making sense of online racial movements

CASE STUDY SERIES #76

DECEMBER 2020

BL ACK LIVES

Making Sense of Online Racial Movements

1 Black Lives Matter: Making Sense of Online Racial Movements

Author:Anaq DuanaikoEditor:Treviliana Eka PutriDesign and Layout:Naufal A. Radityasakti

This research is triggered by how skin complexity is a matter in society derived by black as not a 'beautiful' colour. The representation of a person in

society, especially on screen, is done by signifying physical traits that could define how a person behaves. Examining through their skin colours and their 'gendered behaviours' are ways to do this stereotyping process.

The importance of black women having 'good skin complexion', 'good feminine behaviour,' and other 'good physical traits' has been a notion of identifying black women's bodily politics. It is reinforced by the black community itself to believe that this will bring a 'brighter future' and not be deemed 'slaves'.1 2 3 4 This internalised reinforcement shows that society believes and reflects upon the dominant skin colour ideal paradigm. It is seen as more European, which means having whiter/lighter skin and straight luscious hair reinforced even more challenging in a diverse society.5 6

During the summer of 2014, BLM emerged in the United States to respond to police o�icers shooting or killing unarmed African Americans. The movement's roots stretch far back in time and encompass the history of racial violence, exclusion, inequality, mass incarceration, and slavery in the United States. However, with the death of Michael Brown on August 9th, 2014, most accounts of the movement place its immediate roots in Ferguson, Missouri.7

2Black Lives Matter: Making Sense of Online Racial Movements

Introduction

This study exposes readers to a nuanced and in-depth analysis of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, representing intersectionality at its best by utilising the internet and social media. The internet and social media are utilised splendidly by activists to build narratives and coalitions to make BLM stronger with raw, unedited, and 'live' information. With the help of activists on the internet and social media, BLM becomes a fuel to eradicate injustice towards dark-skinned society. The global scope is adopted in a local sense by diverse countries to eliminate racial oppression within their society without undermining the intersectionality concept carried out through BLM's whole history.

Michael Brown, an 18-year-old African American man, was killed in Ferguson, Missouri, by Darren Wilson, a 28-year-old white Ferguson police o�icer. In reaction to Brown's death, demonstrators and advocacy groups used the word 'Black.' To metonymize their complaints, 'Lives Matter' That word The shooting death of another unarmed African American teenager. On March 13th, 2020, Breonna Taylor, a Black medical worker, was shot and killed by Louisville police o�icers during a botched apartment drug raid.8 This action re-triggered the BLM movement in 2020, followed by the death of another unarmed African American.

This research utilises the concept of intersectionality, where it represents the BLM movement, to maximize the finding. As a concept towards this research, intersectionality is purposed to examine a wide range of aspects yet specific discourse that impacts the construction of ideal skin complexes on the internet that

triggers social movements caused by the matter.


Gambar 1.1

Understanding IntersectionalityThe contrast skin colour is perceived as the signifier of the physical disparities between and among the society, tried, and signified the social and cultural distinctions regarding the racial and historical context. Classism and racism are rapidly developing socially rather than biologically since the signifiers may artificially be coded by concerning di�erences in skin colours. In the colour hierarchy societies like in the US,9 “double-consciousness,”10 and a dual perspective11 were common social and cultural phenomena in inter-ethnic interactions. The “whiter the better” is a phenomenon that spread over non-white cultures. Those with light skin and Caucasianlooking features have also enjoyed more respect in their communities.12 This Euro-centric view on the skin colour standard caused by colonialism becomes a culture of non-white countries or colonised countries. This view brings the 'native,' or the non-white and non-caucasian looking people (both men and women) at the bottom of society's hierarchy, especially dark skin women.

Addressing this dark skin women and men, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw explains intersectionality based on the oppressed group's multiple intersections. Intersectionality uses tra�ic as an analogy to show how discrimination can have multiple causes that are hard to determine. Discrimination, like tra�ic, may flow in one direction or another, and an accident happens when an intersection is filled with cars travelling in each direction.13 The intersections represent overlapping identities that are prejudiced in the society, and the more intersection the one received, the lower their social hierarchy is in the society. Bell hooks then took this idea further in her book entitled The Will to Change. She explains using the phrase 'imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy' to portray the intertwining political systems that are the base of most nation's politics.14 The phrase determines the hierarchy of a nation that generates discrimination laws to the minority and intersectionality. As the stigma of lighter-skinned people, this white supremacy has a higher hierarchy than the darker skins. Racial prejudice is still conspicuous in beliefs that a person is violent because of the racial background, which is a form of stereotyping races and acts.


