Only Read This If You Want to Decolonize Your Zoom Experience
I finally generated enough fuel to write this piece and speak candidly about my experience with Zoom, our new favorite meeting spot. But actually, where is the spot?
At about 40 minutes into an event I was supposed to be attending, I have given up. Wholly and utterly frustrated. I am so sad because I had been registered for this event several weeks in advance with great anticipation. After all, a comrade in Black Liberation was “coming” to Seattle. In these COVID times, that means she was the guest of two fantastic local organizations.
I’m not going to put this woman’s name out in the streets, mainly because it is not that important in the final word. Notwithstanding, we have so much in common. Both of us were ex-chaplains and have fashioned our lives to be in the business of liberating people. Her vehicle is rest and mine, grief. I received a confirmation of my registration and a reminder a couple of days before the event. I’m set. A few minutes before the event, smartphone, pillow, journal, and my favorite pen in hand, I was headed out to recline on my hammock. Rest. I’m into it.
I went to the newest confirmation email I had received, and I copied and pasted the meeting ID and passcode into the appropriate fields on my Zoom phone app. Nothing. I know that to try this again would be like pressing a lit elevator button, and yet, I can’t resist. I received another error message that my passcode was incorrect. A little bit of my newly-acquired tech panic began to seep in, as I didn’t want to be late. I texted a good friend who I believed was in the event already. They explained they had to answer some questions to get in. They confirmed the codes I was using were correct. Then I received a registration page for the event. Now, I know I needed to complete an additional day-of registration to gain entrance to the event for which I had already registered. When I saw the registration message at the time, I assumed it was a part of the error sequence I was experiencing. In my growing anxiety and the lack of clear communication about the entrance process, I typed in my name, email, and in one of the text fields, I wrote the words out “passcode isn’t working.” Submit. I’m sure on the Zoom meeting’s admin side, I looked like someone who was not supposed to be in this event.
Desperate, I went to my Facebook page to ask if anyone was trying to get into the event. Almost immediately, an acquaintance sent me the passcode for the gathering in my DM. Great. Okay, instead of a series of numbers, it was one single word in sentence case. Naptime. Of course, I thought. This was not the passcode my friend or I had received, but that’s okay. Now, I’m prepared to enter the function again, ready with the new password. I’m already breathing more comfortably. I am so excited as I wait for the system to buffer, believing I will gain admittance into the event. Not so. Stunned, I asked my acquaintance over Facebook messenger had the meeting ID been changed, too. She confirmed that it had not. Here I am, confused with two different passcodes for one event, and neither of them worked. None of this process had been communicated to me beforehand, and at 55 minutes past the hour of a 90-minute event. I had really and truly, wholly and for real given up. I told my friend and my acquaintance, thank you, and to please enjoy the event.
I would like to tell you I went out to my hammock and rested anyway. Alas, I did not. I sat down here and exploded onto this Google doc what amounted to five months of digital frustration.
In this process, I realized the extra layers of protection are required to protect Black bodies in a digital space striving toward healing. We have to put up additional security measures and protocols to protect us from trolls, hackers, and people who have the audacity and the imagination to disrupt Black healing. I get it, and I understand entirely. It is problematic to me, though, because the same processes that protect the sanctity of these virtual spaces are the same ones that render them inaccessible to the folks trying to access them. Don’t have any degree of anxiety, technological delay, or neurodivergence.
I work in the mental health field, and in full transparency, I have mild attention challenges. I am not an anxious person by personality, but in these COVID times, I have grown what I like to call “situationally anxious.” Admittedly, I use Zoom to see coaching clients almost every day, and with scheduling and payment integration packages, things make a lot of sense. But today, I felt like I was holding my ticket and arriving at a locked auditorium.
I felt so deflated. Am I the only one who couldn’t get in? Now, mind you, growing up in a very Pentecostal Christian household, if I couldn’t find my family after waking from a nap, I was sure the rapture happened without me. So, I own my Revelations-based apocalyptic attachment issues.
What is so sad is that both sponsors of this event are literally down the street from my apartment. One is even within walking distance! Here’s why this virtual reality we live in doesn’t make sense. I have an awareness of how to get to both locations. I have a sense memory, if you will, of how to get there. I can predictably gauge what time to leave and about what time I would arrive. Also, I would be greeted by a smiling person at the door. Someone else would usher me inside. Garnered perhaps with some housekeeping tips about where to sit, where the backroom is, how much time I have before the program starts, so I can tell if I have time to stop to pee. These human connections and embodied rituals are all but lost. Purchasing tickets, driving to pick up friends, grabbing drinks before or after, parking, walking up to the event, and seeing how many people are waiting in line, are all missing in action. These are all grounding activities for humans, and they are gone. I am grieving the loss of each one on the other side of my newly-acquired situational anxiety.
What’s clear to me is this - Zoom is an utterly disembodied experience. What is also clear about life under a pandemic, and racial injustice is that we are beholden to systems of oppression that exact contortion to fit into rigid structures even when clearly they are not working, like Zoom, among many others.
As a healer, facilitator, and liberation strategist, I have worked my whole life to get back into my body. With all its idiosyncrasies, Zoom does not speak to my needs or the needs of my community. And in community is the best way to heal. Getting back in my body is so important because the dominant system in place demands that I leave it over and over again. Capitalism demands production and performance. Combined with white supremacy it requires suppression and a morbid adaptive dissociation. Zoom is the square peg trying to fit the circle of your natural sensibilities, and yet it’s what we have. Sure, there are other platforms, but in many regards, Zoom has become the meeting standard. The Dow Jones has confirmed this. Yet, if we are left to contend with what oppression actually feels like in our bodies, we just might rise.
I want you to stay with me for the series because I have been conversing with Black facilitators, healing justice practitioners, and folks who are actively working to decolonize online spaces while keeping them culturally relevant. They are using Zoom intentionally and incorporating techniques that allow folks to be on the platform in ways that actually make sense. Along the way, I have picked up some strategies to help zoom us back into our bodies. Stay tuned.
Michelle Phillips
Liberation Strategist
Seattle, WA
