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I think I owe you all an apology. HOW have I had this newsletter for 75 whole days and not written a single post about sports?! Perhaps it's because I'm often the worst player on any sports team. But the industry has had a long, deep history of challenging white supremacy – on and off the field – led by outspoken athletes throughout history.
Thankfully I'm not the only writer on the Anti-Racism Daily team anymore letting you down. We've got Renée at the plate teeing up a comprehensive look at how sports are amplifying the current movement. Our action is to get into the audience and be this movement's biggest fans – AND gear up and join athletes center court. There is no I in team. We can only win together.
Our new staff of contributors is made possible thanks to your generous contributions. I'm proud of the company that Anti-Racism Daily is becoming, and committed to continuing this work. If you can, pitch in by making a one-time or monthly contribution. You can give on our website, PayPal, Venmo (@nicoleacardoza) or subscribe monthly on Patreon.
Nicole
TAKE ACTION
Donate to Colin Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Campaign, which works to advance the liberation and well-being of Black and Brown communities through education, self-empowerment, mass-mobilization, and the creation of new systems that elevate the next generation of change leaders.
Have you ever watched the WNBA? If not, now’s the time! Give them the views and support they deserve. Amplify and engage in the issues they are advocating.
Do you have a favorite sports team or league? How are they incorporating diversity and inclusivity into their organization? Does its ownership and management reflect the rainbow of society and players?
GET EDUCATED
By Renée Cherez
Sports can be a great unifier in any society while also acting as a mirror. They bring strangers together from all walks of life for a common cause (a win for their team), while also sharing a universal message of teamwork and comradery. Contrary to popular belief, sports have also been deeply political, especially sports with Black athletes as the majority.
At the 1968 Olympic games in Mexico City, Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised the Black power fist in solidarity with oppressed people around the world, and as a result, their careers were ruined (History).
Muhammad Ali, arguably the best boxer of all time, was convicted of draft evasion, sentenced to five years in prison (this was later repealed), fined $10,000, and was banned from boxing for three years for refusing to join the American-Vietnam War in 1967 (History).
More recently, sharing in the spirit of those before him, Colin Kaepernick, a former quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, peacefully protested by taking a knee during the national anthem to raise awareness about police brutality against Black and brown people in America.
“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football, and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way.”
Colin Kaepernick for The Undefeated
For the last four years, Kaepernick has been blacklisted by the NFL because of his unwavering commitment to social justice reform. After the murder of George Floyd, it seems the rose-colored lenses used by deliberate detractors of Kaepernick’s protest message have come off. It was never about the military or a flag; it was always about the deliberate state-sanctioned murders of Black and brown people in America.
At the start of the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis, Kaepernick started the Know Your Rights Defense Fund to raise money for legal assistance for arrested protesters (KYRDF). He continues to raise millions of dollars for various social justice causes that disproportionately affect Black and brown communities through his Know Your Rights Camp. Kaepernick has also donated $100,000 for COVID-19 relief providing nutritious foods, access to educational material, and shelter for the unhoused.
Critics have said sports are supposed to be an escape from the “real world,” a neutral space, but Black athletes understand all too well, that they are always Black. There are no “days off” or “neutral spaces” while existing in a Black body. There is no amount of money, fame, or championship wins that can stop racism from knocking on their door. This was evident in 2017 when Lebron James’s home was found vandalized with the N-word. (LA Times).
The racial breakdown of players versus management and ownership of professional sports leagues is staggering. The NFL (National Football League) is made of 70% Black players while the CEO/President roles, league office roles, and head coaching positions are filled by a majority of white men (TIDES). It’s common for retired athletes to take on jobs in broadcasting; however, NFL broadcasters are majority white though most players are Black.
Out of 251 NFL broadcasters in 2018, only 48 (or 19%) were Black (The Guardian). The NBA (National Basketball Association) consists of 74.2% of Black players, while white head coaches make up 70% of the league (TIDES). In terms of ownership, Michael Jordan is the only Black team owner and is one of four people of color who own an NBA team. Black and Latino presidents/CEOs make up a disturbing 7.3% owners, which is just four individuals in this role (TIDES).
