Free Thought Ideology an Types of Activism Essay

Freethought is an ideology that embraces the idea of having freedom in deciding one's own decisions about various facets of life without any undue influence. It is an idea where an individual can see the world beyond partisanship, domains of thought and ideologies in the pursuit of making the world a better place to live (Wiggins 2018). The concept of free thought has been in existence well before Kanye West mentioned it and was present all through the Civil Rights Era. However, it is important to note that free thought does not assume the role of history in society but rather uses the teachings of history as a guiding principle in formulating decisions in the long run (Wiggins 2018).

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Kanye West's tweet was right and wrong all with different strengths and arguments. Firstly, I feel that the tweet was right in its view that Blackness was not bound to the Democratic Party which leads to perpetual victimhood (Wiggins 2018). It is a known fact that the Democratic Party is viewed many times than not to be affiliated with the African Americans. To support his statement, it is essential for the people to identify their reason for supporting the Democratic Party because there are certain instances where the Republican Party has opinions that are relevant to a voter whereas the Democratic Party stands against it. In such a situation, standing with the Democratic Party just because you are bound by being black rather than because they hold for certain elements that are relevant is clearly a lost cause (Wiggins 2018).

On the other hand, he is wrong in that he undermined the historical reasoning behind free thought and supported a notion without proper reason. Being an entertainment figure with multiple hits, Kanye West is viewed with regard to a large chunk of the population, and anything he says elicits reactions. Also, his notion that slavery was an option is the illest and sick thinking in modern times by a celebrity with a huge following (Wiggins 2018).

We are a progressive society in how we view free thought albeit to a certain extent. In some instances, we as a society are guided by certain historical aspects, and we find ourselves standing on certain principles imposed on us especially through socio-historical reasons (Wiggins 2018). For instance, we are generally inclined to stand behind a person of the same colour notwithstanding his attributes or what he brings to the table. As such, I believe we are growing into a progressive society with a view of standing independently with our thoughts to choose what we deem fit for the betterment of the world (Wiggins 2018). However, such reasons as those above make it difficult for full progression into the idea of free thought.

The millennial generation has the capacity to be free-thinkers not bound by partisanship, ideology, and domains of thought.

The millennial generation is the generation that is looked upon to take over the reins of history. The generation is born between 1978 and 2000 and has emerged as a powerful force to cause a shift in the political and social paradigm world over. These groups of young people are smart, open-minded, well-educated and independent. The millennial generation has also been seen to be able to put certain interests well above their interests. Another perspective of the millennial generation is that it is a generation causing problems in the social strata as it is seen not to be ready to take the realms from the older generation. Also, the millennials are a generation driven by the trends and trendsetters in the society. The millennials are easily swayed and can conform to particular attributes that they do not aspire to naturally.

As far as free thinking is concerned, an argument arises. The millennial generation is known to have a capacity to make independent thoughts on specific issues in the society. In the run to the 2008 US presidential elections, the millennials played a crucial role in ensuring the victory of President Obama. Rather than follow the traditionally set conditions of becoming president, the millennials were instrumental in ensuring a minority became president of the USA. In the same example, there are others who argue that with major celebrities and entertainment stakeholders throwing their support for Obama, the millennials could have had their support influenced and with that cannot be viewed as free thinkers (Cooper 2017).

However, the millennial generation is seen to be more outgoing and more in tune with the happenings of the world. The beauty of the millennials is that they were born way past the major timelines that characterised the nature and socio-political aspect of society. With that in mind, the millennials tend to accept each other notwithstanding the different social class and standing in the community. The millennials have been able to break barriers built by their predecessors and have formed a united front against the world. As such, ideologies and domains of thought have been put well at bay (Wiggins 2018).

In conclusion, the millennials are a fragile generation that needs to be handled carefully. Without undue influence, the millennials can be free thinkers but can be easily influenced if one is able to touch the right spots.

Activism

Activism based on Muhammad Ali's life and role in sports and life, in general, is an individual/ organisation's dedication to social rights, human rights, racial empowerment and effecting positive change in the society. Even with that, it has been difficult to correctly identify the difference between activism, resistance, struggle, insurgency opposition, advocacy, with the debate traversing a plethora of scholarly disciplines from sociology, political science, ethnic studies, cultural and gender studies. It is noted by many scholars that to define activism correctly, counter-hegemonic actions need to counter with a purporting level of specificity and limitations. The best definition from all this for activism, therefore, is that it is an engagement in purposeful actions that disrupt oppressive hegemonic activities by challenging a popular opposition and at the same time empowering individuals who feel oppressed by the inequitable arrangement. Further, activism must narrow on a specific demand for social change moving in tandem with a more comprehensive social justice movement (Cooper 2017).

