Class dates 2/14 and 2/16

This week we read Where is Black Lives Matter Headed? by Jelani Cobb examines the Black Lives Matter movement. It states that there is a lack of unity amongst Civil Rights groups that primarily advocate for Black rights. I thought it was interesting that Black Lives Matter did not want to work with Obama because they believed that he did not address important issues, such as police brutality. I think that differing mentalities and methods of achieving ones goal is an important facet of group development that is easy to forget about because it is not covered very much in Tuckman's Stages of Group Development or Communities of Practice. 

A Black Lives Matter protest that hashtags helped organize

The lack of a figurehead and "hierarchal structure" of Black Lives Matter also puts it at odds with "old-school" civil rights movements. The lack of centralized leadership that the Black Lives Matter movement utilized has proven to be a double-edged sword. A positive aspect of decentralized leadership is that they can "catalyze a movement in our own community.” Centralized leadership from Jesse Jackson has also been rejected by the youth of the Black Lives Movement because they believed that he was injecting himself into a situation where he did not belong. On the other hand, the lack of centrality has lead to spontaneous protests that have not been organized by the movements leaders, as seen in the protest in Oakland where protestors halted traffic into Oakland on Martin Luther King Day. The intense criticism of cops has also lead to acts of violence against cops to be attributed to the Black Lives Matter movement. These issues have greatly tarnished the image of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The Black Lives Matter movement has encountered widespread criticism from outside and within the Black Community.

We also read about Anti-Police Brutality Hashtags and the effect that it had upon awareness and protests against police brutality. The way that hashtags were utilized by those concerned with police brutality caused them to become a medium to strong collaboration because they were used to spread worldwide awareness and organized massive protests. The hashtags were generally used to converse amongst one another (and occasionally to argue with those that opposed their cause). 

Some results from a #MyNYPD search on Twitter

On February 16th, we read The Hijacking #myNYPD: Social Media Dissent and Networked Counterpublics. It discusses  the public relations campaign of the NYPD through the employment of the #myNYPD. The hashtag was "hijacked" by people who had encountered abuses and brutality from the NYPD and spread awareness of the state of affairs in New York. The "counterpublic" was able to connect with one another through mentions and retweets. They did not interact much with one another other than retweeting a few "central sources." The counterpublic's hijacking of #myNYPD was able to trend without the help of mainstream media. Most of the "hijacking" was conducted by women or people of color. I thought that this was interesting, because this demographic also statistically predominantly is apart of the Democratic party. This aligns with the picture shown on the first day of class that depicted how often the different political parties communicated with one another.