After a four-month hiatus due to coronavirus, the NBA has resumed but not without critique by some of its most prominent athletes like Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant. They and other players opposed a restart amid racial uprisings that deserve continued attention and demand the conversation continue throughout the season to amplify what is happening in the streets (COMPLEX).
A league of women who do not receive the recognition and respect they deserve is the WNBA (Women’s National Basketball Association). When it comes to activism, the WNBA women are not new to this; they are true to this (SLATE). They’ve been kneeling, wearing the T-shirts, and doing the work to keep their fanbase engaged with daily injustices and social issues, including gun violence (SB Nation).
Maya Moore, a player on the Minnesota Lynx has sacrificed her career (in her prime) to help a family friend earn his freedom after 23 years in prison (The Undefeated). To continue the necessary conversations being unearthed during this freedom movement, the WNBA has dedicated its 2020 season to social justice (WNBA).
The Social Justice Council, enacted this season, focuses on three pillars: educate, amplify, and mobilize working with activists, educators, fans, league staff, and players to create sustainable social change. In an 80% league of women of color and 67% Black women, the WNBA also highlights the women who are always forgotten: Black women (TIDES).
WNBA players are wearing #SayHerName shirts this season to amplify the Black women who are murdered by police, yet we never know their names. The WNBA is unique because they don’t have the fanbase (or income) of their NBA brethren, yet they use the power they do have in intentional and culture-shifting ways. A league of women of color, Black women, and white allies is changing what it means to wield power for radical justice, and this is a league that deserves our support.
It’s eerily ironic that Colin Kaepernick non-violently protested by taking a knee. It was a knee that forced the life out of George Floyd’s body that’s woken up white America to police brutality.
Now is the time to ask ourselves how we will move forward with holding sports organizations accountable, especially our favorites. It’s not enough that they post black squares and put out statements of solidarity. They benefit from our dollars and views. Like the WNBA, it’s time for radical transparency, inclusivity, and diversity in management and ownership to reflect the players and American society at large.
*This post was previously titled “Support athletes in taking a stand,” which promoted discriminatory, ableist language. We’ve changed the title of the web version to “Support athletes in taking action.”
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Sports have always been deeply political, especially sports with Black athletes as the majority.
Both the NBA and NFL consist of 70%+ Black players, yet management, ownership, and coaching roles are predominantly held by white men.
The WNBA enacted The Social Justice Council this season, which focuses on three pillars: educate, amplify, and mobilize working with activists, educators, fans, league staff, and players to create sustainable social justice changes.
RELATED ISSUES
7/10/2020 | Understand the role of cancel culture.
7/6/2020 | Abolish qualified immunity.
6/30/2020 | Boycott as a form of protest.
6/22/2020 | Talk about our right to protest.
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Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.
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Understand the role of cancel culture.
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It's Friday!
Today's email is canceled, like everything and everyone else this year (kidding). But cancel culture is having a moment in the press this week, and I think it's important to note the role it's played in the movement over the past few weeks – and how it mirrors social movements of the past.
There's been so many thoughtful responses to newsletters this week. I'll be writing a recap and answering some questions in tomorrow's newsletter, so don't forget to send in your thoughts by replying to this email. Separately, if you identify as non-white and have a story to share in an upcoming newsletter, send us a message.
And as always, you can make a one-time contribution on PayPal or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza), or contribute monthly on Patreon to help us grow.
Nicole
TAKE ACTION
1. Consider the steps you would take to hold a public figure accountable for a racist action. How would you gain their attention? How would you measure success?
2. Reflect: How have others held you accountable in the past? How would you prefer to be held accountable in the future? How would you want to be held accountable as a public figure?
GET EDUCATED
Trump said enough this week for a whole spin-off series of the Anti-Racism Daily, but one comment in particular stood out to me. It was when he addressed the nation on Fourth of July weekend about a "growing danger that threatens every blessing our ancestors fought so hard for". Was it COVID-19? Systemic racism? His consistent bans against immigration? The desecration of Native lands?
No. It was "cancel culture" (NPR).
