BLACK LIVES MATTER

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A VISUALIZATION OF

HASHTAGSa curation of

MEDIAUnderstanding the Impact of social media

within Modern Activist Movements

&

#Eliot Harper + Jessica Lo

PREFACE The role of media in social activism has taken a massive turn since the creation of millennial social media networks. Navigating the hundreds of thousands of tweets, Instagrams, Facebook conversations and photos about a myriad of social issues can be quite daunting at times. This short booklet attempts to outline and curate the movement of different hashtags that fall under the umbrella of the #Blacklivesmatter movement. Hashtags change and evolve as time goes on and focus in on points of change within a movement. #Blacklivesmatter as a twitter and media concept pre-sides over a vast array of social issues and thereby demands a more complete lens through which to view it.

We have gone ahead and taken a small portion of twitter hashtags and ordered them to illustrate the movement’s evolution over time. That is not to say that this evo-lution is completely linear. Backlash and debate spurs from social media as opinions differ and become more heated. When successful mass movements form, the rheto-ric can often be co-opted and used against that movement in an attempt to diminish its value or call out its faults. We not only included the big, positive social hashtags, but also the controversial ones that attempt to silence or berate #Blacklivesmatter activists. On top of this we believe and have seen hashtags, ideas and concepts inad-vertently silenced by the noise of their own partners in activism. We chose to include these as a critical aspect in the examination of social media activism as a mode of resistance. By doing all of this we hope to shine light on what often becomes very dif-ficult to see within the mass of tweets and photos on the Internet.

a letter to THE

READER

Dear Reader,

We’ve organized the following pages by hash-tag, but do not limit each page to images or media that contain said hashtag. Rather, be-cause individual hashtags can take on so many different meanings when different perspectives are applied to them, we took the liberty of as-sociating images and text that we feel fall under the guise of feeling.

The organization is meant to evoke different emotions. Frustration, rage, sadness, silence, even confusion are all aspects that we would like our reader to encounter and process while reading. #Blacklivesmatter is an emotional movement. Its power comes from the passion of every one of its activists. One of the con-sequences of that emotion, however, is the shroud of silence that can come from focusing in on single instances or people. Unconscious biases exist within every person that causes different amounts of attention to be allotted to various aspects of the movement. As such, keep visibility in mind. What are some hashtags you have never seen before, if there are any? How do these images and pieces of writing communicate with one another? What role do they play in joining people and what is the ef-fect of each piece within its larger context?

As we all know, conversations surrounding the #Blacklivesmatter movement between fam-ilies, on social media and among artistic and academic communities are vastly different. Examining the ways in which they are different and how certain modes of expression impact conversation is critical in the search for more efficient and effective communication among members of the movement.

Finally, as you are flipping through these pages please keep in mind the subjectivity surround-ing its process of creation. Know that we, as the curators of this little booklet, have our own per-spectives that cause us to look in certain direc-tions and focus on certain things. There is no finality or total compilation in social media, art or any other form of expression. Perspectives change, our goal is to illustrate that change in the best and most variable way we can.

In Peace and Justice,

Eliot and Jessica

BLACK LIVES MATTER

analyzing the impact of twitterhashtags related to the #BLM movement

Understanding

THE ORGANIZATIONthe new yorker viral images

time magazine’s person-of-the-year runner up

twitter trends

#BLMBlackLivesMatter

parallels between past and present

twitter trends

protests making headlines

#FergusonThe Ferguson protests

Media intake

twitter image of the autopsy

Michael Brown on the scene

#MikeBrownthe son

viral headlines

twitter trends

twitter response

#DarrenWilsonThe policeman

#BLACK LIVES MATTER

#FERGUSON

#SANDRABLAND

#SAYHERNAME

#MIKEBROWN

#DarrenWilson

#HANDSUPDONTSHOOT

#BLACKWOMENMATTER

#BLACKTRANSLIVESMATTER

“NO MATTER WHAT COLOR WE ARE... WE ALL LOOK THE SAMEWITH OUR HANDS UP IN THE AIR..A SIGN OF SURRENDERING.”

@FlyGuyzFame 8/14/2014

“Give me a gun. Put me in Darren Wilson’s shoes.I’d have shot Mike Brown right in his face.”

@BenHowe 11/26/2014

#iftheygunnedmedown

“If they gunned me down, what picture would they choose?Would they paint me as an honor graduate or bandana wearing thug?”

@CruelYear 8/10/2014

“I JUST SAW SOMEONE DIE OMFG”“I’m about to hyperventilate”

“I saw it happen man.” “he looked 18 or 19.”“[shot] 7 times i think”

@TheePharoah 8/13/2014

“I’m heartbroken over the news of no indictment inFerguson. Let’s all pray for peace.”

