Empathy and Civic Engagement

          Civic Engagement is such broad term. If you asked a group of people about how you would define it everyone would give different definitions. If you asked how they choose participate in civic engagement, they would probably give different answers as well. I think that how a person would answer these questions is greatly affected by his/her upbringing and surroundings growing up. As children, we are so vulnerable to outside influences. Ideals taught by our parents become what we believe in for the future when we are adults.
          Being raised by parents who emigrated here from Vietnam, I learned from my parents to be grateful for everything a stranger does for you. Coming to a completely different country must have been such a devastating change filled with many hardships which was why they were so grateful for volunteers who helped them to assimilate. Because of this, I choose to participate in civic engagement by helping immigrants who are facing the same problems my parents faced years ago.
          These childhood experiences ultimately creates empathy which plays a large part in why people choose to help with different causes. The emotional connection with the work that you do for other people is so important to volunteering. Without this emotional connection you most likely will not have the motivation to commit everything to your task. I believe that in order to feel like you've actually done good, you have to be able to really understand another person's situation, to put yourself in another person's shoes.
          This is probably why people choose to donate to different charities or why they choose to commit their time for a certain causes. Although I think that all service does not need to have this level of intimacy, it is just more beneficial for both parties involved. Volunteering, for me, should bridge gaps and connect people who would otherwise never associate with each other. Through volunteering, you find small similarities and experiences that create empathy. When you perform service for a cause that you don't feel a personal connection, you lose a very important chance for emotional and personal growth for yourself and for the person you are helping.

My role in slacktivism

       Previously, civic engagement never played a integral role in my life. In actuality, until being granted the opportunity this semester to participate in this class, I remained ignorant on the very definition of civic engagement. While I have always participated in various volunteering opportunities, never could I fully grasp the concept that the aid I was providing to others could be considered civic engagement. Although throughout our class discussions, the discovery that civic engagement can be viewed from multiple perspectives was made apparent to me. Unfortunately I have come to the realization that perhaps I seemingly embody more of a sense of slacktivism, rather than one of true civic engagement. Perhaps there are more people like me, who hope to stray from the confines of simple slacktivism, and begin forming the mold to become a true activist. In order to fully comprehend the role slacktivism plays on activism, I'll attempt to analyze it's effects on not only the masses, but also myself.
There is a stark contrast between true activism and slacktivism. While slacktivism can be considered a form of some-what involvement, it lacks some of the principles of true activism. Slacktivism is a coined-named, which can be defined as supporting a cause without direct involvement. That is not to say that slacktivism cannot be utilized as an important tool for raising awareness. Slacktivism and social media can go hand-in-hand, in part due to the accessibility of social media, and it's ability to spread awareness rapidly and globally. Have you ever considered what you are contributing to by "liking" and "reblogging/retweeting" items on social media? Has one ever wondered how by completing a simple action such as clicking a mouse, one can contribute to a great cause? It may seem as if it is a meaningless action to many, but those people are blind to the contributions slacktivism can provide in this way.
Kony 2012 was a video which had the foundation to truly made a great change in the world. Although the organizations credibility was diminished with the accussations and controversy surrounding the filmmaker, the organizations efforts can be analyzed in order determine the importance slacktivism played in it's success. When first presented with the video, I was overcome with a sense of shock. This issue was one that was unknown to me before, and before going foward with any research on this organization, I gave them my approval. This occurred right away due to me viewing this organization seemed to me as if it was fighting a just cause, a point of view most people would agree with. Now that I reflect back I find it rather strange how easily I was able to throw my support for organizations I barely knew. In the same instance that I finished viewing the video, I quickly shared and reblogged the video to all my peers.
One distinct memory I have of the emergence of the Kony video, would be the overwhelming sense of activism I felt toward the cause. After the conclusion of the video, it was as if I felt as strongly as the filmmakers did about this particular cause. The strange situation occurred when I was consumed with a sense of activism, how I only supported the cause through slacktivism. I didn't donate to the cause, yet I still felt apart of it through simply sharing it's information with others. The debate occurs when this sense of "activism" comes into question. It's not as if I was trekking through Africa in an attempt to halt Joseph Kony myself, or as if I was even donating some of my own income to the cause. I simply felt the spirit of activism through the simple action of spreading awareness. Before our class discussion on slactivism, I just attributed that feeling to my own previous ignorance, but through this discussion I have come to the realization that perhaps my good intentions may have contributed after all. My actions, while not being a form of direct activism, had the intentions to transition from slacktivism to activism. In my own eyes, I view slacktivism as having the ability of being a confine, but also the intial step into activism. My actions did aid in raising awareness for the cause, even if by unconventional means.

