Black LGBTQ+ activists and musicians took to social media Tuesday to tell people posting about George Floyd to make sure they aren’t unintentionally doing more harm than good.
On Twitter and Instagram, celebrities like Drake and Rihanna posted in support of #BlackoutTuesday, a campaign started by two Black female music industry executives, Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang, to spread messages of solidarity in the wake of Floyd’s death. On May 25, Floyd — an unarmed Black man — was killed by Officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis after the patrolman knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, suffocating him.
Thomas, senior director of marketing at Atlantic Records, and Brianna Agyemang, a former executive at Atlantic, said in a statement that the campaign was an opportunity to “take a beat for an honest reflective and productive conversation about what actions we need to collectively take to support the Black community.”
The initiative was intended to hold the music industry accountable to the “struggles and success of Black people,” arguing that the “multi-billion dollar industry… has profited predominately from Black Art.” Labels like Atlantic, Columbia Records, Sony ATV, and Warner Music Group responded to the call by posting black boxes on their Instagram accounts, while Interscope announced it would be delaying the release of new music for the week. Spotify said it would be adding eight minutes and 46 seconds of silence to selected playlists on its streaming platform in honor of Floyd’s memory.
But as the campaign spread and garnered the support of celebrities from Katy Perry to Mick Jagger, critics noted that these well-intentioned posts actually prevented activists from spreading critical information to protesters organizing in cities like Los Angeles, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.
Raquel Willis, former executive editor of Out magazine, said that Blackout Tuesday messages posted under the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag accidentally suppress “vital information.” Essentially, the issue is that users who use trending topics to stay informed about what’s happening in their communities might have trouble accessing those resources when the tag is flooded with black tiles. Searching the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag on Instagram or Twitter returns a sea of negative space.
“Be strategic about #BlackOutTuesday,” wrote Willis, a former national organizer for the Transgender Law Center, on Tuesday. Don’t use #BLM or #BlackLivesMatter with it. … Still post about what Black people are experiencing. Post what’s happening at protests + get involved with them. Educate + share resources about white supremacy.”
Part of the confusion stems from what hashtags should be used to participate in Blackout Tuesday. Thomas and Agyemang encouraged music industry leaders who wanted to show their support for Black people speaking out about police brutality to use the hashtag #TheShowMustBePaused to differentiate the campaign from the protests happening on the ground. That message, it seems, was lost in translation.