@Pharrell 11/24/2014

““Today is Tuesday, May 24, 2016. Many who fight for racial equality in

America are forgotten martyrs. This generation remembers Sandra Bland”@njackson1950 5/24/2016

“Say Her Name: Because black women and girls matter, too”@blackvoice 5/19/2016

“Black Trans Lives Matter. If your movement isn’t aboutBlack Trans Lives than it isn’t really about Black Lives.”

@rumrotinfatgrlz 5/12/2016

“Azalia Bank’s twitter is suspended, but not the racists white men,who’ve harrassed me in the past. they HARASS US EVERYDAY.”

@SeeJay 5/12/2016

#NYPD

“We need to keep saying it so it transcends politics and partisanship”@joseiswriting 12/11/2014

“NYPD officer applies chokehold to man yelling‘I can’t breathe’, threatens bystander with a gun for filming.”

@Delo_Taylor 5/22/2016

#BLACK LIVES MATTER

#SANDRABLAND

#HANDSUPDONTSHOOT

#BLACKWOMENMATTER

“NO MATTER WHAT COLOR WE ARE... WE ALL LOOK THE SAMEWITH OUR HANDS UP IN THE AIR..A SIGN OF SURRENDERING.”

@FlyGuyzFame 8/14/2014

““Today is Tuesday, May 24, 2016. Many who fight for racial equality in

America are forgotten martyrs. This generation remembers Sandra Bland”@njackson1950 5/24/2016

“Azalia Bank’s twitter is suspended, but not the racists white men,who’ve harrassed me in the past. they HARASS US EVERYDAY.”

@SeeJay 5/12/2016

#ICANTBREATHE

#ERICGARNER

#ALLLIVESMATTER

#TAMIRRICE

#WAKEUPAMERICA

#SHUTITDOWN

#TRAYVONMARTIN

#NYPD

#BLUELIVESMATTER

“I guess a video of a cop choking a man to death isn’t enough evidence to prove a cop choked a man to death”

@scottacquavella, 12/3/2014

“Eric Garner choked on videotape.His hands up before taken down. Not threatening anyone.

Did prosecutors forget how to prosecute once again?”@LisaBloom 12/3/2014

“That could have been my son, Sebastian.”@DaRealAmberRose 7/12/2013

“Tamir Rice’s death ruled a homicide just like Eric Garner’s.Let’s hope there’s justice for Tamir, this time around.”

@bronze_bombSHEL 12/12/2014

“Join everyone in the streets this weekend and shut it down,shut it down. Dec. 13 - National Day of Resistance”

@dantebarry 12/10/2014

“We need to keep saying it so it transcends politics and partisanship”@joseiswriting 12/11/2014

“VIOLENT CRIME IN AMERICA Black males ages 14-17commit homicide at 10X the rate of whites & hispanics.”

@Lrihendry 5/26/2016

“Black Lives Matter is a leftist hate group!Black Lies Matter, Blue Lives Matter”

@chadphx 5/16/2016

“NYPD officer applies chokehold to man yelling‘I can’t breathe’, threatens bystander with a gun for filming.”

@Delo_Taylor 5/22/2016

“All Lives Matter. You know why we say that?First of all, its true and because we have had it with modern

black people and their entitlement.”@amm_ballefb 5/16/2016

viral tweet drawing of the incident

Demonstrators making a statement

video evidence of incident

#Eric Garnerthe victim

support from across the nation

a viral online movement

#ICantBreathelast words that shook us all

#HandsUpDontShootwe are all the same

public disapproval

nypd Commissioner splashed with fake blood

nypd “crowd control”

#NYPDTHE INSTITUTION

popular web comic

Memphis firefighters

#All Lives Matter#Blue Lives Matter

a conservative response

new “blue lives” bill viral tweets

#SayHerNameshe will not be forgotten

#SANDRABLAND

demonstrators in support of black women

famous quote

“Although Black women are routinely killed, raped, and beaten by the police, their experiences are rare-ly foregrounded in popular understandings of po-lice brutality. Yet, inclusion of Black women’s expe-riences in social movements, media narratives, and policy demands around policing and police brutal-ity is critical to effectively combatting racialized state violence for Black communities and other communities of color.”

Kimberle Crenshaw, AAPF Executive Director

SANDRA BLANDaapf’s official report on police brutality on black women

DIGITAL ART FOR BLACK TRANS ACTIVISM

BLACK TRANS WOMAN IN PROTEST

#BlackTransLivesMatterwe are part of the message

BANNER OF SUPPORT viral tweets

BLACK LIVES MATTER

#BLM

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BLACK LIVES MATTER