Culture

We Can Care About Two or Four or Eight Things At Once

I’m so tired and weary of the people who are currently guilting anyone who is sharing light news and celebrity scandal in the place of constant posts about #BringBackOurGirls.

Some people are all on Facebook and Twitter saying “WHY DO YOU CARE ABOUT SOLANGE WHEN 200 GIRLS ARE STILL MISSING IN NIGERIA?” and I am here to tell them to relax and go have a seat somewhere. It’s spring. Park benches are now available so people can go #OccupyaSeat.

Are we all so simple and basic that we only have the brain capacity to care about one thing at a time? We are not. Our brains are not Windows 95. We can keep more than one program going at once, and the assumption that our interest in the gist and gossip of Elevator-Gate makes us care less about the 300 girls who were kidnapped in Nigeria is pretty disrespectful.

Get over yourself gif

People love playing the “You Don’t Care” Olympic games even though they win no medals. They sign one more Change.org petition and they think they’re Malcolm X King Jr., and it happens after every major event or crisis, without fail. “How can you watch VH1 when there are starving kids with polio and ringworm on the south side of the west side of Africa?” Maybe it’s because I’m a fully-formed complex human being who is wired to multitask and multi-care.

Read the rest on my Luvvie’s Lane Column at TheGrio.

Related post: No Country for Social Justice Hipsters

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12 Comments

  1. Tekiebelu
    May 15, 2014 at 6:31 pm

    Many of us are mothers & can multi-care AND not care all at the same damn time!

    • Simone
      May 15, 2014 at 10:28 pm

      I concur!

  2. howlingbanshee
    May 15, 2014 at 6:38 pm

    This right here all night all day — with the angels watching and everything. I’m printing and saving that article for future reference because it will forever be relevant, with all the heartbreaking crap that happens all the time. Thank you for expressing this better than I’ve been able to and for using your platform and influence to tell all the guiltmongers and funshamers to kindly occupy all the seats in scornful self righteous section of the stadium.

  3. Simone
    May 15, 2014 at 10:30 pm

    “Are we all so simple and basic that we only have the brain capacity to care about one thing at a time? We are not. Our brains are not Windows 95.”
    LOL! I can’t!

  4. arma109
    May 16, 2014 at 9:04 am

    They don’t hear you though, because they’re too busy wringing their hands and rocking over the crisis du jour (while secretly howling at your posts that they read religiously).

  5. nichole
    May 16, 2014 at 9:39 am

    More than one program and browsers with multiple tabs!

    If all we cared about were just the hard issues, many we can’t do anything, we would walk around with the weight of the world on our shoulders.

    Our prayers can be for changes in the world and in elevators.

    • Gracie
      May 16, 2014 at 2:27 pm

      “for changes in the world and in elevators.”

      Yes ma’am!! PREACH!

  6. E Liz
    May 16, 2014 at 10:23 am

    Not polio and ringworm ha haaaaaaaaa

  7. NikiF
    May 16, 2014 at 12:34 pm

    “How can you watch VH1 when there are starving kids with polio and ringworm on the south side of the west side of Africa?”

    DEAD

  8. Shani
    May 16, 2014 at 3:49 pm

    YAS Ma’AM…. And SN I appreciate being able to read these posts in my email… I should been signed up!

  9. Vee
    May 17, 2014 at 8:05 am

    My dad always said look for the article in a small box on page 3-5. That is the real news. The first two pages are distractions. Since he worked for da gumnent I know he knew what he was talking about. We have shown that we ain’t all drinking the cool aid and dey scared. Giving a damb about a whole bunch of worries and letting the creator handle it ALL is my motto. I got bills to pay.

  10. Queenreen Brown
    May 22, 2014 at 3:08 am

    Malcolm X King Jr???!!! toooo funny!