There's been countless examples of people getting "cancelled" lately because of racist allegations, from racist white women caught on camera, to Youtube personalities, journalists and CEOs, and everyone in between (Fast Company). But cancel culture, or a public call for withdrawing from a public figure (or company) that's doing something harmful (usually via social media) isn't new. It was popularized in the mid 2010's by Black Twitter (Vox).
In a way, canceling someone is akin to a boycott; a public call-to-action not to participate with an individual. Anne Charity Hudley, the chair of linguistics of African America for the University of California Santa Barbara, reflected on this in a fantastic long-form article on cancel culture in Vox from 2019 (Vox). So from that perspective, cancel culture has even deeper roots. Hudley emphasizes that cancel culture is "a survival skill as old as the Southern black use of the boycott". We know that boycotts were not just a comprehensive part of the Civil Rights Movement (Anti-Racism Daily), but persist in other movements, too, including the #MeToo movement (Dictionary), the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement in Palestine (Middle East Monitor) and the Delano grape strike (History). And since in today's time, cancel culture is usually fueled online, the boycott becomes actionable from anywhere – allowing a much wider audience to join in, and perhaps a more swift takedown.
Naturally, as tensions rose this past month, instances of canceling did too. In a way, it felt like the digital equivalent of the physical protests. Online canceling likely gained rapid attention for the simple fact that more people are at home and plugged into social media than ever before (Business Insider). Also, in an article for Blavity, writer Anjana Susarla emphasizes that these types of controversy are exactly what social media algorithms love, so they naturally gain traction and visibility (Blavity).
Over the past few years (and especially now), many people have said that cancel culture has "gone too far". In fact, last week an open letter signed by over 150 artists and intellectuals was circulated, warning that cancel culture is eliminating the opportunity for free speech and civil discourse (NYTimes). Last fall, former President Barack Obama encouraged people to get past the idea of always being "politically woke" and remember that all people have flaws (CNN). Another popular argument against cancel culture is around its perceived effectiveness. Although celebrities are often canceled for racist, sexist, ableist, etc. actions, they rarely experience significant setbacks in their careers a result (Vox). Blavity goes so far to say that "canceling is a privilege (among many others) of the rich."
“When they throw around terms like “cancel culture” to silence me instead of reckoning with the reasons I might find certain actions or jokes dehumanizing, I’m led to one conclusion: they’d prefer I was powerless against my own oppression”.
Sarah Hagi, writer for Time
Any tool can also be wielded as a weapon, though, and there's undoubtedly instances of cancel culture out there that don't create actionable change. Oftentimes, cancel culture becomes harmful when it's applied in horizontal power structures, against others that have more complex, intersectional identities, and ask more than the capacity of the individual or company to respond (Vox). It can be used to publicly shame someone or to act out some personal vendetta. Also, you could argue that some do it hoping to boost their followers and voice.
But personally, I always come back to the structural inequities that fostered the culture that we live in. It's easier for people in positions of power to discredit cancel culture, perhaps because they are worried about what they could lose (Time). An instance of cancel culture may seem "new," but it's more likely the culmination of calls for accountability that went left unheard – like by HR professionals who didn't properly address toxic work environments, a board of directors who looked the other way when a CEO repeatedly caused harm, or media platforms that give public figures more exposure despite recent harmful statements. To escalate recent conversations on racial discrimination in the workplace, brave people of color had to break NDAs, navigate unemployment, and carry the stress of 2020 while also holding these brave and difficult conversations. Not all instances of cancel culture are good, but the practice itself is sometimes the only way marginalized folk can ensure their voice won't get lost in a system that was designed to silence.
Remember – usually cancel culture creates consequences for people with incredible privilege and power when they wouldn't have received it otherwise. No only do we need to hear marginalized voices, we need to set better examples for how we actively dismantle white supremacy.
In a way, Trump is right. We do have a growing danger in America when it comes to cancel culture. But that's how our system operates at default: it cancels the culture of systemically marginalized communities and limits their right to be heard. Some argue Trump is leading that charge (Washington Post). We can't tip the scales too far in the opposite direction and lose sight of our goals. But we must be nuanced with how we brand cancel culture. Otherwise, we could discredit both this form of protest and the invaluable stories that need it to be heard.
