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The movement was first seen online through the creation of the infamous #BlackLivesMatter. A three-worded tagline “catapulted the U.S. into a modern-day civil rights movement” (Dupere 1).
The movement was created by Alicia Garza after “after 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was post-humously placed on trial for his own murder and the killer, George Zimmerman, was not held accountable for the crime he committed” (Garza 1). It was as a call to action for black people, and a response “to the anti-Black racism that permeates our society and also, unfortunately, our movements” (Garza 1). It brought to light the hardships and discrimination that too many black people face, and “forced mainstream media to cover things [previously] ignored” (Dupere 1).
blklivesmatter: We continue #BlackFuturesMonth with a poster from Brandan BMike Odums @bmike2c on Transformative Justice, with an accompanying editorial from @adriennemareebrown entitled "How We Learned (Are Learning) Transformative Justice" #BlackFuturesMonth17
blklivesmatter: 👀 #nobannowall #solidarity
blklivesmatter: It’s the final day of #BlackFuturesMonth! We close out with a piece by @delanodunn - curated by @artnoirco - and accompanying essay by Barbara Ransby. “Revolution begins with a dream.” #ARTNOIR #BlackLivesMatter
blklivesmatter: Five years ago today, Trayvon’s extrajudicial murder and his family’s commitment to ending gun violence and strengthening communities catalyzed a generation of organizers and activists to take action for Black lives.
blklivesmatter: Y'all. Today is such a gift in #BlackFuturesMonth. We have this beautiful art piece "Black Venus" by @nyanzad_ and an article by Sonya Renee Taylor entitled "Black Sex Matters: No More Fear Of Flying". Please read on @blackvoices and be transformed! Ashe! #BlackFuturesMonth17
blklivesmatter: Five years ago today, Trayvon’s extrajudicial murder and his family’s commitment to ending gun violence and strengthening communities catalyzed a generation of organizers and activists to take action for Black lives.
blklivesmatter: Trump: Ban Muslims America: not if you don't wanna catch these hands! 🙅🏽#nobannowall
blklivesmatter: Water is the source of life for all of us. Corporate greed is not more important than our life sources. #WaterIsLife #NoDAPL #MniWiconi
blklivesmatter: White folks, get your people all the way together. We need all of us. #blacklivesmatter
The movement utilized the vast network of social media to its advantage, spreading beyond a Twitter Hashtag to other media outlets, creating accounts to connect with people on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, and soon turned into a worldwide phenomenon, invoking intense social debate.
With great power comes great responsibility. Social media is a tool that has the capability to create social change (Kaplan and Haenlein 59). However, the infrastructure of social media is not black and white.
Like businesses, activism movements like ‘Black Lives Matter’ are also subjective to the construct of online publicity.
Similar to many other viral trends, the movement subjected to major criticism, and had justify their cause against the #Haters.
‘Slacktivism’—how actors and individuals seek social change through low-cost activities, and how people cannot “click their way to a better world” (Shirky 7).
Additionally, people on the internet can be assholes.
However, it can also be argued that the Hashtag is not simply just an online trend, but rather it “mobilized the online community into action around racial justice issues” (Dupere 1). It is a foundation for major social discussion and political change.
The hashtags presence on social media is a phenomenon, however, its “dominance is not consistent in magnitude across metrics or across time” (Freelon 12). Therefore, the “movement is currently in a place of maintaining momentum created over the past few years, galvanizing both the public and policymakers into action” (Dupere 1).
Therefore, it is essential to keep the conversation going.
“Cultural workers, artists, designers and techies offered their labor and love to expand #BlackLivesMatter beyond a social media hashtag” (Garza 1)
The movement can go viral, but that does not necessarily equate to permanent social change.
“It may take almost a decade more to make a dent in some of the most massive racial justice issue” Dupere 1). However, given the power of social media, if one is willing to accept short term disappointment, one can utilize the long-term benefits this tool promises (Shirky 9). It is a long and exhausting battle, but if not now, when?
And this is only the beginning.
Credits
Dupere, Katie. 2016. “Advocates discuss how Black Lives Matter turned a hashtag into a call-to-action”. Marshable, pp. 1.
Freelon, Deen. 2016.“The Measure of a Movement: Quantifying Black Lives Matter’s Social Media Power”, pp. 1-16.
Garza, Alicia, O. Tometi, and P. Cullors. 2014."A herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter movement." Are All the Woman Still White?, pp. 23-28.
Kaplan, Andreas M., and Michael Haenlein. 2010. "Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media." Business horizons 53.1, pp. 59-68.
Shirky, Clay. 2011. "The political power of social media: Technology, the public sphere, and political change." Foreign affairs, pp. 28-41.