OLLA MOKHTAR
campus editor
olla.mokhtar@my.tccd.edu
Black Lives Matter, femicide and the women’s rights issue in Iran are just a few out of the many movements that have gained popularity, but the route to which educating the people about them seems to puzzle some.
A rise of educational videos on different movements are constantly being displayed on social media across different platforms.
The amount of movements are countless. While some are personable and others are not, they all hold a significant amount of importance to at least one person.
TR senate chair of SGA Maya Nassibian is personally an advocate for bodily autonomy and volunteers with a program called ENGin that teaches Ukrainian people to speak English.
“We have made many great strides in advocating for human rights in the past couple of years,” Nassibian said. “I advocate for all of the movements, such as BLM, and women’s rights in Iran. Not through a sense of obligation, but because everyone deserves equal rights no matter who they are.”
She acknowledges it is a great resource but has no guilt if she chooses to skip on some educational videos.
“When I had social media, at times I would stop and read all of the posts about a certain event or watch a whole video on something that was a popular topic in the media,” she said. “After deleting all of my social media about a year ago, I do not feel guilty at all.”
Nassibian recognizes that the posts were helpful as opposed to overwhelming.
“Seeing all of the posts about how terrible people and the world are made me fearful of other people, and have a strong hatred for those who didn’t agree with me,” Nassibian said. “Ignoring issues that happen on the news has made me have a much more positive outlook on life. It’s helped me dedicate my time to helping the causes I am passionate about.”
Connect student Addie Emery does not feel the so-called guilt after deleting social media.
“I never feel guilt, but if someone sends me a video I tend to watch the whole thing out of respect,” Emery said. “But I do not feel guilty if something pops up and I’m not interested. Societal pressures do not affect me as far as social media goes.”
SE student Toni Fernández agrees with Emery and Nassibian, and proposes a different route to educating.
“You shouldn’t be forced to be an activist,” Fernández said. “Sometimes it’s forced upon you, and you don’t know about it so you can’t really speak on it. The way to do it is to actually educate people and not fear mongering. There’s different ways to do it other than guilt tripping.”
