Growing up, my Blackness was contingent upon my looks and behavior. With my preppy style of dress, lack of Ebonics, and "valley girl" voice, my peers deemed that I was not black enough. However, my Twitter account (and brown skin) says otherwise. I belong to a community known as "Black Twitter." It is essentially an indiscriminate network of Twitter users focused on celebrating black excellence, striving for political justice, and reshaping black-on-black interaction. Because of this community, Twitter has become my preferred app. Scrolling through my timeline, you’ll find content perfect for a Sunday afternoon: political manifestos, lyrics from Frank Ocean, and relatable stories. You’ll also find posts by me. With my own personal platform, I aim to tweet and retweet posts that center on black …show more content…
Whether I’m sharing a small tidbit, or a well-organized 140 character essay, it’s empowering that I get to discuss freely with the entire world my theories. Black Twitter has become a learning tool; reframing my worldview and stimulating ideas for rhetoric. Yes, it is bittersweet that as a society we flock to social media for “community.” However, I’m confident that what we speak and post online manifests into reality. As proud as I have become of my culture, I’m motivated to come along side others and help them recognize their self-worth and to embrace the things that make them different as well. I’m eager to bring my perspective to the explemary University of Oklahoma, championing the idea of “thriving community”. This means stepping away from the laptop and meeting people where they are at. I have found a passion for serving youth, as I can relate to the unique challenges that come with adolescence. It is crucial for every individual to know that their story can be used to help others, and to put in the mental, physical, and emotional work to serve is a worthy
Nikita Carney’s “All Lives Matter, but so Does Race: Black Lives Matter and the Evolving Role of Social Media” assesses the role of social media as a public sphere, capable of influencing public discourse and the evolution of social media as a platform for discussing racial injustice. Carney uses twitter as her subject and analyzes the opposing discourse surrounding hashtags “#BlackLivesMatter” and “#AllLivesMatter” occurring after the non-indictments of white police officers in the killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. These hashtags represent opposing ideology about police brutality and the persecution of black bodies. Carney begins by establishing Twitter as a place for marginalized youth of color to engage in meaningful discourse about their experiences of racial inequality. Carney notes that “different groups viewing the same media coverage interpret issues of race and police violence in drastically different ways”, proving the existence of confirmation bias on social media. Millennials have
When the ink stopped flowing on the Emancipation Proclamation, black men, women, and children breathed a sigh of relief. But did they rejoice? They couldn’t have, not if they still had to deal with the infinite hate that could force them into cages for people to laugh at. Talk is cheap, so it’s easy for people emphasize the numbers in the phrase, “It’s two-thousand-seventeen, why do we still fight for this?,” but it will never be enough to mask the presence of racism in this age. Not only do stereotype reinforcements exist in the real world, but it thrives in the virtual one; it ranges from Twitter to valid news sites, leaving a trail of crumbs behind it. Patriotic citizens of the United States proudly sing that their country is the “land of the free, and home of the brave,” but how is it that groups of “free” citizens can’t get equal representation in the media? It sure is brave of news sources to hide the good actions minorities take to defeat stereotypes and still sit privileged folk on the throne for doing things those minorities have been doing for centuries. On Twitter especially, it is easy to find news articles
The authors, Yarimar Bonilla and Jonathan Rosa chose disciplines with the background in communications, sociology, and public affairs. These three disciplines are not only present in this article but also represent the issue as a whole. Social media reflects communication, society’s behavior portrays sociology, and the political viewpoints symbolize public affairs. Key concepts like ethnography, police brutality, social media, and activism are all exercised in the article to help determine if a hashtag could become a field site. Research methods such as communication research and content analysis are evident throughout the article. For example, the article discusses a numerical description by stating, “during the initial week of protests, over 3.6 million posts appeared on Twitter documenting and reflecting on the emerging details surrounding Michael Brown’s death” (Bonilla & Rosa 2015). The article does not directly state any key thinkers nor key theories but Black Lives Matter founders Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi all encourage the content of the article and the supported sources.
One aspect of life for black people in the United States of America that has always remained consistent is white racial hostility. A history of slavery, segregation, unequal protection of the law, and second class citizenship inflicted by a white power structure that dominates on a national level has created a harmful reality for black people. Every aspect of black public life must either be under the control of or in opposition to white supremacy. Every state-sanctioned institution works to use black bodies as tools for the production of capital in any form, yet simultaneously exploits and maltreats black people so that they cannot fully participate in and benefit from the systems which they are indoctrinated to invest in. White America leverages its money, comfort, and tyranny on Black America. It is for this reason that separate spaces are not merely essential to the viability of black counter-publics but inherent to their existence, since black involvement in white spaces and systems typically leads to black assimilation or marginalization. Within these black counter-publics, hip hop and mass connection through new media forms direct attention and allow for personal expression which shapes black worldview and public opinion, but this simply makes black people more comfortable with their oppression and less involved in politics.
