A few notes on Samhita’s bad-ass Social Forum panel

The Social Forum is soon coming to an end, but I can’t leave without posting something about Samhita’s panel on “Using New Media to Win Racial and Gender Justice.” Also on the panel was Jorge Rivas from Colorlines, a fab tech-spert and all-round charming guy who advocates for racial justice. Together, they schooled a crowd of over 60 on the nitty gritty of leveraging social media to advance their causes. And anyone who has ever attended the forum knows that this is a huge turnout when you consider the large number of panels that are going on in each time slot. But it’s also a great turnout when one considers all the drama that went on that morning.

Odds were against them. Their panel was scheduled at a satellite location 1 mile away from the main conference site. Their initial room had no tech equipment, no air conditioner and not nearly enough seating space. Jorge troubleshooted the room and tech issues while Samhita, with no Power Point or notes, kept the crowd occupied for 15 minutes as their workshop was moved into hallways and spaces too small to accommodate the eager crowd. And on top of that, folks were sweaty and tired after they had traveled on foot in 85-degree heat to strengthen their new-media chops. Glossy as ever–dripping equally with sweat and panache–Samhita carried on a conversation with activists about our work here at Feministing and how important women’s rights is to the social justice movement. The crowds remained engaged and calm, as many were die-hard feministing readers. Three room changes and a few flickers later, the Power Point presentation magically appeared and they were on.

So… what were the major take-home messages? Instead of going through the presentation with a play by play. I thought it would be helpful to illustrate Samhi’s key points by offering examples from her own work here at Feministing.

Be explicit.
Be clear about what your message is about. Samhita’s follow-up post on the Lovelle Mixon
case
, is an important example of how clarity is used to launch into a
discussion on police brutality.

See her lead here:

Last Tuesday’s post on the man in Oakland that killed 4
police officers yielded heated responses and I wanted to follow up after
everyone (especially me) had some time to mull things over. I want to
draw from some of the themes that came up and to update the news that
broke last Tuesday night that Lovelle Mixon was also linked to the rape
of a 12 year old girl. This act, along with the murders of John Hege,
Mark Dunakin, Ervin Romans and Daniel Sakai, are reprehensible acts. I
am stating this upfront so that it is not lost that this is a tragedy
and there is no excuse for this kind of tragedy.

Get Personal.
This is pretty self-explanatory. Samhita has gotten the most press from
articles that are about her response to issues of sexism and how it made
her feel.

An example of this is from her recent post on Nikki
Haley
:

Right, so if Nikki and Bobby went by their more “authentic” names, they
would not have had so much success with voters. Trust me, my name is
Samhita Mukhopadhyay and I spent most of my life going by “Sami.” The
difference in how I was treated based on which name I used was profound
and that is just me. This is an all too common experience, even
resulting in the bestseller by Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake.But this is not just about whether I think Nikki Haley and Bobby
Jindal are sell-outs, not Indian enough or not authentic enough, because
all these assumptions in and of themselves would be problematic and I
am not in a position to make them.

Find a Hook.
Demonstrate how this is relevant to what is currently going on.

Samhita’s recent
post about Black women being used as scapegoats
involves her
pondering about the overall state of marriage but within the frame of
the numerous news hits on Black women over all. She makes her commentary
newsworthy by making mention of numerous timely and relevant stories.

See this section of her lead paragraph:

Why, you wonder, why Samhita do you ask these rhetorical
questions? But, I haven’t had much of substance to say about the new
mainstream media obsession with black women’s marriage options since it
is so frustrating and as you may know I am writing a book on dating,
marriage and romance, so I don’t really feel like blogging about the
topic. I mean there was the OKCupid study that Ta-Nehisi debunked quite
effectively, but everyone from Nightline to the Economist has something
to say about it. And all of a sudden Steve Harvey is a relationship
expert? Give me a break. Of all the issues affecting black women today,
marriage rates are what we are going to use our resources to spotlight?


Be Strategic.

Determine what is the best way for you to get a message across.

One of Samhita’s most famous articles that garnered her 250 comments
was her post
on the release of Grand Theft Auto
. See her lead paragraph here:

So this video is NSFW (not safe for work) and it is very
disturbing. Trigger warning! But it is one of the trailers to the new
Grand Theft Auto coming out today, and it is reprehensible. All around
the country posters for the new GTA have been removed due to their
offensive nature. Most of the complaints have been about the violence in
the video game. Not one article has been about the blatant violence and
misogyny displayed towards women.

Important things to note about this post is that it was posted at
2:37AM that morning. This meant that it was the first story that many
news reporters read on the morning of the game’s release. The timing of
this post was crucial to the strategy of informing everyday folks about
the seriousness of violence against women in the media.

It was so important to me to join forum attendees in hearing these
best practices. And while, admittedly, Samhi being my mentor had
something to do with my enthusiasm, it was also refreshing to see the
work of new media and it’s role in politics receiving some legitimate
panel time. In my experience, some feminist organizations don’t
recognize this trade as an area of expertise that requires well-trained
staff that develop a comprehensive media strategy. Many people I have
encountered feel that the run-of-the-mill young person or college
student can easily do most of this new media work. While this may be
true for a twitter update or creating a facebook page, leveraging new
media to accomplish political goals is a science that involves strategy
far beyond setting up a facebook page or tweeting. So to all
organizations out there in need of some help, look into hiring Samhita, a
woman who is as bad-ass at feminism as she is at consulting.

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