Analysis Of ' The Hashtag '

What does it mean to you to be a black girl? If you aren’t one, what do you see when you visualize a black girl? If your imagination limits you to just an afro-centric featured, loud and slang-loving, uneducated woman, then this piece is addressed to you. The persistence of the stereotypes concerning average black girls have chained us all to the earlier listed attributes. One side effect of this dangerous connection is the wide opening for a new form of discrimination it creates. Whether it is depicted through slave owners allocating the preferable duties to lighter-skinned black woman, or in modern times where a dislike in rap music categorizes you as not really black, segregation within black communities occur. Tracing all the way back to elementary school, my education on the subject of racial segregation has been constricted to just the injustices routed by dissimilarities between racial groups. What failed to be discussed was the intragroup discrimination occurring in the black society from both outside observers and inside members. Unfortunately, our differences in the level of education, in physical appearance, and in our social factors such as our behaviour, personality or what we believe in have been pitted against each other to deny the variety of unique identities that we as black individuals carry.

Black people as a whole living in a world where they are trouble, no more no less. Goldberg states, “...unlike ‘all lives’...black lives are too often not to matter” (1). When political officers used the statement, “All Lives Matter,” black people once again felt as if they did not matter. Which is why the “Black Lives Matter” movement started. To bring awareness to the dehumanization of black people. People are white, were informed from a young age, they are superior. People who were not white were taught they were inferior. Everyone was to believe and understand white was a symbol for purity. Although times are better than the Civil Rights movement and slavery, America still needs improvement in their

Technology has shaped the large social movement. #BlackLivesMatter has been a useful and positive tool in 2015 and in 2016. In the Social Media Helps Black Lives Matter Fight the Power it talks about how

The fourth chapter of "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?”is about the identity development in adolescence. It is said that when black children are growing up, they engage in many of the white culture’s beliefs and values as it is all around them. It is not until a little later where they begin to recognize the impact of racism. This can happen around the early stages of adulthood. It might even happen around the junior high age. Gender also comes into play around this time as well. A black girl wouldn't be acknowledged for her beauty in a white setting as she is not in the society's standard for beautiful. Since the black girls aren’t considered beautiful, they begin to feel devalued. The black youth are beginning

Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a loosely‐coordinated, nationwide movement dedicated to ending police brutality that rose to prominence in late 2014. It takes its name from a hashtag started by three Black feminist activists Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi but the movement and the hashtag are not identical (Freelon, McIlwain, & Clark, 2016). BLM has achieved national reputation through their online and offline organizing, obtaining extensive news media coverage and glowing references in music and entertainment television. Based on a horrendous incident that sparked a concern for a lot of Black people across the world, the sudden need for a social movement was born called BLM. Black Lives Matter is a national organization working for the validity of Black life and also working to rebuild the Black liberation movement. Black Lives Matter broadens the conversation and highlight the incidents around state violence to include the ways in which Black people are intentionally left powerless at the hands of the state. This referring to the ways in which Black lives are deprived of basic human rights and dignity. According to the article The Murder of Walter Scott, which talks about race and class, “African Americans are less than 13% of the U.S. population yet they are nearly 50% of those killed by the police. North Charleston has a population of 104,000, 47% Black and the police force is 80% white (Miah, 2015)”.

On the very first day of the class, Introduction to the Black Experience, we learned that people are defined by their culture and geography. We are also defined by the gaze of others and our own gaze. This realization led me to contemplate what the “black experience” means to me. As a first generation Haitian-American woman at Wellesley College, it has become clearer to me how important the language and culture of parents has been in shaping my identity. I have also begun to think more critically about how my identity as a woman of color separates me from black brothers as well as my white peers at Wellesley.

There are five words I grew up hearing continuously spoken from the mouths of my parents “Don’t take things for granted.” Unlike what many of my black friends or just black people in general can say, I grew up with everything I could ever ask for and more. My parents don’t consider themselves wealthy; instead they prefer the word comfortable. My mother grew up in segregated schools, but she also grew up in desegregated schools, of which her experience she said wasn’t bad for her. In 5th grade when they first combined whites and blacks it was just her and this other black boy in class and the both of them together were mistaken for being white because of how light their skin was. My father on the other hand had it much worse than my mother segregated or not. The stories he speaks of still to this day

On a day to day basis African-American individuals are diminished on account of prejudicial biases. Therefore, the movement “Black Lives Matter” has been constructed. It is a network of people working together to rebuild the black liberation movement. Black Lives Matter became a hashtag in the summer of 2013, when Alicia Garza posted a Facebook status called “a love letter to black people.” This status was posted as an assertion for a distressed community over George Zimmerman’s exculpation

