Social media’s influence in the Black Lives Matter Movement and George Floyd Protests

Photo illustration by Kerri Holt for Hill Magazine.

Originally published December 3, 2020 for Hill Magazine.

The world was heavy—mournful—on June 2, 2020 as we watched our screens turn black. 

On that day, the loud and seemingly infinite stream of information and self promotion regularly seen on social media came to a stop, leaving but one voice to be heard. This voice was not a new voice, rather, it was one as old as America. A voice that had been belittled and silenced for decades erupted all over social media bringing about a rude, but necessary, awakening for many Americans. 

Just eight days before, on May 25, George Floyd, a Black man, was murdered by white police officers in Minneapolis. This event was caught on video and disseminated quickly throughout the quarantined country.

According to a Times analysis of a timestamped video taken at the scene, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pinned Floyd on the ground keeping his knee on Floyd’s neck for at least eight minutes and fifteen seconds.

Eight minutes and fifteen seconds. 

Floyd lost consciousness, and Chauvin did not remove his knee, according to the analysis.

Paramedics arrived at the scene and for a full minute and twenty seconds after, Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck.

As the video circulated, viewers were left devastated and confused by the callous actions of the police officer. It was this video which galvanized protests in cities across the country, bringing many individuals out of their homes after living remotely for three months because of stay-at-home orders enacted due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

Several people gathered on June 2, 2020 for the Black Lives Matter protest on the Fayetteville square. Photo by Heidi Kirk for Hill Magazine.

The George Floyd protests soon gathered steam as it was broadcast all over the media. Activism was not only flourishing on the streets, but on the streams of social media, now leaving a record of images and videos recounting the tumultuous cry of protesters. These images revealed that people weren’t just demanding justice for George Floyd, but for the many fatal shootings of unarmed Black individuals by police officers.

Black men are 2.5 times more likely than white men to be killed by police during their lifetime, a 2019 study done by the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America found. According to Statista, a German statistics company, 157 Black people have been fatally shot by police this year alone as of Oct. 30, 2020.

Blackout Tuesday, on June 2, 2020, came about as a response to these events. It was a collective gesture of solidarity with the protests against the police killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and so many more Black citizens. This initiative was started by two Black women, Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang, by using the hashtag “#TheShowMustBePaused” according to The Show Must Be Paused website. Though it originated in the music industry, this hashtag eventually spread to all forms of social media. 

“We are tired and can’t change things alone. In the meantime, to our Black friends and family: please take the time for you and your mental health,” Thomas and Agyemang said on their website. “To our allies, the time is now to have difficult conversations with family, friends and colleagues.”

 The voice of the Black community was the only voice left to be heard on that day, and it marked a consequential point in a movement toward a widespread re-education in America and sparked a national discourse about race, police brutality and policy. 

———

I remember feeling confused as I scrolled through my Instagram feed early that summer morning, before knowing anything about the initiative. As I saw a few acquaintances posting black squares, I thought to myself:

What’s up with these black squares? Are people getting hacked?

I exited out of the app, thinking when I looked at it again later that day there would be something more riveting for me to see. After brunch with my family, I opened Instagram again shocked to find that my entire feed was made up of black squares. 

What the heck is going on? I thought, perplexed that my regularly scheduled Instafeed had been disrupted. 

I paid particular attention to who had posted these black squares—this time, my friends had posted, businesses I follow had posted, public figures had posted. I couldn’t help but to read through a few captions. Though the black squares said nothing, the multitude of them was provocative enough to capture my attention.

The captions that accompanied the black squares posted that day were unforgettable, to me. The words were obviously written out with a weighty, sorrowful sentiment. Some enraged at the events that had happened over the last few days. Some captions stated bible verses like Isaiah 1:16-17 which says, “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean. Remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression.” Some simply left blank, as if no words could possibly mend the current situation we were in. 