The following components characterise activism; an evident opposition, an identified concrete disruption of structures and mental processes, specific goals and objectives to identify and assess progress, and a connection to existing social justice movements. It is important to note that all activism is naturally socio-political with its actions ranging from specific policy reforms to calls for specific important values and norms ignored within the existing hegemonic systems (Cooper 2017).

Types of activism

Symbolic activism is the kind of activism that draws its strength from the deliberate actions done by individuals in various fields to let the world know of the social injustices and through this, bring about positive change in the political, economic, educational and social sectors. Protests are the most common forms of symbolic activism, and they were best brought out during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Protests are essential tactics in that they can disrupt the usual way things are handled. They inform about specific issues and at times lead to substantive change. Symbolic activism is often described as a transformative event with critical turning points that cause a turnaround and a better focus on the broader social movements (Cooper 2017).

Scholarly activism denotes the type of activism that is backed up by educational tools to talk about and bring to fore an issue of oppression in the society. It uses education as a tool to fight oppression and struggles in the society. It involves the transmission of ideas that brings an enhancement of people's understandings about oppressive systems and deconstructs them. Through epistemological racism, many facets of the Blacks have been affected and largely marginalised covering up a multitude of truth (Cooper 2017). It is, therefore, important for the scholarly activists to bring out such stories in a way called counter storytelling which brings out a particular issue in another light. Scholarly activities are important as they form a basis and a framework for many activist organisations and identify their nature and purpose for existence (Higgins 2018).

The best example of scholarly activism brought to fore by many scholars is the writing of autobiographies and memoirs. These critically examine their life experiences and engagements through their lives and the outcomes. Without these scholarly articles, many of today's members of a marginalised segment of society would not be aware of the power they possess to cause a change to the hegemonic systems bringing about intellectual activism which is integral to the wider social movements of liberation and empowerment. Furthermore, scholarly activists have been able to change the view that a particular notion about knowledge and truth is altogether false as knowledge is free for all (Cooper 2017).

Scholarly activism is divided into teaching activism and research activism. Just as their name suggests, teaching activism involves impacting knowledge about a particular aspect or issue in society to empower a new generation of leaders. Research activism, on the other hand, involves going into rigorous tests and experiments to come up with transformative ways of doing or dealing with things. Such activism is found in publications, articles and journals (Cooper 2017).

Grass root activism entails the type of activism that is conducted at the micro level of society and mostly engages communities. It can be described as the mother of all activism because activism has to be born from the grass root by a group of people or individuals before it goes mainstream affecting larger facets of society. Colin Kaepernick demonstrated grass root activism through his Know Your Rights Camp in Oakland, California, which was to teach the youth about proper interaction with law enforcement within the society (Cooper 2017). The form of activism is different from advocacy and charitable organisations because of the principles employed, the reason for existence, and the mode of teaching. Grass root activism employs mentorship as a way of informing individuals (marginalised) about certain issues and ensuring that they are taught the best ways of dealing with a myriad of issues affecting their lives and the ways to stand strong against such oppressions (Houston 2018).

Sport-based activism involves particular actions taken by athletes to affect and influence the hegemonic nature of rules, structural arrangement, and practices in sports that propagate marginalisation, subordination and exploitation of a particular group of people. The African American socio-history of sports captures sports activism a great length. Black athlete activism has been growing increasingly consistent over the 1900s with the realisation that they could well beat the highly acclaimed white supremacist athletes. Muhammad Ali is a great example of an activist actively participating in sport based activism all through his tenure as world boxing heavyweight champion. These activism efforts went hand in hand with the Civil Rights movement that took place within the same period in the 1960s. As such, through sports-based activism, the activism against racism was backed from many angles of the society (Houston 2018).

Economic activism is the activism that is driven by a key focus of creating a business, and prospering in a historically disadvantaged community. America is a land filled with people from different areas of the world, with different historical backgrounds but with the same a...