Page 18 - Paths to Change

Text 2 “How Did #BlackOutTuesday Go So Wrong So Fast?” June 2, 2020, Zoe Haylock for vulture.com Clearly, the internet is still working on this whole activism thing. On Monday, #TheShowMustBePaused was proposed as a day (June 2) for people in the music industry to recharge, put pressure on labels, and disseminate info but has since been largely co-opted into a celebrity tag chain, making it so that the people with enough resources and fame to create real change in the industry are just ... logged off. Instead of posting useful content or publicly donating, celebrities and influencers are now posting a black square “in solidarity” with the black community. It even reached celebrities who aren’t in the music industry, like Katie Holmes, twisting a movement intended to amplify black voices into performative and potentially harmful allyship. But just as soon as #BlackOutTuesday took off, several celebrities, including Kehlani and Lil Nas X, spoke out about its flaws. To find out how to actually support the original cause and, yes, get the drama of what happened to #BlackOutTuesday, read on. How did #BlackOutTuesday start? The idea of taking a pause on Tuesday, June 2, began with two black women in the music industry, Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang, as #TheShowMustBePaused on Instagram. “Our mission is to hold the industry at large, including major corporations + their partners who benefit from the effort, struggles and successes of Black people accountable,” they wrote in the event’s mission statement.” So, they asked people to “take a beat for an honest, reflective and productive conversation about what actions we need to collectively take to support the Black community.” And while that says nothing about logging off of social media, they do encourage those “impacted by the recent events” to take a break, in general, today. On their website, they boost petitions, funds, anti-racism resources, and more ways to get involved today. #TheShowMustBePaused didn’t involve a black square or a social-media declaration or any of these white people. It doesn’t even call on Black Lives Matter or suggest use of the hashtag. How did #BlackOutTuesday become so popular? Billie Eilish, the Rolling Stones, Quincy Jones, and more began to share #TheShowMustBePaused, per The Guardian. But as the plan spread, reposts of the events got distorted into a more general #BlackOutTuesday, The Black Inquiry Project 17