“Holding someone accountable isn’t the same thing as “cancel culture.” There’s too many people out here who haven’t acknowledged their mistakes, apologized for them, nor have they gone on to make amends; that are using “cancel culture” to shield them from accountability—do better”.
Ashlee Marie Preston, media personality, activist and journalist, on Twitter.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Cancel culture is akin to a digital boycott of a person, usually a powerful public figure
Canceling someone is an attempt to hold them accountable
Although aspects of cancel culture are being used in harmful ways, the practice of accountability is necessary for creating change, and minimizing future harm
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT
Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.
Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza
Abolish qualified immunity.
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Happy Monday,
It's been 115 days since Breonna Taylor was killed and she still hasn't seen justice (Vox). I think about this often, especially as we watch conversations swirl around qualified immunity and how we hold police officers accountable when our systems fail to do it for us. Today's #antiracismdaily takes us through history to understand how qualified immunity prevents so many victims from finding even a semblance of justice in an unjust world.
This work is possible because of your contributions – you can invest one-time on Paypal or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza) or monthly on Patreon to keep this community growing. Thank you for your support!
Nicole
TAKE ACTION
U.S. Readers:
Contact your local senator encouraging them to act on abolishing qualified immunity.
International Readers:
Consider how your country / region holds state and local officials accountable. How does this vary from the U.S.? How does it impact your local law enforcement?
GET EDUCATED
What is qualified immunity?
As communities work to reform and abolish law enforcement across the country, qualified immunity is under heavy scrutiny. Over the past few weeks, a bill to end qualified immunity has been passed by the House (as part of the Justice in Policing Act), but is currently stalled in the Senate (Vox). Last Wednesday, July 1, liberal senators introduced the Ending Qualified Immunity Act (CNN) to add as a companion piece to the initial legislation.
Some police act like the law doesn’t apply to them. And because of qualified immunity, they're kind of right. Qualified immunity means that government officials are shielded from charges that they violated constitutional and civil rights – unless the victims of those violations can show that the rights were “clearly established law". This means that in order to charge the perpetrator, the victim must first find an exact same example of the case at hand that's already been ruled illegal or unconstitutional to establish its legitimacy (USA Today).
Still confused? Here's a TikTok video that demonstrates it more simply. Bless (some) TikTok creators.
Here's a real-life example. In February, the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held that a prison guard in Texas who pepper-sprayed an inmate in his locked cell “for no reason” did not violate clearly established law because similar cited cases involved guards who had hit and tased inmates "for no reason", rather than pepper-spraying them (USA Today). The full report notes that if the victim was punched or hit by a baton "for no reason" the assault would violate clearly established law (PDF).
Another example is the story of Malaika Brooks, a black woman who was seven months pregnant and pulled over for speeding while dropping her 11-year-old off at school. She refused to sign the speeding ticket (mistakenly thinking it was an acknowledgment of guilt). She was then tased three times, dragged into the street, pressed facedown into the ground, and cuffed (NYTimes). Although the judges saw that her constitutional rights were violated, they dismissed the case, arguing that "no precedent had 'clearly established' that tasing a woman in Ms. Brooks’s circumstances was unconstitutional at the time" (NYTimes).
This creates a paradoxical situation: how can you hold law enforcement accountable if their specific violations haven't been held accountable in the past? Justices are allowed to interpret "clearly established law" as specifically as they choose. And what's worse – the more egregious the violation, the more likely it doesn't fit neatly into a previous case. It's no surprise that, according to George F. Will, the Supreme Court, applying its “clearly established law” doctrine, has denied immunity only twice in its past 30 cases (Washington Post). There are dozens and dozens of examples just like the ones above, preventing citizens from holding police accountable for harm.
“Important constitutional questions go unanswered precisely because those questions are yet unanswered. Courts then rely on that judicial silence to conclude there’s no equivalent case on the books. No precedent = no clearly established law = no liability. An Escherian Stairwell. Heads defendants win, tails plaintiffs lose”.