"Raising awareness is a lazy objective. Awareness is a given, action is what you want to promote." -Christina LaFon

An inherent problem of society with slacitivism is the very lack of direct participation. Slacktivism, while not consisting of direct involvement, seeks to encourage "slacktivist" to engage in this direct participation. It seemingly takes the role of that first step people take on the road to true activism. The conflict of slacktivism being "not enough" or not a true form of "activism" still astounds me. Although slacktivism may not provide organizations with direct participation, it still provides a means of engagement. When true activist attack or view slacktivist as "lazy", I am astounded. I see this as if you are making fun of someone for volunteering in a soup kitchen because you've volunteered in an activity of higher esteem. Volunteering and activism come in various forms, to call one of those forms "lazy" is to attack the very ideals of civic engagement. Civic Engagement can be defined as active citizens participating in the life of a community, in order to further improve conditions for others, and help mold that community's future. Civic Engagement is the coming together of people who have a common goal, and all pursue to achieve that goal through various means. Instead of attacking those who participate in slacktivism by calling them lazy, perhaps we can encourage them in their efforts. Through this, there is the chance that they could transition from simply clicking a mouse, to participating in marches and volunteering
Here is an article I found to be quite profound and interesting, which delves into the various components of the utilization of slacktivism through social media sources such as Facebook. The article illuminates "the trap" people fall into when they allow their activism to be restricted by the confines of slacktivism.

http://www.fastcoexist.com/3032824/6-reasons-why-were-slacktivists-the-psychology-of-liking-causes-on-facebook

How I feel about civic engagement.

There’s a broad understanding of what civic engagement entails. According to Adler and Goggin, “Civic engagement describes how an active citizen participates in the life of a community in order to improve conditions for others or to help shape their community’s future.” This definition only provides a general criterion rather than a comprehensive list of what an active citizen is able to do. Because of this, many people are not as inclined to civically engage as others are; not that they are lazy and choose not to be involved but that they are ignorant of all they ways they are able to contribute and make a difference according to their situation.

I like to think that the world is ideal, that if there was a way for all of us to contribute to society we will move forward and take a first step towards making a change. Although it may be silly to say, I believe everyone has a heart but not everyone has the open mindedness to use their heart to reach out in support for a cause if they don’t have to. One example that Peter Singer posed in his TED talk "The why and how of altruism", he tells us the story of a two year old girl run over by a van and was ignored by three people as she bled to her death. He asked the audience if they would help her, almost everyone raised their hands. When he compared that situation to a website about malaria and said that many kids are dying from malaria and people were not donating. He essentially chided the audience and told them that there were many ways to donate, and no one had the open-mindedness to look up charities that would have saved lives. When you show people a video of an impoverished town being torn apart, they will cringe at the musty situations of these towns and almost none will criticize the town’s inability to sustain themselves. In this instance, people would be more likely to extend a hand than to question the efforts of the government (which is also another way of helping the town). We people don't thoroughly research and that makes us ignorant of all the possibilities.  

Many people don’t know how to engage themselves in the community because they believe that there is a certain guideline to being active and being active so that their efforts are worthwhile. When David Campbell posed the question, “What is civic engagement?” there was never really a unanimous answer.  This is because Civic Engagement transpires through the different knowledge and experiences gained as a people become more involved with the society.  Civic engagement is what you make of it, in the long run, someone will always be watching and someone will always appreciate a helping hand. Although there are better alternatives to civically engage, there are no right or wrong civic engagements; there are no bad improvements or bad contributions.

It’s a very simplistic idea. Actions speak louder than words. I think that we all need to be less critical about the work that is being done to improve and more critical of the work that isn’t being done. We have to think more of the other chances provided to us; less of the changes we have already made but more of the little changes we can make in the future.

The Power of a Hashtag; #WLC14

Before this summer social media was something I participated in for the sol purpose of making people laugh, complaining about my day, and admiring celebrities from afar. While these are all good reasons to be active on social media accounts I never thought there was much affect from a tweet or Facebook post. This July I found out that the affect may not come from a singular person, but rather a collective group. 

HOBY (Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership) is a non profit organization that I have volunteered with for the last four years. It begins as a leadership conference for high school sophomores and then as an alum there are a multitude of post conference opportunities including the World Leadership Congress (WLC), participating in international service trips, attending Global Youth Summits, and volunteering with the local alumni association. I attended my local leadership conference as a high school sophomore and then attended the World Leadership Congress, hosted in Chicago, the following summer. HOBY in short, has empowered me, motivated me, and quite frankly, changed my life.

This summer I had the extraordinary opportunity to be selected as a volunteer to go back to Chicago for the World Leadership Congress. While I was all geared up and ready to volunteer for ten days, the seminar chair asked us to start using #WLC14 in preparation for the week. In the beginning I thought a hashtag was just a clever way to get volunteers to find each other on twitter, but in the end it was much more than that. 

