‘Black Lives Matter’ (BLM) campaign through social media not only shows the power of the campaign but also the power of social media. Social media has been an important tool for the ‘Black Lives Matter’ campaign from its very formation. An important feature of social media is that it is mostly and quite easily accessible.
This makes these digital platforms a great space for people of cause to come together and organise a campaign or show solidarity for the same cause. This has been more evident during the Covid 19 lockdown when social distance was a norm.
According to Pew Research, among the people who engage in social activism on social media platforms, black users are more. On this note, the article will discuss how social media played a great role in taking the ‘Black Lives Matter’ campaign to new heights.
Black Lives Matter protest near White House, USA.
Social media refers to virtual platforms or networks through which people share information, interact among each other and create a chain of connections. Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc are some of the examples of social media platforms. Among these LinkedIn has been founded for creating professional connections, Twitter is mainly for microblogging, Whatsapp is mainly a messaging application and platforms like facebook and instagram are social networking sites.
Use of these virtual platforms can be accessed if one owns a smart device like smartphone, computer, tablet, etc and a stable internet connectivity in their device. Use of social media has also helped people in knowing what is happening worldwide in real-time, without being actually present there. It has made communication transparent and quick, irrespective of the physical distance.
In 2013, Trayvon Martin who was just 17 years old was killed by a police officer named George Zimmerman in Florida while he was returning from a shop after buying iced tea and sweets. Zimmerman claimed that the teenager looked suspicious. Mr. Zimmerman was arrested in the case but was soon released when found non guilty of the murder. This was the first time that a facebook post called ‘Black Lives Matter’ circulated and started gaining support.
A year later another boy named Michael Brown who was 18 years of age was shot dead in Ferguson, Missouri by a police officer. After this incident the campaign gained national support. Many similar incidents provided popularity to the campaign but one incident that made the campaign very popular and spread it worldwide was the killing of George Floyd.
In a similar incident of 2020, a black man named George Floyd was killed by a white police officer at Minneapolis. His death showed similar signs of police brutality and led to some of the greatest Black Lives Matter protests in the history of different countries. Some of these countries include New Zealand, United Kingdom, France, Columbia and Washington,D.C. In fact Floyd’s daughter on meeting President Biden told him that “Daddy changed the world”. The global impact of the movement brings out the accuracy of her words.
Protest against the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The accessibility of these digital platforms led hundreds of people to show their support for the cause. Since these platforms could be accessed from anywhere the campaign received support from people of all ages irrespective of their gender, physical ability, socioeconomic status and race. Through the hashtag of BLM more and more people shared their personal experiences of oppression, racism and exclusion among the white people through the help of social media, which was quite impossible in an offline protest.
Thus, the movement provided equal opportunity to every participant more so because it lacked any leadership hierarchy. This also gave the protest an intersectional character which helped it grow to such an extent. The BLM also portrayed their solidarity towards other minority groups and movements like the LGBTQs, feminist movements and Stop Asian Hate.
In addition to this, the campaign grew stronger during Covid-19 pandemic not only because of the 2019 and 2020 police brutality towards black people in the United States grew but also due to the discrimination the minorities had to face during the pandemic. Hence, the mobile nature of this digital campaign kept providing it with new supporters through the social media platforms. There is also a community present online, named ‘Black Twitter’ which through social media tries to connect more and more black people and provide constant support to them in many ways possible.
Black Lives Matter Protest in the UK.
It can be concluded that black social media users used the platforms to connect with like minded people and unite with them in order to hold people in power accountable for their activities and also in order to uplift the underrepresented communities or minorities. This is why we can say that social media became an important tool for educating, organising or spreading a word and creating social movements in this new age.
Q1. Who coined the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’?
Ans. Patrisse Cullors is an American artist and activist who coined the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’. She is also one of the co-founder of this campaign. In the year 2013 she created a hashtag (#BlackLivesMatter) after the release of George Zimmerman who killed a black boy of 17 years old in Florida.
Q2. What are the disadvantages of social media movements or campaigns?
Ans. Social media movements need huge online support to pressurise the stakeholders to bring positive change since these are silent protests in the sense that they are rarely performed offline and catch people’s eyes. These movements might spread misinformation among people. In extreme cases, people can also be duped through extortion of money in the name of donation.
Q3. What do you understand about the term slacktivist?
Ans. Slacktivists are people who show support for social media movements but believe that these movements are not as impactful as offline protests. According to them, liking a post or forwarding a message or forwarding a post for social media movement does not show concrete participation or dedication towards a cause.
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