire evening saturating my hands with pizza grease. But it is worth it, to see the kids who go through our programs, to see the parents of those kids come and get an idea of what the kids do when they take a bus to Roxbury and get a chance to see things from other perspectives. I see the love those kids have for our actors, for the opportunity to participate, for our songs… and okay, let’s not forget. Pizza.

This week we had half the number of anticipated families. Why? Because the city of Boston has to make budget cuts. The city has to make some difficult decisions and close schools. And Thursday night was the first of several meetings to give these families a voice to protest the end of their schools. I see both sides of this issue. My sister works with city budgets – school budgets – so I hear her laments of unnecessary spending, of unions standing in the way… of the poor getting screwed because there just isn’t any money to fix this.

Now, before I go further, I want to clarify that I don’t equate child abuse with low income or the inner city. Abuse comes in all levels of wealth. Indeed, I had a mentee last year who had a very strong, supportive family. But… I observed her peers who were not as fortunate… who needed those schools to go somewhere, to have a teacher to believe in them and give them a bit of hope they might not find some place else.

Maybe the school isn’t the answer. Maybe it isn’t even the issue. But it INFURIATES me that I posted something about this on Facebook the other day and no one noticed, no one commented. I don’t take that too personally… I put a lot of political stuff on Facebook. Sometimes it gets attention. Sometimes it spurs a few comments. And I know a lot of it just blends into everything else. But this cartoon rigmarole? This gets attention. Not because it addresses an issue. Oh please, do not give me that. It gets attention because everyone wants to put a cartoon in their picture box and feel good and not feel stupid.

I’m not criticizing the picture. I put Louise Brooks and Sarah Bernhardt and Norma Shearer in my profile picture almost all the time. But I don’t say I do it to raise awareness for oppression or objectification of women. I do it because I think it looks cool. 

If kids matter to you, grow up. Abuse is not a cartoon. Abuse is not two dimensional or nostalgic. Kids are human beings. Flesh and blood. Not ink and paper.