We are fighting on the wrong front
Loss Leader #8: Nazis, strippers, Kylie Jenner and ice cream.
This is meant to be a newsletter on leadership. Examples of how it’s done. Teachable demonstrations of meaningful achievement through the thoughtful application of strategy, inspiration, introspection, cultural insight, team development, planning, bravery, foresight and compassion. It’s meant to be about ways to make things better.
I wanted it to be a shot in the arm. Today, it will be an alarm bell.
It’s Dereliction of Duty all the way down.
Huge swaths of the global population are currently being radicalized through online forums. Hatred is spreading faster than the coronavirus and it is infecting people at an alarming rate. This is a massive threat to democracy and a daily threat to people’s lives.
A group peacefully protesting against racism was violently attacked by white supremacists in Red Deer, Alta. A 37-year old named Joyce Echaquan died in pain while recording the racist taunts of the Quebec hospital staff around her. Mohamed-Aslim Zafis was murdered in front of his Toronto mosque by a man who follows O9A, which encourages violence, rape, and murder. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh was harassed on the streets of Ottawa. An armed man drove from Winnipeg to confront the Prime Minister. Viola Desmond’s headstone in Halifax was vandalized. A Nazi came third in the last Toronto Mayoral election. A 10-year-old Black boy in Ottawa was called the N-word by other kids who then broke his arm. Six in 10 girls in Canada have been subjected to online abuse and harassment, according to a new study by Plan Canada.
And that’s the specific stuff off the top of my head. People also think Wayfair is selling children. They think birds aren’t real. Nearly half of young Americans aren’t sure if the Holocaust really happened. QAnon adherents are infiltrating Instagram and the US Congress.
Where is the leadership to counter this collective decay? Who is doing more than clucking their tongue and calling for civility?
The truth is that most of those in power remain woefully disconnected from the terrain where dangerous tides of racism, anti-Semitism and misogyny are crashing over us: the vast unregulated and unchecked geography of the Internet.
And so we are fighting on the wrong front and we are wielding the wrong weapons.
Yes, there are those who are loudly raising alarms, including a group that called this week on the federal government to develop an action plan to dismantle white supremacy groups.
But what more could be done?
We need to call the threat by its name. We are fighting radicalization, not misinformation. This is not about freedom of speech, it's about incitement to violence.
Government and other leaders need to educate themselves on the scale and realities of on line radicalization, and unite around the need for action and ability to change the landscape. No more characterizing this as trolls in the basement. No more advertising on Facebook. Charges. Legislation. Action.
There are those in the media who are covering the problem, but most are not and continue to refer to white supremacists as “counter protesters” while failing to assign journalists or resources to shed real light on the issue.
Reddit closed forums dedicated to QAnon in 2018 because of calls for violence, relying on the simple framework that they “try to police behaviours, not beliefs.” Linkedin is also cracking down on the recent flood of QAnon posts, trying to stop the spread on the platform “in its infancy.” With Facebook and Twitter refusing to adequately crack down, some are suggesting that the path to regulation is found in the anti-smoking playbook, which enumerated the cost of second-hand smoke to force government action.
Workplaces, too, must recognize that their employees can be infected by this hatred, as was the case in the Joliette hospital. A template was developed after 9/11 to identify and help address the potential for Islamic radicalization among employees (which few people seemed to let slide on the basis of free speech) and employers and colleagues may be the first in a position to spot signs of danger.
But most importantly, we must understand, invest in and massively scale the interventions that actually work, learning from academics and other groups that are studying these radicalized communities to actually grasp the appeal and spot the appropriate opportunities and paths for intervention.
Fact checks are not going to do it. Anyone who’s ever argued with an anti-vaxxer knows this. Radicalization relies on the masterful manipulation of psychological insights and technological tools. We must counter hatred by putting these same tools in the hands of the resistance. We must use them to steer people back to the light.
Basically we need to weaponize Daryl Davis. Let me know if you want to invest.
Shake what your momma gave you
When a friend sent me a link to a viral video of some Atlanta strippers performing a song called “Get your booty to the poll” I was reluctant to describe it as leadership. This was my own bias, an initial hangup about women sexualizing their worth as a way to amplify their opinions. But then I watched it. And I read about the women behind the campaign.
They prioritized a message about down-ballot issues that matter to their communities and their clientele. They consulted organizations like the Black Male Voter Project to reach their intended audience of disenfranchised Black men. They spent about 12K on the video, most of which went to keep people on set safe from COVID-19 and to pay the dancers involved, most of whom had lost work because of the pandemic. One of the dancers involved, Coy Malone, said she wanted more people in her community to understand that their vote affected which judges are elected, which DAs, which taxes and laws were introduced.
"We're an audience and a people that don't think we have power or a say so or a big influence on the world,"she said. "And we do."
That’s more leadership than has been shown by any of the myriad politicians and public health officials on behalf of sex workers during the pandemic.
There is huge power in knowing your audience, and understanding how your platform can influence their beliefs and their actions. In the same vein, Kylie Jenner recently posted some pictures to Instagram of herself in a bikini, and asked her 196-million Instagram followers if they were registered to vote. Perhaps I can get her to link to my newsletter. Girl gets results.
Quick Leads
I scream, you scream, we all scream for a living wage. As Canadian grocery chains continue to underpay their workers despite the high risk nature of their essential work, ice cream maker Chapman’s made their pandemic pay increase permanent, saying “It just felt wrong taking it away.”
Speaking of vanilla, Switzerland isn’t normally where you look for bold stances. But voters in Geneva recently agreed to introduce a mandatory minimum wage equivalent of $25/hour in recognition of the city’s growing unaffordability, wealth gap and the economic impacts of the global pandemic. Four times a year, the city’s residents are able to vote on citizen initiatives, and an increased minimum wage has been twice previously voted on and rejected.
We all know how hard it can be to make an important point in a meeting or public address, especially in a time when most people are watching via video screen. Do yourself a favour and watch some videos of US Congresswoman Katie Porter eviscerate people with a white board. Props can be powerful.
If you think it’s hard to lead via whiteboard, try leading through poetry. Fredericton, NB, Poet Laureate Jenna Lyn Albert read a poem about abortion at a recent council meeting that was set to discuss the closure of a local clinic. Some councillors whined that poetry should not be politicized. Health care and personal autonomy, sure, but not poems!
I’m going to be generous this week and shout out RBC for (quietly) declaring that they won’t fund any drilling projects in an Alaskan wildlife refuge. That’s how low the bar for leadership is, people.
And finally, this, just because I love it and I sincerely believe she is trying to tell us something:
Reading your newsletter feels like getting my ass kicked. Except my "ass" is my "brain" and it feels stronger afterwards.
Goddamn, this was good. Brilliant callout to leadership and the lack thereof. Ideas. Ideas. Ideas. AND some good news [positive news] at the end. Amazing