Three years after BLM launched a nationwide uprising against police violence, what's next for the movement? In this special section, a leading African American historian explores how the group is forging a powerful new form of civil rights activism. Plus: How police in 1970s Detroit unleashed an undercover execution squad, and the modern-day rise of "warrior policing."
Technology has shaped the large social movement. #BlackLivesMatter has been a useful and positive tool in 2015 and in 2016. In the Social Media Helps Black Lives Matter Fight the Power it talks about how
For decades black Americans have been treated as animals, looked at as if they are monsters, and killed like bugs. Actions like Police brutality and racism is what caused Black Lives Matter. The creation of the Black Lives Matter was a response by the black community to give a voice to black Americans affected by the increase of wrongful deaths due to the law enforcements and vigilantes across the country. This has been going on for so long that it seems like we are stuck in the past. For years, even decades black Americans have had to live the struggle of being equal. Even when things are going good and we think we finally have the same rights, something happened to change that. It is time to shed a light on the real purpose of Black Lives Matter and why they are important to today's society.
In the recent years, with the start and spread of the Black Lives Matter movement, my love for researching, basically anything, has shifted it's focus. When I was younger I used to love researching biology, happily watching Animal planet as my main informant. But, now it has grown into an inquiry for history and more specifically black history. The movement has sparked an interest into politics and social justice. After a hashtag would sadly be made to bring attention to the death of a victim of police brutality, I would find myself spending hours looking at tweets. Twitter providing me information about policies, statistics, political candidates, and differing opinions.More than I would have probably ever learned without it. Even now, it is my main source of information for the presidential election and has proven to be very reliable.
Social media has become entwined into our lives. Are you, like me, do you check your phone when you first wake? Do you secretly check your messages in class? Do you check who's liked your post? I'm guessing you've answered YES to these entire questions! We have all been there, it’s like
One of the the most controversial topics of discussion in our nation is the Black Lives Matter movement. This movement has sparked up immensely because of the President in office right now, Donald Trump, and many events transpiring around the nation. The country is at separation between the people who think that Black Lives Matter is a real issue and the people who think it is not. Without a doubt, people need to be considered equally, no matter what is said at the end of the day. America was founded on the idea that every man that walks on the soil will have just as equal opportunities as the next, no matter the race. Three essential reasons people are determined to fight for this cause is to end job discrimination, stop police brutality, and gain equal rights within society.
Like many of us today, I settled. I settled for writing what I thought to be profound words to move people enough to…like my status; I settled for heated conversations with like-minded people who I did not need to use any effort convincing them that Black lives matter because they already felt the same as I did. I even stooped to the ultimate “social media” low by reading and responding to racist comments that I found under articles, Facebook posts and YouTube videos.
Throughout the day, whenever I have a break, I check the Facebook, Messenger and Snapchat applications on my phone as I very rarely use my computer for tasks that are not school-related. Once a week, approximately, I sign in on Twitter and Pinterest just to see what’s new. Most often than not, I find myself scrolling through Tumblr, looking for posts that analyze my favorite movies and television shows and try to come up with theories on what will happen afterward. A lot of the publications that I’m interested in openly criticize the way that minorities and various issues such as dubious consent are portrayed
On social media, I’m very cautious with what I put out there for a multitude of reasons. Looking back at my last fifteen tweets, about eight of those tweets are Van Meter related, which most tend to be about success of Van Meter sports(final scores of our games or news coverage). Two of the tweets are happy birthday tweets, wishing Connor Guess and Drew Gordon a happy birthday, and I inserted a few pictures of us to go along with it. The remaining five tweets are sports related, with four of them being motivational stories about athletes, and the other one referencing the video game Madden. The other thing that stands out to me on social media now that I think about it, is who I am following and who is following me. I can honestly say that a good amount of people that follow me, around
The world has never before been connected as much as it is today. One’s ability to communicate through various mediums is rapidly advancing, and this is much thanks to social media.
It was a Friday night with a clear dark sky and birds tweeting all around. I was sitting outside on the balcony scrolling through my twitter timeline when I landed on a twitter thread. A twitter thread is a set of tweets that a person tweets consecutively to inform, satirize, persuade or amuse the reader. These threads tend to be about anything and everything and they’ve become my favorite part of going on the app itself. Some examples I’ve seen before range from “How I slept with my best friend’s dad” to “How I achieved a 4.0”. The one I landed upon that night was about conspiracy theories and seeing as the thread was long, I went back inside, got comfy and began reading. The thread started with the Mandela effect which seemed pretty intense then it went on to the famous 9/11 theory. The one that caught my eye was Denver International Airport theory. This had me shook that the airport 20 minutes away from me is considered hell. It’s actually so creepy a chill runs down my spine writing about it. When I first read the theory, I googled it and learned the basics.