The racial hierarchy has created a form of capitalism which consists of those who own the means of production and labour control has the privilege over the workers. According to hooks, the attitudes that are encased in white supremacy and capitalism continue to cause problems. Imperialism and colonialism are also becoming relevant because, based on its history, non-white peoples and their available resources have been plundered and exploited by white supremacist capitalists to pursue wealth. As explained before, intersectionality that black women received rejections on jobs because of the notion that they will not function and white women become the industry's front face. As black women, being the industry's labour is hard because they are not as strong as black men. This example has shown that 'an industry' has exploited black men as the industry's primary labour to maximise the production and excluded black women from

representing an industry that might not attract customers. Capitalism has

triggered movements on feminism due to this interlocking system

that Hooks said that there is no sense in making "equality between the

sexes" because men are not equals among themselves in

w h i te - s u p re m a c i st capitalist, patriarchal

society.


Hooks noted that women in the poor and lower-class society, especially black women, would not define women's liberation as equal as black men because they are also exploited and oppressed, lacking social, political, economic power and participation. While this condition happens, women are still aware that patriarchy will give the men privileges, which will be exaggerated expressions of male chauvinism in their group, which emanate from a sense of powerlessness compared to other male groups, especially rich white men. The continuous e�ect of the imperialist, white-supremacist, and capitalist patriarchy is a complex intersection of privileges that should be examined in its complete form. This intersectionality a�ects women to understand how to improve their lives. Black women have been suspicious of the feminist movement since the inception of their bodies. Bell hooks also assume that black women realise that feminism is a movement that encourages the equality of gender and sexes, which means equality towards men, which they think would improve the social standing of wealthy white women. According to Hooks, these privileged women have not been concerned to yell for attention to race and class privilege because of the personal benefits from being above the lower class of exploited, subordinate women who do the dirty work where those wealthy white women were refusing to do.

Men and women with multiple social privileges (rich, white, heterosexual) may see a particular condition as demonstrating just one form of oppression rather than the multiple intersectionalities that a person has. The statement is further elaborated in Cynthia Enloe's book Bananas, Beaches, and Bases, where being poor will impact how less they are conscious of and less in need of their rights unless they got tutored and led by the 22 more privileged men and women.15 This kind of view also may be due to in part to be 'ignorance' as Hooks explains that in her town she grew up, black people o�en travelled to the white town to find work, but

white people did not even bother to go to the black district which concludes that white people do not

know how black people su�er.16


Also, Hooks examined that some women tend to despise identification with any political movement,

mainly one that is considered radical or, in other words, they do not wish to be associated with any 'women's rights' movement of any form. The

fear of joining movements that challenge male rights and behaviours has been indoctri-nated into them by the early influence of patriarchy. Once we see that it is the patriar-chy's system that is the main problem rather than men, that point could achieve the condition's answers. Hooks argued that feminists must raise attention to the diversity of women's social and political phenomenon and recognise that race and class oppression are also feminist issues. This recognition will bring feminism to not target women solely with privilege over men with privilege.

Understanding intersectionality as a perspective immensely helped to see how the feminist movement develops based on the oppression of multiple factors, which is also explained in Laclau's and Mou�e's work "Hegemony and Socialist Strategy Towards a Radical Democratic Politics." Laclau and Mou�e explain how the feminist movement demands equality before the law, then equality in other areas such as race, caste, and especially demoting the patriarchic society.17 Therefore, the newly emerging feminist movements are solely to end discrimination towards WOC that are deemed to be less in a euro-centric and patriarchal society.

BLACK LIVES

Matter


BLM on the ScreenThe fear of being black then becomes a collective consciousness within the society, without experiencing the tragedy. Collective fear becomes a burden for African American society, especially women, where they are subject to multiple discrimination and can give birth to future African American children prone to systemic assault. Although they live in the cloud of fear, the collective fear is the main factor in making the African American society stronger to stand up for BLM.18 Thus, BLM becomes an important issue to raise to eliminate the fear within African American Society, especially WOC.

The fear caused the community (WOC) to live in unhealthy and stressful living conditions, insecurity of their race, and physical and mental exhaustion within their community (Social Murder).19 As a collective movement that stresses Intersectional Feminism, which occurs in the digital era, BLM has brought this movement to new heights. Social media as a safe space and public sphere then collected masses through its network based on those who have the same concern, in this case, BLM.20 Social media's role becomes a platform to shape coalitions, even as social movement scholars outline the significance of coalitions in building, strengthening, and sustaining movements.21 22

Nowadays, social media such as Instagram can repost content in just a second. In social movements, they are frequently used to share news and visuals that tend to be raw, unfiltered, and unedited. A�er the death of George Floyd by Police Brutality (May 25th, 2020), many visuals such as pictures and videos spread throughout the internet where it generates anger and fear towards the community who believes that injustice towards black people is still present. The anger and fear they receive from their phone screen has created an 'intimate' collective conscience with other 'viewers' which then reproduce as tools of protest.


The explanation shows that online content utilisation could create an empathetic coalition just by seeing them on screen without being present at the event. Coalition building, personal networking, and resource mobilization apply to essential roles in scaling movements such as BLM that social media can play. Social media, however, allows activists the power to control their narrative, thereby creating awareness and exposure of the issues raised by the campaign.24 This content utilisation contrasts with how BLM activists addressed the movement's coverage in conventional and social media forms.

