Social Activism: #BlackLivesMatter

Freddie Gray, Walter Scott, Eric Gardner, Tamir Rice, Ezell Ford, Michael Brown, Oscar Grant and several other unarmed black males slain by police in the last 5 years alone. The names I mentioned are the ones that received the most media attention. Trayvon Martin probably received the most attention but he was slain by a racist self-appointed neighborhood-watchman (George Zimmerman). The tragic death of these black males sparked protests across the country and thanks to social media the injustice these black males and their families suffered will never be forgotten. The movement #BlackLivesMatter began through Twitter after George Zimmerman was acquitted.

#BlackLivesMatters is far more than a hashtag now. When Walter Scott was slain by a white South Carolina cop for running away after being pulled over for a broken tail-light, a bystander caught the shooting on video and released the footage to the #BlackLivesMatters activists.

My fathers generation had Dr. King, Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, and so on. My generation does not want to hear our parent's generation tell us what to do. I love Cornel West, Tavis Smiley, and Michael Eric Dyson but they are not exactly Martin or Malcolm. Social Media-based movements like the Black Youth Project and #BlackLivesMatter are more attractive (for lack of a better word) to millenials because we want to feel involved and these movements are our generation and they understand the value of social media and the impact it can have on society.

What made Kony 2012 such a big movement (although it disappeared into thin air thanks to a certain panic attack) was that it made the people (millenials in particular) feel as if they could impact change. Through social media, these people are able to connect and mobilize (as we saw through the protests after the deaths of Eric Gardner, Tamir Rice, and Michael Brown). This is a good thing because millenials are given the bad reputation of being lazy or not having any causes. We have causes but like the previous generations, we want to support our causes in our own ways.

#HandsUpDontShoot

"I know a whole lot more about what freedom isn't than about what it is because I've never been free." 

- Assata Shakur