“I turn on the news each night and what do I see again and again? African Americans alleged to be killing, raping, mugging, stabbing, gangbanging, looting, rioting, selling drugs, pimping, ho-ing, having to many babies, dropping babies from tenement windows, fatherless, penniless, and Godless” (Moore 59). The media has devoted too much time and space perpetuating these negative views of African Americans and far too little time describing the background problems of African-American communities. “What is not a crisis is not usually reported and what is not or cannot be made visual is often not televised” (Racist America 154). The news media respond quickly and with keen interest to the conflicts and controversies of racial stories. For the most part, “they disregard the problems that seep beneath the surface until they erupt in the hot steam that is the live news story, ‘The suspect is a black male’ we’ve all seen it” (Racist America 154). The media has not studied important events in the African-American community today. Issues such as urbanization, education, and poverty, just to name a few that have and will continue to have a

Throughout history, black people have been hurt and battered physically, mentally, and emotionally by white people and those who believe they are superior. From the beginning of the 19th century to the ongoing 21st century, black identity has evolved in accordance to the struggles African Americans are facing at the time. From the abolitionist movement to the Black Lives Matter movement, the evolving issues facing black identity in the struggle for equality and constitutional rights can be seen through the literature and writing by the black leaders of the time.

Imagine you’re a little black girl, living in one of the most segregated cities in the South. A city where you not only had to obey your parents’ rules, but the rules of revengeful white men, who would do everything in their willpower to make sure you would die, if you didn’t. What little girl do you know, would like to be exposed to this type of unnecessary chaos? Little girls are supposed to be having fun, playing with baby dolls, and learning their ABC’s, not worrying about whether or not they would become the next victim of rape or be lynched by the Ku Klux Klan.

For the past few years, racial tensions have been on the rise. Although many actions have been taken to prevent these conflicts from occurring, African Americans are still being undervalued by the state. As more African Americans are being turned away with little to no assistance from the American government, anger and the desire for change increased among them. When Trayvon Martin’s murderer George Zimmerman was acquitted for his crime, a great number of Americans were furious at the outcome. Three African American women named Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi expressed their view on a Facebook post titled “A Love Note to Black People” and it ends with “Our Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter” (“Black Lives Matter”). Thus, a new liberation movement for black people was born. The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter rapidly spread throughout social media, bringing awareness of the struggles of African Americans. The Black Lives Matter movement is a call to action to eradicate the dehumanization of African Americans that exists in American society. With the constant targeting of African Americans by the police and the unfair treatment in the criminal justice system, the Black Lives Matter movement is a necessity to combat racism.

For example, one in six black men had been incarcerated as of 2001 and today African Americans comprise of nearly “1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population” and are imprisoned at “six times the rate of whites” (“About the BLM Network”). If current trends continue and the population of the African Americans increase, “one in three black males born today can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime” (“About the BLM Network”). This happens to be the very example of what led to the start of the BLM movement and the uproar of the black population. After 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by murder George Zimmerman and was “posthumously placed on trial for his own murder,” only for Zimmerman to be acquitted, #Blacklivesmatter was created in 2012 (King). Social media allowed participants to generate “new habits that create a fresh sense of identity and a feeling of ownership,” especially when users could easily share the hashtag along with his or her own views and ideas in a tweet or an Instagram caption (Duhigg 87). This hashtag subsequently was formed into a protest and then ultimately a full-fledged movement: a movement uniting all black people to resist their dehumanization in America and creating a voice for its members through social media.

Originating in 2012, the political movement known under the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter has exploded in size and renown. This movement, which was initially inspired after a police officer was acquitted of all charges after fatally shooting an African American individual, seeks to diminish police brutality against African American individuals and systemic racism particularly in the United States. Sweeping the nation, Black Lives Matter has become an international movement and its influence has only increased with time. On the movement’s official website, the following was written regarding the history of the hashtag-inspired entourage, “#BlackLivesMatter was created in 2012 after Trayvon Martin’s murderer, George Zimmerman, was acquitted for his crime, and dead 17-year old Trayvon was posthumously placed on trial for his own murder. Rooted in the experiences of Black people in this country who actively resist our dehumanization, #BlackLivesMatter is a call to action and a response to the virulent anti-Black racism that permeates our society. Black Lives Matter is a unique contribution that goes beyond extrajudicial killings of Black people by police and vigilantes.” (http://blacklivesmatter.com/about/). The #BlackLivesMatter movement asserts that racism is still prevalent in modern society and exists not only in passive forms. Instead, racism apparently can be both overt and implicit.

In summation, we looked at social conflict as it related to class, race and ethnicity, gender, and how it explains the Black Lives Matter Movement. As we examined the literature, we asked how and why did the Black Lives Matter Movement begin? What are the problems with the Black Lives Matter Movement? What does social media have to say about the Black Lives Matter Movement? What is the youth’s culture’s input on the Black Lives Matter Movement? How does the Black Lives Matter movement tie back to the police? And where are we going with the Black Lives Matter Movement post-2016? We focused on whether or not the Black Lives Matter movement had the potential to affect change and have a long-lasting impact on society as a social movement. Therefore,