Slacktivism
Do you want to know more
about our organization? she asks.
We are wandering around
the Arab American Association Bazar
in our neighborhood,
dodging the heat as much as we can.
Do you want to know more
about our organization? she asks
and I duck into her tent.
Sure, I say
and she talked to me
about Palestine
as I sign up for her
newsletter.
You can write what you
resist against, she says,
on this piece of paper
and we’ll post it.
I ask how to spell
oppression.
I hold it up and smile,
giving the peace sign
as she snaps my picture.
I buy a button.
She tells me what it says
in Arabic
but only minutes later
I have forgotten.
It was something about
resistance.
About activism.
I sit back in the shade
and watch Linda Sarsour
and her body guards.
I want to go down there
and thank her for the Women’s March.
I want to thank her for
putting her body in the fight.
In a way that I am not.
But I do not have the
courage
even as I watch other
people do it.
Being here is supposed to
make me feel good
but I’ll spend the rest
of the day
thinking that I am not
doing enough.
That I am phoning it in.
That I am a fake.
That real activism,
like what Linda does
means something.
That all I’m doing is
throwing
money around
trying to clog up
the unending holes
in this sinking ship.
That if I was braver
I would drive down to
Washington
and burn it down.
That somehow
in this year
getting up every day
and trying to be a good
person
to be kind
to listen
to learn
just
isn’t enough anymore.
--Ally Malinenko
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