Before the conference had even started students and volunteers alike were connecting through various forms of social media including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Before you could even think about it, people were expanding their social capital without even attending the leadership conference yet! As alumni of the organization, they had previously formed exclusive bonding social capital with their local HOBY and local alumni association, but then they begun to bridge their connections with a diverse group of students that they had not even encountered yet!

As the week of the conference moved along in the program there were specially designated times for what we called “Social Media Blitzes”. During this time students and volunteers would get together and use their social media to tweet about the great speakers, panelists or activities that we had participated in throughout the day. Often they were direct quotes that moved the students or a thank you to a panelist, but each post always included #WLC14 and often “mentioned” a specific person or organization. These organizations then started taking note of how many students were impacted by what they were hearing. Students immediately started tweeting and direct messaging with these organizations to make a difference in their local communities through fundraising and events. They had already made contact with organizations all the while still being in Chicago!

Over the span of a week, #WLC14 trended four times nationally because of these social media blitzes. Volunteer organizations all over the country started following students and the social capital of 402 students and over 50 volunteers was immensely growing. As a group we had reached out to Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education for the US, and cool enough, he replied back with a video message about his support of HOBY and the World Leadership Congress. It is with the help of a large group that the message got across to Duncan. 

When watching the “Is Social Media Sparking Civic Engagement?” video with Cary Booker, I couldn’t help but remember this experience I had this summer. The idea that a group of people who wouldn’t normally be seen as having a voice (urban communities in New Jersey as the case with Booker and the youth of America as in my case) now have the power to reach out to institutions and governmental figures in order to engage in civic life and influence others. Like Booker said, times are changing and the traditional government is now adapting to new social standards. Because of this idea, a group of individuals from all over the world were able to reach out to people on social media and not only expand their social capital, but show that a group of people, and a simple hashtag can reach others.  

I challenge you all to think of your personal experiences with social media and in particular, hashtags. Have you ever reached out to an organization or governmental figure on social media? Have you ever become civically engaged with a hashtag? And finally, do you think having the resources to reach out and engage with these individuals or organizations on social media make it easier to be civically engaged? I’m interested to hear other peoples thoughts and experiences! 

For Politics: Hashtag the struggle is real

It's understandable why one wouldn't want to get into politics -- politics is intimidating. There is a lot of conflict that can get to be really passionate. In the world of politics, a lot of lies and misinformation fly around; it's hard to get a grasp of what's really going on and what to be confident in. Not to mention, you can probably go your whole life and never get involved, and still be relatively content. So why bother?

Are there things that go on in this world that you don't agree with? I'm sure there's got to be something. Institutional suffering of animals from birth until death and mass slaughtering of them; child slavery in Ghana and the Ivory Coast; people in the very city you're living in going hungry every night; immense amounts of soil erosion from unsustainable farming practices -- these are all things that not only may you be unaware of, but that you may potentially be contributing to if you enjoy eating meat, eating chocolate, and indiscriminately buying food in general.

You can make the choice to go vegan, you can make the choice to buy only fair trade or from farmers' markets, and you can make the choice to spend some of your own free time to help get food into food banks -- these are all valid choices to make on the individual level to help make whatever small differences possible in regards to these occurrences that you may not agree with, or at least to remove your own personal responsibility from them. But so what? It makes you feel better, reduces cognitive dissonance, but are you making a difference in this world? To some extent, you may be.

Most big decisions are made within government, however. The president only has so much power. The community you live in has budgets and plans that are determined by people in office. Different people, whether they're people in office or people in the community, have different views, as obvious as that may sound. But I think it's an important point to make -- while someone may think it's important that less people go hungry at night, others are concerned that enacting a policy that will prevent hunger will enable people to take advantage of whatever benefits the government may offer as assistance and contribute less to society. This is just one of the examples of the major conflicts in politics. While one policy may have one intention, it may bring about other effects.

I know I didn't make thinking about politics any easier; that was never my intention. I think it's important to understand all of the ambiguities and struggles that come with thinking about politics. I think it's important not to avoid thinking about these things. Understand what's important to you and participate in this lively, interesting game of democracy; it's frustrating, but kind of fun when you get into it. Constantly challenge your own beliefs. Understand why others are voting opposite of why you are. I believe that this is the best way to understand and appreciate what politics are. Then, look at who is running, and what they are supporting, and choose your candidate.

Validation tends to come in numbers, and maybe, in some senses, that's why democracy can work. However, we need participation in order to validate democracy itself. Challenging your own beliefs can help to legitimize what you really think and help you to stray from the aggressive influence of mainstream media and find yourself. Dig deep. Represent yourself. Help and shape society in the way that you see fit.

