Heart Emojis are Not Solidarity: A response to the notion of educational privilege as action

*I rage-wrote what became this post after a department meeting where we discussed the occupation of Minnesota by ICE. It came up that it was possible students were supportive of "what ICE is doing" and the comment was made that "we have to be inclusive to everyone."

Act I: Pretending everything is normal is not an act of resistance

Pretending everything is normal is not an act of resistance. It is a refusal to name harm, a performance of professionalism, and a convenient way to keep doing business as usual while people are being hurt. Right now. 

Pretending everything is normal is not an act of resistance. It is an act of ethical avoidance. It isn’t care. It is complacency with ongoing structural harm. 

Pretending everything is normal is not an act of resistance. If your response to harm is to act like nothing has changed, you are not resisting. You are stabilizing the system that caused it. 

This is not a choice between naming harm and doing pedagogy. 

This is an opportunity to integrate the disruption.

Getting a degree, in social work or otherwise, is not resistance. It can be survival. It can be preparation. It can be self-protection. But calling it resistance while people are being actively disappeared by our own government is a way to feel righteous without doing anything to actually interrupt harm. 

Compliance isn’t courage. 

Endurance is not a virtue. 

Dissent is not a distraction. 

Asking people under threat to prove their worthiness through productivity is not resistance. It is harm. 

If class starts when the bell rings. 

If policies keep the status quo. 

If power remains unbalanced. 

If there is no risk. 

If resistance doesn’t require anything to change, it isn’t resistance. It is normalization. 

This is not a choice between learning and disruption.

This is an opportunity for abnormality.

Education can be a tool for resistance. Sticking to the syllabus while families are being torn apart is not resistance. It is institutional self-soothing. 

It is refusing to take a stand. 

It is placing people in danger. 

It is avoiding conflict. 

It is a lack of accountability. 

Pretending everything is normal is not an act of resistance. It is cowardice wrapped in the cloak of the academy. 

The problem with calling endurance resistance is similar to saying "I love my job" when the job does not and cannot love you back.

When pretending everything is normal is endurance, normalcy is resilience. My mentor used to say “resilience just means you haven’t killed me yet.” 

Resilience becomes a moral obligation. I mean normalcy. I mean complacency. 

Getting a degree becomes a moral obligation. 

A moral obligation.

To struggle becomes immoral. To withdrawal becomes immoral. To protest becomes immoral. To refuse becomes immoral. Because these are giving up. And to give up is not resilience. To give up is not normal. 

When the message is to be resilient in the face of raids, surveillance, and disappearances, the real message is: 

Regulate your feelings. 

Be quiet. 

Do your assignment. 

Do not seek change. 

Resilience with resistance is abandonment. Resilience is a way to offload responsibility onto those with the least power while those with authority remain untouched. Resilience is not neutral. 

Being unable to function under terror is not personal failure.

Act II: State violence does not become ethical once the semester starts.

The question social work educators must ask is, “Is social work about inclusion, or justice?” Because inclusion has limits and justice requires refusal. 

Inclusion has become the language institutions reach for when they want to avoid taking a position. We are told we must be inclusive of all views, all beliefs, all perspectives. Neutrality is framed as ethical maturity. But it isn’t, and we have seen this move before. 

When “all lives matter,” we are inclusive. We are civil. We are erasing harm, and we are protecting the powerful. We are weaponizing inclusion. 

Inclusion is weaponized to protect fascism and institutional neutrality. 

Social work is is about justice, it is not a civility project. 

Inclusion is not an absolute good.

Refusing fascism is not exclusion. It is core to social work ethics.

Asking harmed people to coexist with dehumanization is against social work.

If we are willing to ignore justice in the name of inclusion, then our pedagogy is already political. We are just lying about which side it is on. 

Inclusion is not in the social work code of ethics. 

Act III: Heart emojis are not allyship and your syllabus is not neutral. 

Stop praising people for what you refuse to confront. Allyship without risk is performance. Pedagogy always takes a side. 

Credit without consequence. 

Symbolic support

Allies vs. accomplices

Syllabus, classroom norms, professionalism as sites of power.

Clicking on a heart but keeping quiet in meetings. Liking a comment while enforcing policies that harm. Sending “thinking of you” messages while continuing to teach, grade, discipline, and govern as if nothing is happening. That is not allyship. That is self-soothing. 

Allyship that risks nothing does nothing. 

If your support never leaves the screen, it is decorative. If it never shows up when decisions are being made, it is irrelevant. If there is no risk to your comfort, reputation, or position, you are not acting in solidarity.

Naming the harm. 

Refusing directives that keep the status quo.

Accepting consequences. 

Anything else is performance. 

Allies express agreement. Accomplices take risks. And in moments of state violence, avoiding risk is not neutral. It is alignment. 

Silence is not professionalism. It is a choice. In social work and in higher education, silence is constantly reframed as professionalism. Silence tells us to not be political. To not cause tension. To leave the world outside the classroom. To stick to the syllabus. 

Silence protects institutions, not people. If you are safe enough to send a thumbs-up, you are safe enough to make a point. Take yourself off mute. If you are credentialed enough to teach, you are credentialed enough to object. Modify the attendance policy. If you are paid to lead, you are obligated to take a position. Neutrality protects the status quo.  

Order is not ethical. 

Teaching is a political act

Your syllabus is a political document. What you include, what you exclude. How you define what is “professional.” How you punish, what you excuse. What you name, and what you never say out loud. All of it takes a side, and pedagogy that refuses to confront harm is already aligned with oppression. 

Deadlines are not neutral, participation policies are not neutral, attendance is not neutral. 

Civility is not neutral. 

Pedagogy is an ethical practice, not a technical one.

When we refuse to acknowledge harm, we teach that silence is safety. When institutions demand calm, they teach that disruption is unethical. When resilience is praised and refusal is punished, we teach that endurance is the price of belonging. That is pedagogy, even if no one says it out loud. 

If your teaching requires students to perform normalcy while their lives are being destabilized, that is not education. That is discipline. 

Epilogue: Social work requires action 

Social work does not exist to ignore violence, it exists to confront it. Ethics are not about being nice. They are not about being inclusive. They are about justice, protection, and accountability. You cannot claim ethical practice while: 

• Demanding silence 

• Calling fascism a “perspective” 

• Prioritizing institutional comfort over human safety 

• Celebrating resilience instead of providing protection

  
  

That is betrayal to social work. Emojis are not solidarity. Allyship without risk is performance. Neutrality is a myth. Your syllabus already takes a side. The only question is if you are willing to admit which one. What are you willing to lose?