Black Twitter
In order to understand the impact of the hashtag #BEU, one has to understand why Black Twitter is such an important cultural and social phenomenon. This essay is reprinted from my first hypertext essay.
Wilson and Chock discussed in their article "New Voices on the Net" how basic access to computers and the Internet continues to be structured on lines of social inequality. Although racial minority groups are more than likely not to have internet access compared to non-Hispanic Whites, there is still proof that race can still shape young people's use of the internet. For example, Black Twitter. "Black twitter?" Since when was Twitter a Black thing, you ask? Unofficially for a while now. According to the Pew's Internet and American Life Project study, "Teens, Social Media, and Privacy,” Twitter is the preferred social network of African-American teens compared to white teens; 39 percent of African-American teens reported using Twitter while only 23 percent of white teens preferred it, (McDonnell-Smith). Black Twitter is incredibly important for the African American community for several reasons. The first, it promotes inclusion. The realm of Black Twitter is open to African Americans and Afro-Cubans, to both the wealthy and the poor, to those who went to a historically Black college or university and to those who went to predominately White institutions. The only requirement if knowledge of the Black experience. “It’s a bunch of people like me. Black people in major cities and it’s basically six degrees of separation. I might not know you, but I might have a friend of a friend of a friend who does," said writer Michael Arceneaux. Black Twitter has also become a social force to be reckoned with. For example, Justine Sacco, the PR executive who jokingly tweeted about AIDS and inspired the worldwide trending topic #HasJustineLandedYet. Black Twitter was also very vocal about the Paula Deen incident and the George Zimmerman trial and verdict. Jamilah Lemieux, digital news and life editor for Ebony magazine told the Washington Post: “You see the dozens being played on Twitter. You see people looking out for one another. Someone’s child is missing, someone’s looking for a job, someone’s looking for an apartment. Then there’s some minor injustice that takes place: a journalist or a major outlet says something terribly offensive, we’re on the attack. Or there’s a grave injustice like Trayvon Martin’s murder or the death of Renisha McBride, we’re all there,” (Washington Post). Why is Black Twitter so important? I agree with Washington Post writer Soraya Nadia McDonald: "Perhaps the most significant contribution of Black Twitter is that it increases visibility of black people online, and in doing so, dismantles the idea that white is standard and everything else is 'other.' It’s a radical demand for acceptance by simply existing — or sometimes dominating — in a space and being yourself, without apology or explanation." (Washington Post). |
Black Students and micro-aggressions on campus
This year, Black students nationwide have started various campaigns on predominately white college campuses to unveil their experiences racial microaggressions.
Microaggressions, a term first introduced by psychiatrist Chester M. Pierce in the 1970s, describes the “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people". The term not only applies to racial minorites, but also to gender, sexual orientation, and ability status. When it comes to Black students on predominantly white college campuses, microaggressions is an all to often phenomenon. At Emory University, the Black community responded to two, not so subtle incidents: the Wagner Three-Fifth's Compromise comments and the Affrimative Action joke made by The Dooley Show. However, students have also experienced other students asking if they even belong on campus, Black students being barred from white fraternity parties, trolls on social media pages claiming Black students should "stop complaining" and playing the "race card", the removal of several Black organizations and spaces on campus, and several other personal experiences. A study Journal of Negro Education titled, "Critical Race Theory, Racial Microagressions, and Campus Racial Climate: The Experiences of African American College Students" by Daniel Solorzano, Miguel Ceja, and Tara Yosso, found that racial microaggressions within academic and social spaces impact both the academic and social life of Black students (p. 66). Negative interactions can also have a psychological impact, causing Black students to feel inferior, foreign, and self-conscious. In response to similar racial experiences, students at Harvard began the "I, Too, Am Harvard" photo campaign. The photos are of students holding up phrases of microaggressions they've personally experienced; phrases like “You only got in because you’re black”, "No, I will not teach you how to 'twerk'", and “The government feels bad for you.” A similar campaign at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor started after students protested against a fraternity's party inviting “rappers, twerkers, gangsters” and others “back to da hood again," as well as an unprecedented decline in Black enrollment at the university. As a result, students and faculty started and participated in the “Being Black at the University of Michigan” campaign and started the hashtag #BBUM on Twitter. Similar campaigns have also begun at Arizona State; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Mississippi; and Dartmouth. What are the benefits of such action? Nadine Kaslow, Emory professor and clinical psychology specialist, said in a recent USA Today article, "There are countless benefits to bringing these microaggressions to light. It is essential that we address racism directly … this often requires difficult dialogues." Another benefit is beginning a dialog about race on college campuses and making non-Black students more aware of microaggressions targeting Black students. Similarly, it is important for students of color to also learn recognize and understand microaggressions and learn the appropriate form of response to each incident. |