Judge Don Willett, U.S. Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in The New Republic
So, how did we get here? Qualified immunity is buried in Section 1983 (named for its number in U.S. code, not the year), a provision from the Civil Rights Act of 1871, also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act. After the Civil War, the federal government was focused on re-integrating the South but faced violent resistance from white supremacists, most notably the Klan, who was waging a war of domestic terrorism by "killing black Americans and white Republicans, burning down their homes and churches, and intimidating local communities into accepting white-supremacist rule" (The New Republic). Sound familiar?
The government had to act, so it passed the Ku Klux Klan Act, granting it more power to intervene against violations of the 14th Amendment (house.gov). Within it, Section 1983 gave private citizens the power to sue state and local officials who were violating federal constitutional rights – building more personal accountability into the work (The New Republic). Although power granted by the Ku Klux Klan Act was removed by the Supreme Court after the Reconstruction Act, Section 1983 remained, dormant until 1961.
This is when James Monroe, a Black man, and his family were pulled from their beds late one night and assaulted by thirteen police officers with no warrant (sound familiar)? Monroe was then held for interrogation for 10 hours without access to a lawyer or being charged with a crime. In the case Monroe v Pape, the Supreme Court ruled that they had the right to hold the police officers accountable, using the terms of Section 1983 as reference. This grounded the provision as a part of holding law enforcement accountable in today's rhetoric (The New Republic).
But a shift in terminology has made this more difficult to execute. Initially, the rule was written so that citizens could hold officials liable if their actions were "under color of state law," meaning they were executed by state or local officials. But the Supreme Court changed this in 1982, revising to ensure that government officials were entitled to “qualified immunity” from such lawsuits unless their actions violated a “clearly established law” (The New Republic), the terminology that still stands today. Despite the flood of renewed interest this past June, the Supreme Court declined to revisit this topic, leaving it up to the legislative branch to figure it out (CNN).
It's important to note that abolishing qualified immunity won't solve all problems in law enforcement – but if you've been reading this newsletter long enough, you might have already realized that! These issues never exist in isolation, and one change can't dismantle an entirely inequitable system. But abolishing qualified immunity sends a message that many more police officers that violate the Constitution will be held accountable. It also holds anyone with government power to the same standards as normal human beings. And shouldn’t we all be held to the same levels of accountability?
“Qualified immunity shields police from accountability, impedes true justice, and undermines the constitutional rights of every person in this country. There can be no justice without healing and accountability, and there can be no true accountability with qualified immunity. It’s past time to end qualified immunity, and that’s exactly what this bill does”.
Ayanna Pressley, U.S. Representative for Massachusetts's 7th Congressional District, on her website.
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT
Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.
Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza
Boycott as a form of protest.
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Happy Tuesday!
Thanks to all the fervor yesterday around the action for the day. If you're reading this, you didn't unsubscribe! Grateful to have you here in this work.
Many of you asked about the responsibilities of Twitter and Facebook for moderating the rhetoric Trump shares online, perhaps because of the recent Boycott Facebook movement. It's fascinating to see this unfold, especially because of how important boycotting has been as a form of protest during the civil rights movement. As boycotting goes digital, and many of us are forced to protest from inside, there's an interesting relationship between social media, boycotting, and holding brands accountable.
So we're diving in to understand the historical context, and how we can use our dollars and voice to demand change. If these newsletters are supporting you, considering giving one-time on PayPal or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza), or subscribe for $5/month on Patreon.
Nicole
TAKE ACTION
Sign the petition to #StopHateforProfit to join the Facebook boycott.
Choose a harmful brand you've financially supported in 2020. Decide to stop buying from them. Invest into a more equitable company – preferably a BIPOC and/or LGBTQIA+ owned business.
GET EDUCATED
Major brands – like Starbucks, Unilever, Ford, and Coca-Cola – are pulling their advertising revenue from Facebook as part of a coordinated boycott (more via NYTimes). The #StopHateforProfit boycott, organized by the Anti-Defamation League (which I pointed to as a resource in yesterday's newsletter), encourages brands to pause their ad spend for the month of July, and lists ten actions for Facebook to take to improve how they handle racism on their platform (learn more, including a list of all participating brands, on the official website.
