Instagram, etc.
Like many things rooted in hate, Instagram-haters fail to recognize that it is not merely a cute little photo sharing platform with one-click options for retro-chic pizazz. If you have any interest in the news, contemporary happenings, or global events across the world taking place in realtime, then Instagram should be on your radar.
Sure, there's plenty of banal subject matter...but there's also a fascinating shotgun blast of images exploding from hotspots around the world - and often, fascinating conversations centered around those images that provide an intriguing pulse. Obviously, if you want insightful, curated analysis and coverage, you go to vetted outlets (read: NPR and affiliates But for crowdsourced visual imagery from the trenches...so fantastic.
When I'm chatting with my kids about what's happening in Egypt today, we can read op-eds and look at crisp hi-res images (which have their place)...but we're also looking at the multiple, fractured perspectives of the people affected and in the thick of it on Instagram: uncensored, multiple POVs. You wanna know what hashtags are? Time to learn. Seriously.
Go check things out on IG under #egypt , #tahrirsquare , #june30 or #cairo .
Thanks all, and happy Wodensday!
@josephivanlong
So we watched. Watched him gasp. Watched him call out for his Mama. Watched him go limp. Watched the footage of courageous citizen journalists who dared and cared to keep recording and filming while four white men with guns enabled the murder of a black man, handcuffed, on the ground,
a knee on his legs,
a knee on his back,
a knee on his neck.
We watched as this happened.
Because I could not allow them to not. There may be all kinds of thoughts and ideas and perspectives on how old kids should be before having to deal with heavy stuff. I don’t pay too much attention to it. I’ve talked with our kids from the time they were in the womb, through infancy and toddlerhood and early childhood all the way up to the ages they’re at.