Even though social media and the internet aided BLM movements, social media and the internet are prone to produce misinformation that could change narratives. Controlling the factual narratives, especially online, is very important for the BLM movement to emphasise the real situation and intersectionality, which shows that getting murdered by the oppressive system could happen to anyone, anywhere, mainly targeting those vulnerable societies. BLM's narrative, emphasising intersectionality, moves the US citizen to protest and towards some countries with the same problem of being oppressed and socially murdered by the system they live in.


Image 2.3

Image 2.2

Image 2.1


As the narrative travels throughout the globe with the internet's help, movements start to appear (and re-appear) in many countries regarding discrimination towards their dark-skinned citizens.

As BLM penetrates the digital sphere, the narratives' amplification is adopted and localised into a contextual

and societal understanding level. The darker-skinned community is seen as always oppressed and seen as less. Social media has aided movements to a higher level where it helped viewers (the people) to realise that a particular

problem also happened in other regions within their context. Raw, unedited, unfiltered, and empathetic information spread throughout the digital sphere could bring global masses and coalitions to support the cause. However, social media are still perceived as a vast source of

post-truth, which should be studied more in-depth when it comes to information that triggers movements. It could

a�ect the negative notion of a movement itself. Therefore, studies regarding movements and false

information on the internet should be further developed.

In diverse countries such as Indonesia, BLM has fueled "Papua Lives Matter," aiming to end racism towards Papuans and an essential trigger towards the Free West Papua movement. In Singapore, BLM becomes a vital wake-up alarm for its society that racism towards Indians and Malays by Chinese people is still happening and needs to be addressed. In Australia, BLM is adopted as "Indigenous Lives Matter," which stresses how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander

should not be discriminated against and rid of within the Austra-lian society. As seen in Image 2.2, the notion "Same Story,

Di�erent Soil" perfectly portrays the a�ermath of the BLM movement localised within a particular society. Consequent-

ly, Social Movements with the help of the internet, especially social media, will cluster throughout the globe and be adopted

into a local agenda to eradicate a collective global con-science.

Conclusion


References1Collins, P.H. (1990). Black Feminist Thought- Knowledge,

Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment, London: Harper Collins Academic

2Hooks, b. (1993). Sisters of the Yam - Black Women and Self-Recovery. London: Routledge

3Mama, A. (1995). Beyond the Masks: Race, Gender and Subjectivity. London: Routledge

4Weekes, D. (1997) Shades of Blackness:Young Black female constructions of beauty, in H.S. Mirza (ed.), Black British feminism: A Reader, London: Routledge, pp. 113126

5Hobson, J. (2005). Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture. Abingdon: Routledge

6Hunter, M. (2005) Race, Gender and the Politics of Skin Tone. Abingdon: Routledge

7https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/20/2014-black-lives-matter-because-they-did-not

8Oppel Jr, R., Taylor, D. and Bogel-Burroughs, N. (2020). What To Know About Breonna Taylor’S Death. [Daring] Nytimes.com. Tersedia di: <https://www.nytimes.com/article/breonna-taylor-police.html#:~:text=The%20death%20of%20Breonna%20Taylor,the%20case%20drew%20more%20attention.> [Diakses 25 October 2020].

9Hall, Roland E. (1995). The Bleaching Syndrome: African Americans’ Response to Cultural Domination Vis-à-vis Skin Color. Journal of Black Studies, 26 (2), 172-84.

10DuBois, William Edward Burghardt. (1969). The Souls of Black Folk. New York: New American Library.


11Norton, Dolores G. (1993). Diversity, Early Socialization, and Temporal Development: The Dual Perspective Revisited. Social Work, 38, 82-90.

12Russel, K., Wilson, M., & Hall, R. E. (1992). The color complex: The politics of skin color among African Americans. (1st ed.). New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

13Crenshaw, Kimberle. (1989). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum: Vol. 1989: Iss. 1, Article 8.

Tersedia di: http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf/vol1989/iss1/8

14Hooks, b. (2004). The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. New York, NY: Atria Books.

15Enloe, C.H. (2014). Bananas, beaches and bases: making feminist sense of international politics, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press

16Hooks, b. (2015). Ain’t I a Woman, New York. NY: Routledge

17Laclau, E & Mou�e, C. (2014). Hegemony and Socialist Strategy Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso

18Barbalet, J., & Demertzis, N. (2013). Collective fear and societal change. In Emotions in Politics (pp. 167-185). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

19Engels, F. (1993). The condition of the working class in England. Oxford University Press, USA.

20Ackerman, P., & Duvall, J. (2005). People power primed. Harvard International Review, 27, 42–47.

21Shaw, R. (2013). The activist’s handbook: Winning social change in the 21st century. Berkley, CA: University of California Press

22Users on the internet who believes in the BLM movement

23Mundt, M., Ross, K., & Burnett, C. M. (2018). Scaling social movements through social media: The case of black lives matter. Social Media+ Society, 4(4), 2056305118807911.


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