Thanks for reading. Hope it's provoked some fresh thoughts, uncomfortable feelings, or just some cool ideas.

Why do we participate in Civic Engagement?

In addition to taking Foundations of Civic Engagement, I am also taking American Revolution and the Founding of the United States. Both these classes focus on society and how they've changed as a result of civic engagement; coincidentally they both have got me thinking about why people get involved in civic engagement to begin with.

Prior to the 1760s the American Colonies were pretty much left alone from the British Empire, they were part of it, but they mostly governed themselves. Following the end of the Seven Years War and the ceasing of internal turmoil in the English government, the Empire decided to focus a bit more on the American Colonies. Imposing taxation laws and threatening to take away property and privileges they had known for so long, the American colonists believed Parliament to be corrupted. And, going off 18th century political thought, they believed their nation could only survive if the government remained virtuous. Building on that, they believed that they were being more British than Parliament standing up for their liberty and did not even want to break away from the Empire until 1776!

A couple weeks ago when we skyped with Professor Campbell's students from Turkey we got a whole new perspective on civic engagement. They were pushing for a more democratic Turkey because that is where they lived and they felt the everyday effects of a less than democratic nation that they lived in. They, similar to the American colonists, thought it to be their duty and responsibility to stand up and defend their liberty for democracy.

I think both of these examples show the reason why participation in civic engagement might be less in America now than it was 238 years ago. It also might explain why people in Turkey or nations with less than democratic principles often have people fighting for their liberties. These people feel the everyday force of a non democratic government and rather than taking on civic engagement as an afterthought, it is a necessity.

After all, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington never wanted their position, but instead they believed it was their responsibility to uphold them. Do you think we should hold these thoughts on our responsibilities?

Where I Found Civic Engagement

            When getting involved in a volunteer project, I think there are many components that contribute to whether it was truly civic engagement or not. I would like to focus on the learning experiences that come with new volunteer experiences and activities. At the end of this summer, I came back to school a week early, along with nine other volunteers, to be a service mentor in a new program called the Welcome Week Service Project. It was a three day project that brought in a group of incoming freshman a week early so that they could jump into volunteering right from the beginning of their college career. There were multiple different service sites, and the mentors and students were broken up and assigned to one of the four. If given the choice, I would have chosen to work with the group that was assigned to the Discovery Center. I sincerely enjoy working with kids, and I find myself pretty good at it. However, I was assigned to the group that was help out at BU Acres, a small new farm on the Binghamton University campus.

            Although this was not my first choice in service projects, I still believe that this was an important community project, not only because of the work we accomplished at the farm, but what we learned while doing it. On our first day at the site, before we began any work, the director of the BU acres farm, Sean Cummings, gave us an overview of the goals and hopes for greater sustainability at BU Acres. He explained to us how they are using compost and cardboard garbage from our campus to create an edible forest garden in the space they have available. He also gave us some information on the harvesting they do there and informed us that most of the food they grow is brought back to the CIW dining hall to be served. I found it very interesting to see how the materials used on our campus come full circle and are used to produce more food. Our second day of the project was when I started to see how important it is know the context of the service work you’re doing to really be civically engaged. Sean Cummings took the time to explain to us the current status of hunger in Binghamton and Broome County. He explained to us that most of this region is considered a food desert, meaning that there is a lack of affordable, quality groceries within a certain distance. This is something that especially affects those who do not have a car and have to rely on public transportation. Going into my sophomore year, I was still unaware of the severity of hunger in the city that I spent most of my last year in.

            Working at BU Acres was certainly not my first, or even second, choice when it came to the welcome week service project. When I was presented with the opportunity, I was more interested in the “mentor” aspect of the position. I was looking forward to meeting some incoming freshmen and encouraging them to “get involved” right off the bat. Honestly, most of the freshman in my group weren’t too happy about the location they were assigned to either. However, I think we were the group that got the most out of this experience (even though there was another group that got to go to the Ross Park Zoo and play with penguins). The other mentors and I really tried to encourage the freshmen in our group to realize why the work they were doing was so important to their new community. After two days, we left our service site with a deeper understanding of the hunger problem in Binghamton, the organizations that are working to end that problem, and how we can help them. I think our group reached the point of civic engagement because we were informed about the cause we were helping and we left our service site with an understanding that more than an occasional visit to a soup kitchen is necessary to improve hunger in Binghamton.

If anyone is interested in more information about BU Acres I attached a link to a Pipe Dream article that explains more about their project and their Facebook page:

http://www.bupipedream.com/news/22946/farm-fresh-bu-student-farmers-bring-more-locally-grown-organic-options-for-on-campus-dining/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Binghamton-University-Acres-Farm/107382186122882