Six months ago you might have needed some kind of backbone to express your opinions. But the time has come to stand up, be counted, and make your voice heard on the most challenging issues that everybody you know already agrees on. Here is how to stand up and finally say, “This is what I believe, and what we all happen to believe because it’s a cool and normal belief now.” Here’s how, you, too, can join this noble (and luckily popular – phew!) fight.
Pick An Issue
Before you can express an opinion, you have to have an opinion, so take a look at the world around you and try to find ways to fix it that have been around for decades but which we’re finally gonna do now, for some reason. Like universal healthcare! Maybe you didn’t pay much attention to this issue when Hillary Clinton was campaigning for it in the 1990s, but now everyone seems to think universal healthcare is a good thing, so alternate between calling your senators and tweeting about calling your senators so people know you’re really taking a stand. Voilà! You’re brave now!
Share An Article
The easiest way to take a vocal stance on an issue is to find someone else’s more researched stance and then post their op-ed with the caption “this.” No need to weigh in and add any nuance to their take. On any issue, from the situation in Syria to the wage gap to whitewashing, “this” is all you have to say to stand for what’s right after enough other people have already said it. You finally speaking up now that it’s commonplace? Now THAT’S “this.”
Make It About Yourself
The best part about having once-controversial but now-widely-accepted opinions is how you can show others that you’ve actually been cool all along! When someone shares a detailed, well-thought-out and reasonable argument about why calling out transphobic jokes isn’t the same thing as censorship, you should definitely comment that you actually never liked that comedian anyway. Or when one of your POC friends expresses dissatisfaction with a musician’s appropriation of black hip-hop culture in a music video, you absolutely need to chime in with how you don’t listen to that music anyway. Never admit that you may have learned something about your own privilege, ever. Always brag about your long-held superiority. That’s the choice that takes courage!
When you think back, you probably could have deduced which causes were worth standing up for a long time ago. However, it’s just so much easier now that everyone is on the same page and you know you’re not going to get too much flack for it. Do the work to fight for what’s right now that you know it won’t require as much work!
