zlacker

The entire story of MLK and the civil rights movement is the story of people without power (quite literally, without equal rights under the law) driving change. Same for Ghandi and indian independence, to take one contemporary example out of many.

Perhaps there is a moral obligation for people with privilege to engage; but it's clearly not a practical necessity for change to happen. Given the lack of progress in Black civil rights ever since the 60's; as this discourse around "we all must participate!" has strengthened, it is far from clear that it is helpful.

I propose that the other way is best. Live your life, respond with genuine outrage when injustice crosses your path, and don't feel like media consumption fixes anything.

>>jskell+(OP)
I'd put it a bit differently: people with very little power banded together to create a movement that together has some power and was making incremental progress over the decades, but allies were needed to accelerate it and make big change. After Kennedy's assassination Lyndon Johnson lent his enormous political capital to revive a dying civil rights bill and get it passed, and that was a big push, so much so that it lost his party the south for 50+ years.

I fully agree media consumption doesn't fix a whole lot, and certainly not in today's media environment, I merely advocate for staying informed and engaged enough to discover a useful way to make impact. I want to live in a world where we mostly just live our lives as we please, but society's state right now is such that I don't think it will let us off that easy.