Black-Owned Northwest Arkansas, an Instagram account meant to serve as a guide to Black-owned businesses in Northwest Arkansas, wrote in their caption, “‘#blackouttuesday’ the movement is more than a hashtag check your heart and intentions before engaging. Do you really want change or is it for show? Black people have to be about that life everyday. Will you still be around when the cameras stop rolling?”

I realized what was happening. The posts were an acknowledgement of the broken racial climate in America.

———

On Jan. 4, 2020, a few months before Blackout Tuesday, I sat at the front of a nearly empty classroom dumbfounded about the new information being taught in my Black Movements and Messiahs intersession course at the University of Arkansas.

I had signed up to try to get ahead in course credits, and the class counted as a history credit, which I needed. It looked interesting enough, and I had high hopes that it would be an easy class, especially since it was offered during winter break. 

Over the next week and a half, Caree Banton, who has a doctorate in history, led our class of about 12 people in a deep expedition back in time and through the history of Black people, from their perspective. The class was packed with new content, and on top of being in class for about four hours a day with only a short break in between for a week and a half straight, we were also assigned two book reports and a group project to work on outside of class—not an easy A.

I think I learned more in that class than any other class I had ever taken. Incredibly humbled by the experience, I went and added African and African American Studies as a minor as soon as I finished the class. 

Part of me was infuriated that in all my years of being in school, no one had ever taught me the history of Black people in America, from their perspective. In 14 years of being a student and being asked to “think critically” I had never even questioned if there was another side of history. 

“This is systematic, you know. From the textbooks that you’re reading in middle school and high school all the way up to how the curriculum is arranged in college that some people never get to take those classes,” Banton said. 

I can’t even begin to imagine how Black people must feel having their historical records left out of academic narratives. What kind of an education system is this? Favoring and exclusively teaching one perspective and ignoring the many other perspectives that are foundational to not only society, but to the human experience! 

We have got to re-evaluate. 

———

I took a screenshot of a black square and went to post. I couldn’t think of a caption. Right before I started typing #blackouttuesday, I deleted my draft of the post. The situation was delicate, and I wanted more time to reflect before posting.

I set down my phone and picked up my copy of Nelson Mandela’s autobiography that I had been reading. On the TV, I pulled up Spotify to enjoy some background music. 

Oh my gosh. Spotify is participating in Blackout Tuesday too. 

The covers for playlists in the “browse” section were blacked out. Some of the artists I was following also had changed their profile photos to a black picture. I couldn’t believe it.

This is awesome. This is a cross-media movement; this is a global movement. 

I turned on my favorite artist, Chance The Rapper, and exchanged my book for my phone. Out of curiosity, I opened up Pinterest, my second most used social media app besides Instagram. It was there too. Pinterest had changed its profile picture to match the Blackout Tuesday initiative. 

As incredible as I thought it all was, there was a skeptical thought that lingered in my mind:

If the goal is to elevate Black voices, how is choosing to post a black square actually helping? Wouldn’t it be better if I just didn’t post on social media at all?

I questioned if my motivation to post at first had been performative. If I was going to show that I stood in solidarity with the Black community, shouldn’t I be doing something else besides just posting something on social media? But what could I do?

I refrained from posting that day. Not because I don’t care about Black people, and I wasn’t mad that other people were posting their black squares either.  I just didn’t understand and couldn’t justify how my post would help elevate the voices of Black people around me. I didn’t want to post out of pressure to make a statement, and I certainly didn’t want to post on Blackout Tuesday and forget the sentiment behind that post the next Tuesday. I was silent.

———

A July 2020 survey reports that 23 percent of social media users in the U.S. and 17 percent of adults overall say that social media has led to a change in their views about a political or social issue, many citing the Black Lives Matter Movement, according to Pew Research Center, a non-partisan think tank based in Washington, D.C. On Twitter alone, the “#BlackLivesMatter” hashtag was used roughly 3.7 million times per day from May 26 to June 7, according to Pew. 

Social media is a tool that has been used to propel movements recognizing People of Color. However, when used incorrectly or without proper knowledge, social media has also been used to cause more damage to those people groups. 

