National News
Blacks Lead Social Justice Charge on Social Media
By Jazelle Hunt
NNPA Columnist
WASHINGTON (NNPA) – What do
“Bring Back Our Girls,” “Justice for
Trayvon” and “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot”
have in common? They’re all rallying cries
that began on social media. And when big
things happen through social media, Black
people usually lead the charge.
Internet activism, also called “hashtag
activism,” is an emerging side effect of the
digital age, as ordinary people take to social
media websites to organize and agitate.
Today, Black people use sites such as Twit-
ter and Facebook at higher rates than other
groups. Last year, the Pew Research Center
Black people are
using this ability to
dominate to drive
awareness to racial
issues and spur action
found that 29 percent of all Black Ameri-
cans who are online use Twitter, and 76
percent use Facebook, compared to 16 per-
cent and 71 percent of Whites, respectively.
On Twitter, the trend has led to the term
“Black Twitter,” in which a conversation
among African American users can and
often does become the dominant conversa-
tion on the site.
And Black people are using this ability to
dominate to drive awareness to racial issues
and spur action.
Twitter is a website that allows users all
over the world to send and respond to public
messages, or Tweets, in real time. Users can
also create and use hashtags, denoted by the
pound sign (“#”). Hashtags communicate an
idea, and allow Tweets to be grouped
together, creating a global, real-time public
conversation around that idea.
“Twitter is the Internet’s answer to the
telephone tree,” says Mikki Kendall, who
uses Twitter to chat with the more than
23,500 “followers” who opt to include her
Tweets in their tailored stream of conversa-
tions. She Tweets under the username
@Karnythia; on Twitter, usernames are
called “handles.”
Almost exactly a year ago, Kendall creat-
ed
the
hashtag,
#SolidarityisforWhiteWomen to highlight
White feminists’ lack of support for women
of color. The hashtag drew millions Tweets
on the topic and generated feminist forums
and events around the country on the topic.
Media outlets such as NPR, Huffington
Post, The Root, even The Guardian and Al
Jazeera, penned articles on Kendall’s hash-
tag and the questions it raised. Twitter users
still use and discuss it today.
“I’ve since heard from a lot of people
about how educational that [hash]tag was,
and how it informed some people’s work.”
says Kendall. “You look on Twitter and see
people in Egypt and Palestine explaining to
people in Ferguson how to handle tear gas
and dog bites. Even as police push media
out—you can push media out but can’t push
out the people who live there and have a
smart phone.”
In 2012, Black Twitter produced #Justice-
forTrayvon to discuss and spotlight the
murder of Trayvon Martin, and the lack of
law enforcement attention on his assailant,
George Zimmerman. The hashtag grew into
an online petition calling for Zimmerman’s
arrest, then spilled into the real world to
become the rallying cry. The mobilization
around #JusticeforTrayvon eventually led to
Zimmerman’s arrest, two months after the
shooting.
In the days following Zimmerman’s
acquittal, Black Twitter got wind of the
news that Juror B37 had secured a literary
agent and book deal for her involvement
with the trial. Genie Lauren, Twitter handle
@MoreAndAgain, found the agent’s pro-
fessional contact information online and
Tweeted it to her estimated 3,000 followers.
“[Black Twitter users] knew we could
stop this book. We’d gotten Paula Deen
kicked off her TV show, we’d gotten pub-
lished pieces taken [offline] for being
offensive,” Lauren says. After suggesting
that her followers contact the agent, Lauren
also launched an online petition to pull the
plug on the book deal. Within an hour, the
petition had more than 1,000 signatures.
Shortly after, the agent contacted Lauren to
say she would no longer represent Juror
B37. By the time Lauren shut down the
petition, it had 1,343 signatures, and she
had attracted approximately 6,000 new fol-
lowers.
“I have a love-hate relationship with the
term [Black Twitter]. It’s a thing, but at the
same time it’s not a thing – it’s just Black
people on Twitter,” she says. “Black people
find each other no matter where we are,
especially if we don’t own the space. And
just like in real life, we’re not a monolithic
group. There are lots of different circles
making up the group.”
Lauren explains that Black people have
always been trendsetters, and the rise of
Black Twitter and Black-led hashtag
activism is not surprising to her. But it
seems to have surprised others, particularly
media outlets that occasionally put the
activity and trends among Black users under
the microscope.
Major media outlets, advertising and mar-
keting companies, and the Pew Research
Center have examined and discussed the
way Black people operate on social media
sites. In May 2013, The Root got ahead of
external chatter by launching The Chat-
terati, a hub for all the top topics of the day
among Black social media users.
“I think [Black Twitter] became such a
thing because via Twitter, a previously
silenced group now has the opportunity to
broadcast their thoughts and voices them-
selves, without having to go through a
middle man that may or may not give them
the stage,” says Tracy Clayton the former
editor of The Chatterati. “With sites like
Twitter, marginalized people can speak for
themselves and drive their own narratives.”
The subject of social media organizing
often begs the question: What good does
this do offline? There’s a bit of debate about
whether hashtag activism is activism.
Yesha Callahan, current editor of The
Chatterati, points out that social media can
be the springboard, but should not be the
final destination.
“I can see both sides. It speaks upon what
[a person] finds important. If they think
hashtagging is more important than volun-
teering…what’s the point?” Callahan says.
“At the same time, I know a woman who is
handicapped and can’t be in the streets, but
what she does online is organize. For people
who have no excuse, I question their
motives.”
Kendall agrees that activism should not
start and end on computers.
“People like to say it’s hashtag activism…
and that doesn’t make it real,” she says.
“But now you know what’s happening, you
know where you’re needed, and that matters
in real life. When you think about Freedom
Summer, the marches, the sit-ins…we for-
get how things got organized. This is just
another aspect of that.”
When done well, a Twitter hashtag sparks
a sprawling national or international con-
versation, then inspires offline action. A
recent example is the hashtag, #IfThey-
GunnedMeDown. C.J. Lawrence, posed the
question, “Which photo does the media use
if the police shot me down?” With it, juxta-
poses two photos of himself: one in which
he is a commencement speaker at his grad-
C.J. Lawrence took to Twitter to pose the question:
“which photo does the media use if the police shot
me down?” His accompanying hashtag
#IfTheygunnedMeDown goes viral.
uation, with Bill Clinton and other notables
in the background laughing at a joke he’s
made; and other with him dressed in all
Black and posing with a bottle of liquor.
“What most people wouldn’t realize, if
they just grabbed the second photo of me, is
that it’s me at a Halloween party, pretending
to me Kanye West at the [Video Music
Awards]. Neither [depictions] deserve to
die,” says James, who Tweets as
@CJ_musick_lawya.
“I was trying to highlight that no matter
your education, class, or fashion sense,
nobody deserves to die in the street that
way. And you can’t capture the essence of a
person in one photo, one quote.”
Before #IfTheyGunnedMeDown, most
media outlets had been reporting on the
police shooting death of Michael Brown in
Ferguson, Mo. using an unsmiling photo of
Brown in a basketball jersey, with his
thumb, index, and middle fingers up.
After the hashtag took over Twitter, with
other users posting their own dichotomous
photos, media began to report on the con-
versation.
“I didn’t have the slightest inclination it
would take off as much as it did. The power
of social media forced mass media to ques-
tion itself,” James says. “It caused media to
have to talk about it, how it represents us,
and how it will continue to moving for-
ward.”
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August 20, 2014 The Portland and Seattle Skanner Page 7