Apathy towards injustice is toxic. We have become so entangled in conversational clouds on social media that we honestly feel that ‘shares’ and ‘likes’ are making a direct impact. This helps to a certain degree, but it does not solve the problems plaguing our nation today.
Photo credit: Avery White
By Ryan VizzionsMonday August 27, 2018 06:10 PM EDT
Ryan Vizzions is an internationally recognized independent photojournalist, activist, and artist focused on human and civil rights. Ryan’s work has been included in 2016’s best photos by People Magazine, Mic.com & Artsy.net. In 2017, his work again placed in “Photos of the Year” by ABC News and Guardian, and his photography was highlighted at the Nobel Peace forums. Two-time winner of Creative Loafing’s “Best of” awards, Vizzions’ work is represented by Monroe Gallery of Photography in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Ryan Vizzions: Questions like this have no single answer. We face a myriad of issues that impact a wide range of people across the country. Answering this question requires a broader approach.
Apathy. Apathy towards injustice is toxic. We have become so entangled in conversational clouds on social media that we honestly feel that ‘shares’ and ‘likes’ are making a direct impact. This helps to a certain degree, but it does not solve the problems plaguing our nation today.
To stop injustice and defend what’s right, it takes boots on the ground and people pounding the pavement. The Civil Rights Movement was effective because the oppressed banded together, took to the streets, and refused to be silent. They made their voices heard.
Currently, our country is devolving into a pseudo reality show, much like the one that our president was birthed from. It’s a false notion that internet dialog will directly impact change. However, it does help bring awareness to the issues that require our attention. It gets people mad, but too often, within a week, people move on to the next issues to be upset about.
Dedication is the key to the game. We have a very short attention span that tends to only focus on the latest hot-button issue. When the spotlight shifts, those issues still exist, but lack the support system it previously had.
Change takes dedication, commitment, and sacrifice. People feel that they are doing something by sharing information, but in reality, most are sharing with the expectation that someone else is going to pick up the slack and step up to confront issues. Unfortunately, this rarely happens. Social media becomes an echo chamber. We need to bring that outrage out of the social clouds and into the streets where it can be effective.
Ryan Vizzions: Get involved. It starts with the youth. In a decade, they will be the new generation of young leaders. We need to nurture that. Pull them away from the internet. Encourage them to go outside and play, interact with other children, and understand how to communicate face-to-face. Let them be children. Let them get dirty, make mistakes, solve problems, work together, and build vital confidence for the future.
As adults, we need to become more involved as well. It’s overwhelming to consider every problem facing everyone. Nobody can take them all on. Find something you are truly passionate about. Find something you want to improve and dig your heels in. You don’t need to dedicate your entire life to it, but if everyone gave a little, a lot can get accomplished. Whether it’s police injustice or your school’s lunch program, dedicate yourself to learning, understanding, and changing that with which you are unhappy.
Ryan Vizzions: I am a huge fan of grassroots campaigns. Over the years, I have put less and less faith into our elected officials and more faith in the power of the people. Politicians are fallible and can certainly be bought. No matter what they say, everyone has a price when it comes to individual leadership and the insatiable quest for power. Lobbyists push their corporate agendas, valuing profit over people.
I was able to witness the true power of a leaderless movement when I was at Standing Rock. Parts came together as a whole. Collaboration is the power of true democracy. One singular person cannot and should not unilaterally decide for the collective. A community can decide what’s best for itself.
Now, with that said, it’s important to understand the nuance of grassroots activism. Protesting in the streets fosters community involvement and brings awareness to issues. However, protesting itself does not enact change. True change comes from frontline activism of non-violent direct action. Want to impact a bank funding American Indian oppression? Encourage people to divest from that bank. Take the money out of their hands and lessen their power. Not happy with ICE deportations? Lock yourself to the front door of the Immigration Detention Centers. Force them to deal with you.
John Lewis and the Freedom Riders were front-liners. Harriet Tubman was a front-liner. Those who sat at “whites only” counters and drank from “whites only” fountains were front-liners. The marches provide much-needed support, but it’s those who face consequences who shift the tides of momentum for a movement and inspire the marches in the first place.