At about lunch time on Blackout Tuesday, people began removing their posts. There was a graphic circulating calling for people to delete their black square posts. Black-Owned Northwest Arkansas posted a follow up–“If you’ve posted a black square with #blacklivesmatter please consider deleting. You’re silencing valuable resources and information within the movement. We need our voices to be amplified, not silenced. #blackouttuesday #blacklivesmatter”

While the initiative began with good intentions, because of a lack of information, it ended up doing more harm than good. By adding the hashtag #blacklivesmatter to the posts from the Blackout Tuesday initiative, it was burying crucial information, especially relating to protests that were happening at the time that were being shared within the Black Lives Matter Movement under that hashtag. 

  Jasmine Hudson and J’Aaron Merchant, who run the Black-Owned Northwest Arkansas account, are concerned that intentions in posting a black square may not have all been pure. 

“You have to engage in what’s popular, right. So, take an influencer and they have a diverse fan base, and even if they really don’t believe in everything that the Blackout stance stood for, they have to post it or else they’re gonna get called out, and the last thing you need in today’s cancel culture is to be cancelled,” Hudson said. 

Hudson said that on one end, the initiative served in bringing an overall awareness to the genuine belief that Black lives really do matter, but overall the movement was more detrimental in her opinion. A major concern Hudson, Merchant and others shared that day is what would happen after. If there would be any tangible change as a result from the initiative. 

“With big corporate businesses, they posted their black square and their white text and kept it moving,” Merchant said. 

The Blackout Tuesday social media initiative, in a sense, reflected the way our culture mourns the losses of innocent Black lives non-virtually. People take time to sympathize with the Black community and then go back on living their normal lives.

“It happens after every single shooting. There’s always a Town Hall, a discussion, someone may even put together like a plan, but it doesn’t, nothing actually really happens to really impact change,” Hudson said. 

This shouldn’t be the case. If America ever wants to move forward as a non-racist country, policy change must happen proportionately to the dialogue about racism and inequality. We need something tangible. 

———

As I watched my screen go black, I was bewildered at how rapidly the initiative spread across all platforms of social media. As I watched people take down their posts or change their captions, I was alarmed at how much of an effect cancel culture has on what people do on social media. I was alarmed at how quickly misinformation could travel. 

I felt helpless as I remembered what I had learned in my January intersession class.

The threads of prejudice, racism, favoritism and inequality were woven into the foundations of our country. And though it is a hard recognition, it is those threads that hold together the most valuable systems that make up what we call a democracy. 

And how could I, a single individual, help without causing more hurt? Can all American citizens ever truly experience freedom and security within the land of liberty? 

The lyrics of “America the Beautiful” rang in my head.

America! America! 

God mend thine every flaw,

Confirm thy soul in self-control,

Thy liberty in law!

I prayed that Jesus would come back soon. That he would bring justice and restoration so that people would stop considering good and evil on their own terms—so that I would stop considering good and evil on my own terms. 

———

The day our screens went black marked a historic day for so many reasons. It showcased a collective voice broadly while allowing different routes of looking into individual voices—all which yearned and pleaded equality for every citizen, no matter their background.

For me, Blackout Tuesday was an internal scope, an opportunity to contemplate my own implicit biases and a promise to keep unlearning history as it was taught, and to re-learn history, incorporating everyone’s perspectives. 

The day helped me to diversify my social media feed, so that I can listen to people outside of my own circle. It taught me about being intentional with where I invest my time and money. 

I think a lot of people learned some of the same lessons I did because of Blackout Tuesday. Though at the time the situation was confusing, and misinformation was traveling like crazy, I believe this day was purposeful in catching the attention of many Americans. 

I am thankful for the patience and grace given to me by my Black friends, professors and acquaintances. Though I know you’re tired, and though I know things like this shouldn’t keep happening—thank you for continuing to fight, and for continuing to lead us in learning to love earnestly and to love all.

May we remember this historic day, and assimilate the honest sentiments behind it into how we think and the choices we make daily. And may this lead us past a conversation, to tangible policy change that upholds the inherent value of all people. 

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!