When I got back from my semester abroad in New Zealand my senior year, racial relations on campus were tense, and there were regular protests. I joined the Black Caucus and went to meetings to try to understand what was going on from a perspective outside my own and what black students on campus were experiencing.
I had a friend in the DC area I would visit after college who lived in an apartment complex in Silver Spring. I don't know enough about the area to know if it was accurate but he described it as relatively homogenous "middle-class black neighborhood." Another friend I would visit in Capitol Hill described her neighborhood and parish in similar ways, though demographics were starting to shift in recent years (Msgr Pope writes about his experience here.)
I've been out of college for a while now but the simple question still comes to me as an adult when it comes to this complicated inter-sectionality of race, class, and culture: Just why are all the X kids sitting together at the lunch table?
Rod Dreher has an interesting and honest enough essay over at the American Conservative where he puts this question in a grown-up context, touching on the draw towards self-segregation.
"There’s nothing wrong with wanting neighborhood stability, and with wanting to live among people like yourself. As Harvard political scientist Bob Putnam found a decade ago — much to his own discomfort, as a liberal — the more ethnically diverse a neighborhood is, the less social trust there is among neighbors. This is simply a fact of human nature. Besides, people understandably find a sense of refuge and social solidarity living among those like themselves."
The racial component is one way we self-segregate, but there are others. It's been interesting how my Facebook feed and friends have evolved over the years, but most notably during the last year after the election when things got heated and toxic. I used to have a pretty eclectic grouping of people from all spectrums and backgrounds and political and religious thoughts and perspectives, but that has changed--my friends have thinned out. Some have unfriended me, and I've unfriended some people as well. I don't have as many contentious (and, ultimately, fruitless and frustrating) conversations anymore via social media.
Facebook is kind of like a virtual adult romper-room where grown-ups come to relax and play with each others, having conversations, sharing what they are reading, and posting pictures of their families and vacations. The kids aren't on it anymore (where they have gone too I have no idea), so the demographics have shifted, but on a macro level, and for me personally, on a micro level. And the truth of the matter behind that is--I got tired. I think my liberal friends were getting tired too, and respectively parted ways. My feed is not especially diverse; I hesitate to call it an echo chamber, but it can sound that way sometimes.
Another truth be told: I find myself a little bit more relaxed, a little bit less ill-at-ease, a little bit more...myself. Granted I'm not entertaining as many articles from the HuffPo or reading about my friends' fascination with alchemy or the Dakota pipeline projects as much. But I'm ok with that.
In the back of my mind I wonder--is this to my detriment? Am I becoming bigoted and close-minded? I feel like I've gotten closer to finding my tribe, and I recognize the limitations, but it's...nice. I don't have to pretend, I don't have to feel like I'm walking in a political or social landmine about to detonate something. My friends are supportive, we pray for each other, support each other, donate to each other's Catholic causes, and I can say that I am grateful for them. And after reading Dreher's essay, it feels like maybe it's just natural as well.
Facebook may not very well be the place for a "free exchange of ideas" with people we don't agree with or who have different views. I think we've lost a lot of the ability to respectively converse with people we disagree with, though I would say that is coming more from those on the left than on the right of the spectrum. The contentious "dialoguing" rarely seems to change anyone's mind about anything, it sucks time away from family and real life, and it just leaves you feeling...lousy.
I realize social media is a virtual community well of sorts: not real life, but not 'fake life' either. It can cause depression and loneliness. But it can also be edifying and mutually enriching to faith lives (like my own), and a shared sense of purpose and values among people spread out over a large geographic swath. I've met Facebook friends in "real time" and it's been awesome, and I never would have met them otherwise were it not for the platform.
People have been gathering into tribes and clans and nations for centuries. Is it possible--contrary to the progressive narrative--that this is, in fact, natural and human nature to want to be around "our own kind," however that looks? The racial narrative is a visible but narrow part of that, one of many groupings among lines. As Dreher writes about his experience at an elite boarding school in Louisiana,
"We were among our own. The sense of safety was like balm in Gilead — safety not in the sense that we would never have our ideas and beliefs challenged, but safety in the sense that you could let your guard down and be at ease with yourself, because you were among your own kind."
So, I've come to terms with losing friends, friends drifting away, and others organically coming onto the scene in this virtual social-media neighborhood. I think my liberal friends who were antagonistic towards it are happier too that they are not constantly seeing my constant posts on religion and faith. I like to be challenged and entertain different perspectives, but it's also nice to just be yourself sometimes and not always feel like you have to self-censor. I recognize the limitations of a sort of homogenous tribalism, but everything is a tradeoff. I don't feel guilty about it anymore that I'm not "dialoguing" as much and truth be told, I'm happier. I worry about the echo-chamber effect sometimes, but I'm not out to change anyone's mind about anything, so maybe the focus and role of social media in my life has just shifted. And I'm ok with that.
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