Ryan Vizzions: Now, for those who have read this far into this interview, this is where I get to explain a little bit about my experience with social media’s role in activism. I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to cover the #NODAPL (Standing Rock) movement in North Dakota in 2016. I worked hand in hand with the tribes to help stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. I was placed in charge of media check-ins and ran one of the most successful social media campaigns for the movement.
Through photojournalism, my work reached the eyes of roughly half a billion people. A Facebook page I created to share photos of the movement went viral and climbed from 400 followers to over 250K followers in less than two months. During the movement, my page alone reached over 91 million people. It helped spread awareness for the movement. People all around the world, thanks to my page and others, began to stand up. Bank divestment campaigns were started, and people protested in the streets. It really fired folks up.
Despite all of this exposure, none of it was stopping the pipeline. What was stopping the pipeline were the front-liners, the warriors, those locking down the pipeline equipment, those being shot with rubber bullets and being sprayed with tear gas for holding their ground. They were the people that created awareness in the first place. Articles and photos are all good and well, but it takes actual people taking actual risks to make those stories worth telling and sharing. Despite the six months I spent covering #NODAPL, the government sold out the people’s interest in favor of the pipeline company.
Ryan Vizzions: To be honest, I have been fairly out of touch with Atlanta activism over the last couple years. I have been on the road for the most part until recently. After six months at Standing Rock, I traveled through the country to various resistance camps, touched back home for a minute, then took off to Puerto Rico in October of last year to cover the island after hurricane Maria devastated it. I’ve been back in Atlanta for a few months now, but it has been more of a recuperating period. I’ve been working on a couple projects, but they mostly relate to the Midwest.
I was able to get involved with a few anti-ICE events here in the city that I heard about through friends who do a lot of great work here in Atlanta. If you want to learn more about the challenges facing immigrants, I would recommend the Atlanta-based group Southerners on New Ground (SONG).
Ryan Vizzions: Physically get involved. Every action makes an impact. Whether it’s marching in the streets or making sandwiches and giving them to those in need, every act of kindness helps form a stronger sense of community. Atlanta has a legacy to uphold and we must ensure that legacy stays intact. Get off your phone on occasion and put those feet to the ground. Get to know your neighbors or visit a neighborhood you don’t often visit. Spend your money in communities that need your support. Shop local, spend at small business, buy bottles of water from the children on the side of the road, etc. It’s the culmination of many small actions that eventually erupts into impact.
One of the most important problems facing Americans today is our loss of focus on living together as one nation. Because we are more divided in many ways, we are losing ground in the global landscape and will not be able to compete on a global scale if we don’t figure out how to work in accordance with one another.
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There are so many problems we’re facing, it’s overwhelming: systemic racism, sexism, ageism, inequity, homelessness, marginalization, immigration policy, school shootings/gun violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, climate change … this is an incomplete list, and I feel sick to my stomach thinking about it. Much of it stems from hatred and fear of “the other.” It feels like we’ve lost a basic sense of human decency.
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I want very badly to name the issues of poverty, wealth inequality, and class oppression, but all of these are intertwined with, and compounded by, the problem of race, difference, and grappling honestly with America’s history and identity. I have a metaphor for this process, it is a cracked egg with the yoke running long.
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Healthcare is a human right. That means ensuring that every person doesn’t just have access to health care, but has the ability to afford health care.
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Apathy towards injustice is toxic. We have become so entangled in conversational clouds on social media that we honestly feel that ‘shares’ and ‘likes’ are making a direct impact. This helps to a certain degree, but it does not solve the problems plaguing our nation today.
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The biggest problem facing Americans today is the stark difference between where we have made progress in this country under the Obama Administration and where the Trump Administration is going. With regards to the Trump Administration right now on immigration and voting rights, we believe they are moving in a direction against the values of most Americans.
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I believe that racial discord remains the most divisive issue facing Americans. It continues to suppress wages for all and promotes anger that leads to violence within the oppressed communities. Remove racist symbolism and implement long-term remedies to counter the long-term legacies of discrimination.
