16 augustus 2016

The internet doesn’t show us the quiet

Een citaat

Sam: That’s the thing. The internet is not the larger conversation, the internet is the smaller conversation. I, like, had this realization. I was checking into a hotel room Sunday night in Dallas, and this woman asked me what I’m doing, what I’m in town for, and I’m like, “Oh, I’m a journalist,” and she’s […]

Sam: That’s the thing. The internet is not the larger conversation, the internet is the smaller conversation. I, like, had this realization. I was checking into a hotel room Sunday night in Dallas, and this woman asked me what I’m doing, what I’m in town for, and I’m like, “Oh, I’m a journalist,” and she’s like, “Oh, what are you doing?” And I – I said, “I work for NPR, I’m covering this shooting.” And she’s like, “Oh, my god.” So we start talking about the shooting and her interactions with police and – we have a long conversation – and finally she says to me, “You know, I see both sides. I see Black Lives Matter point, I see the police officer’s point. I see both sides, but whenever you say that you see one side, everyone thinks that you hate the other side, so I just stay quiet.”

PJ: That’s it. That’s what he saw. And I know how small that is. I know how … meagre it is to find hope in the fact that people are quietly thinking about something. But I think Sam’s right. Like, even though we know that we’re ruder and louder and more argumentative on the internet, I think that we forget that the other thing the internet doesn’t show us is quiet. The moments that we’re all having where we’re sitting there turning this stuff over, trying to make sense of it. It can feel like nobody else is doing that.

Reply All – #70 Stolen Valor, naar aanleiding van de moord op agenten in Dallas.