It’s a Saturday night, and yet again, I’m getting swept up in Twitter debates with people who I know to be hurtful, who don’t care and will not hear me. Yet I keep typing.

This is an ongoing struggle for me. I’m sure for many. What is the right thing to do?

(a thread 1/5)

2/5 General wisdom on social media says to step away from hurtful debates, and certainly to get away from online bullies.

Report, block, mute, ignore.

Put self-care first.

Don’t scream into the abyss.

Sleep on it.

Sometimes I do these things.

And yet...

3/5 If I ignore tweets that are harmful, cruel, discriminatory...

I feel haunted by my early upbringing. Of elderly Jewish relatives telling me about the Holocaust.

To never forget.
To never be silent.

I will not be a quiet bystander to what I know to be wrong.

4/5 I think about that powerful quote, which is annoyingly gendered yet, I believe universally true:

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good ‘men’ to do nothing”.

How can I see something terrible and do nothing?

I cannot.

5/5 Of course, these things take a toll. It means I’m an activist seven days and nights a week.

My old trauma wounds are reopened all the time.

It wears me down. I will take breaks, sometimes, when I must to survive.

But I cannot be silent.

I will not.