Social Activism

Activism is not where you originate from or where you are located, it’s what you do. Activism allows us to make social changes; this can occur in many different ways. It allows us to make a change in the world through political, social, economic, and sometimes even through environmental changes. It’s usually lead by individuals but the majority of the time people gather collectively through social movements. An activist is the principal of a social movement. Activist arouses particular information that impacts individuals and allow them to gather, protest, and make social changes. There are many different types of activism first we have those who “demand solutions to contemporary problems through taking the oppositional stances to mainstream

Think of the fight to cure AIDS, cancer research, Alzheimer's research and now healthy life extension. Productively framing, placing and keeping a problem front and center in the mainstream of our culture is hard work, but that education and persuasion unlock purses far and wide. Government money is usually the least of these resources. Far more funding comes from a venture, charitable and corporate concerns. Corporations and venture capitalists see mainstream culture explicitly in terms of needs and markets for future products. If a need is shouted loudly enough, money will be directed to answer that need. Charitable causes answer the same needs and more certainly goes to those needs shouted loudly from the rooftops but through voluntary donations and giving. AIDS funding in the 80s and 90s is one crowning example of a victory for activism and advocacy. In a comparatively short few years, AIDS moved from obscure disease to the center of media attention. There was a close relationship between activists and researchers at that time. The floodgates of research funding opened and AIDS progressed from death sentence to manageable condition for those with access to treatment. Through activism, we, become more aware of current life situations and we make a change for the better with larger groups of people who believe in that we believe

Wright Mills, founder of the sociological imagination which means to see things socially and how they interact and influence each other rather than just from our own perspective, emphasizes the importance of seeing the connection between social structure and individual experience. One way in which one can think about this is to recognize how what we often experience as personal troubles, like “not having enough money to pay our bills, are actually public issues”. So how do activist come in to play? it begins with one person, they realize how it is a public issue and want to bring these issues to the government so that there can be a change. Later on you see groups of people that have a similar mindset as the activist and want the issue to be address so they begin to protest, through social media, through the streets, through their jobs etc… and so it becomes not only activism but the sociological imagination itself. A perfect example of a social issue as well would be Colin Kaepernick and his protest on not showing pride to the flag or the country of the United States for the oppression on black people or simply people of color. Of course Kaepernick goes into detail explaining that his protest was in response to the persistent racism and brutality that black people experience, whether its from the police or from the inactions of the government. Kaepernick would be considered a activist who stands up for racial discrimination and just like him there are more like LeBron