The major tech companies, including Facebook, have often cited "free speech" regarding hateful rhetoric. But things changed when Trump tweeted a series of incendiary tweets in late May in response to the George Floyd protests including the phrase "when the looting starts, the shooting starts," a term popularized by a chief of police in Miami referring to how to treat protestors in the midst of civil unrest in 1967, and considered to incite racial violence for years to come. Walter E. Headley was known for his "bigotry" and also said "we don't mind being accused of police brutality" (NPR).
“There is only one way to handle looters and arsonists during a riot and that is to shoot them on sight. I've let the word filter down — when the looting starts, the shooting starts”.
Walter E. Headley, the police chief of Miami, Florida in 1967 (Source)
Twitter – after years of calls to address Trump's tweets (example on Vox) – had just started to take action, marking tweets about mail-in voting during coronavirus as "potentially misleading" just days before (The Verge). In this case, they decided to shield the public from Trump's tweet's contents, warning that it invokes violence, but allowing users to click through and read it (The Verge). Trump posted this message on Facebook, too, but Facebook chose to do nothing, angering staff and causing walk-outs internally before tensions bubbled to today (MSNBC).
As a result, other tech companies have followed suit. After a public letter from over 650 subreddit leaders (The Atlantic), Reddit removed 2,000 hateful communities, including r/The_Donald, which promotes racism, anti-Semitism, conspiracy theories, and violent memes (The Atlantic). After encouraging racial profiling on its platform, neighborhood social media app Nextdoor removed a feature that allowed users to forward crime and safety posts from within the app to the police (NYTimes). YouTube banned white supremacists David Duke, Stefan Molyneux, and Richard Spencer – along with 25,000+ channels that violate hate speech policies (NY Post).
Facebook makes an estimated $70B each year on advertising – 98% of its annual revenue – particularly from small and medium-sized businesses, so it's unlikely this boycott will bankrupt them. But the lost revenue, especially during COVID-19, where many smaller businesses are cutting marketing budgets, caused Facebook stock to drop by 8% Friday (Bloomberg News) which caused Mark Zuckerberg to release a short statement and changes on Friday, June 26 (which wasn't well-received) (Slate).
It's important to note here that boycotts against corporation send a moral and financial message. Most businesses can tune out questions on morality. But money? Feelings on current events can be discarded as subjective, but cash is objective. And boycotts harm brand reputations, which have a much more lasting impact than short-term revenue loss. According to research by Brayden King at Northwestern University, most companies are worried enough about their reputations that they’ll change their behavior, even if the number of people partaking in the boycott is rather small (The Atlantic).
“It takes years and years to build a reputation, it takes one bad event to completely destroy that reputation”.
– Brayden King, Professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management
Boycotts have deep roots in our fight for justice. Many people remember the story of Rosa Parks, who was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, to a white male passenger. But the Montgomery Bus Boycott that followed was key to creating lasting reform. The Women’s Political Council, a group of black women working for civil rights, circulated flyers calling for a boycott of the bus system on December 5, the day Parks would be tried in municipal court. This, followed by a front-page article from the local paper, rallied 40,000 people to boycott the bus system that day (History).
And for 381 days following, thousands of African Americans continued to boycott the buses, organizing carpools and relying on African American taxi cab drivers who'd charge the same bus fare for rides (History). Initially designed to convince the bus system – whose passengers were 75% Black – to create more equitable rules, the movement led to five women bringing the case to court. By June 5,1956, the Montgomery federal court ruled that any law requiring racially segregated seating on buses violated the 14th Amendment (History). The bus company lost 30,000 and 40,000 bus fares each day of the boycott and was desperate for it to end (more via nps.gov).
Local and national boycotts of the past decade have thrived because of social media (take the #BoycottNike situation in 2018, and #DeleteUber in 2017). So it's unprecedented to see social media being boycotted. But necessary. Because social media has become our digital neighborhood during this global pandemic. Most Americans get their news from social media (Quartz) and that news is more likely to be inaccurate (Pew Research Center). If social media is the soil of this generation's revolution, it needs to be a space where true change can grow. And that takes accountability for how people can use social media to spread racist and hateful messaging.