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Of all the global issues facing us, including biggies like climate change and nuclear war, what troubles me currently is the rise of fascism in governments around the world. This is what also troubles me about America. People are emboldened to openly discriminate and hate because our elected officials represent values of hate.
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The most important problem facing Americans today is partisan politics that removes empathy from the conversation toward compromise on the real issues that are affecting everyday Americans. Everything is viewed through the lens of tribal political division, when the solutions to most problems facing the nation can be solved through bipartisan collaboration.
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There are so many things that need to be fixed but somehow we need to stop the OTHER mentality. Trying to embrace difference — and understanding that our differences are what make us stronger — will lead to a better unity within our populations. We spend so much time hating and singling out those that are different. If we used that energy to come together we could make a better life for all of us.
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Atlanta and America have never participated in reparations for its genocide, land theft, and displacement of indigenous peoples, its kidnapping and enslavement of African peoples, or its destabilization, colonization and assassinations in other nations. So, in 2018, what we are still faced with is the displacement, incarceration, and murder of black and brown people in this city, this country, and this globe.
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The most important problem facing all of us is our increasing inability to work with and get along with those who don’t share our views. I know it’s a cliché, but “United we stand, divided we fall.”
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The most serious issue for all Americans is the very real risk of our democracy being taken away, which is happening on a daily basis. There are so many issues: racism, human rights, climate change denial, guns, income equality, lack of a universal heathcare system, police brutality, tearing refugee families apart and putting them in interment camps, our status in the world and how we interact with other nations, and a government party in charge that refuses to act in the best interest of the American people.
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The greatest problem facing USA citizens today, is how to become a global citizen without having an imperialist or colonial mentality. The greatest problem facing Atlanta today is how to move from the white and black mentality to become a multicultural city in action and not in words only.
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Greed. The only consistent measure of success is wealth. If you’re so good, so smart, so talented, why aren’t you rich? Why should anybody listen to you? You’re accomplished, but if you’re poor, you haven’t “succeeded.” Rich, therefore smart. Rich, therefore good. There’s a paucity of everything, so you’d better have dough. If you’re needy, it’s because that’s what you deserve. Loss of wealth is loss of power, loss of status.
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The most important problem is the denial of the problem. Most white people have been lulled into the myth of a “post-racial” America. Research on implicit bias and the persistence of numerous forms of institutional racism, including in the criminal justice system, demonstrate the reality of racism in 2018. A much greater threat than hate crimes and organized white supremacists is our inability to address core issues like white privilege and internalized white supremacy. We cannot progress until we have that honest reckoning. Atlanta paints itself as the city “too busy to hate,” but it’s been too busy to do the real work to begin to heal the very old wounds of its racist history.
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The most important problem facing Americans today is the pervasive ideology of white settler colonialism. By this I mean that we live with a way of thinking brought over to America that goes back as far as the English Reformation in the 16th century — the belief that God has ordained a select group of white people to claim land — regardless of who might already have been on it — as a God-given right.
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“The most important problem facing Americans today” is that we have so many problems that rotate in and out of first place that we cannot choose and therefore cannot answer the question. The second part of the question is easier (for me). Atlanta’s most important problem is a subset of a national problem.
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A decline in trust. We’re losing opportunities to get to know each other. We spend all kinds of time and money creating our own private, secluded spaces, both in the physical world and online, where we don’t have to encounter people who look or think differently than we do.
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The most urgent problem facing not just Atlanta, but all of humanity, is the fact the U.S. is now ruled by a fascist regime (Trump/Pence) set on reshaping society in a way that will be catastrophic for humanity and the planet.
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One of the most important problems facing America is the widening income inequality/economic mobility gap. For many, the “American Dream” is just that, a dream they will never realize. Many of the social and political challenges we are dealing with today stem from this problem.
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The list is long and it’s all really important. But most of the things on that list have a root cause, and I think it’s greed. People’s desire for power and wealth outweighs their humanity and their ability to see humanity in others.
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