“Many Americans have spent months inside, on the internet, thinking about what it means to live online. Now many of them are in the streets, thinking about how to tackle racism. More than ever, it’s obvious that the internet is the real world. What happens here matters. What happens here happens out there”.
Kaitlyn Tiffany, staff writer at The Atlantic
So the question remains – should I be boycotting Facebook right now? Deactivating your account is unlikely to move this boycott forward. In fact, it may disconnect you from information and actions you can take in your local community, and the people you should be having conversations with. I'd recommend using it to stay in this work.
Instead, think about how you can boycott brands that are causing harm with your own dollars (like by supporting these Amazon warehouse workers calling for change). And remember that 99.7% of businesses in America are small businesses (via sba.gov). How can you put your money to work in your own community? And not just by divesting from harmful brands – but re-investing in the brands that work for you and the rights of all people. Lastly, make your reasons known by sharing publicly on social media, or sending a private message to the company (or both).
PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT
Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.
Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza
Talk about our right to protest.
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Happy Monday!
Thanks for your kind notes in response to the Q&A. Feedback on this email series is overwhelmingly positive, and I don't mind digging into the tough conversations because I know we're all here to learn. This work is uncomfortable because it's counter-cultural – the more we do it, the more we reshape our society into a safer, more equitable place.
Based on the feedback from yesterday, today we're diving into tactics on talking about race with our peers. This time we're going to use resources from leading anti-racism educators and facilitators to address harmful perceptions around protests.
If these newsletters have been useful for you, consider donating one-time on Paypal or Venmo (@nicolecardoza), or giving $5 each month on Patreon.
Nicole
TAKE ACTION
Choose a family member, colleague or friend to have a conversation about the recent protests.
Review (and perhaps share) our Rights to Protest outlined by the ACLU.
GET EDUCATED
The protests aren't going anywhere.
Protests for Black lives have been holding steady across the country for the past three weeks. This weekend, protests and demonstrations were hosted in honor of Juneteenth across the U.S., and protestors gathered in Tulsa for Trump's rally. And as these conversations swell, more protests are sprouting up in smaller cities, bringing the national conversations to small-town life.
And the protests are creating change – most noticeably, In a Monmouth University poll released this week, 76% of Americans — including 71% of white people — called racism and discrimination “a big problem” in the United States, a 26 percentage point increase since 2015. In this article you can also scroll to see a running list of political and corporate level change sparked by the protests unfolding.
But public perception about the protests themselves is still tenuous, especially as they move to smaller, more rural communities. A study from Pew Research Center found that about 62% U.S. adults say some people taking advantage of the situation to engage in criminal behavior has been a major contributing factor in the protests. Generally, our society has had a critical view of protests that were much less present than demonstrators taking over the streets. The protests of Colin Kapernick, for example, have been shamed by individuals and the NFL until recently: a poll found that for the first time and only last week, the majority of Americans support kneeling during the national anthem, and the NFL commissioner only just admitted they were wrong for not listening to players' protests.
We can protect our right to protest, and encourage that the messages are heard, by shifting those public perceptions in our own community. I've compiled a series of resources for tactically having conversations around protests that center the importance of all voices being heard.
“We have an unequal society that benefits the few—the old, the white—over the many: the young, people of color. That is the crux of all these conversations.”
Demographer William Frey in this article for The Atlantic
Tools for holding conversations around the right to protest.
Find your buddy.
Find a person you can call for support as you prepare and host this conversation. As SURJ says: "Who can you scheme and grieve and dream with?"
Increase the level of connection.
For example, if you’re responding to a post on social media, try a direct message, or a text message, or even a phone call. Make it as personal as possible.
Seek conversation, not confrontation.
Start the dialogue with an invitation, ask for consent before diving in, and avoid accusations. Avoid “why” questions because they can make people feel defensive. Instead, try something like “what made you feel that way” or “how did that happen” or “will you tell me more about that”.
Be vulnerable.
Starting from a place of your own ignorance is a powerful way to demonstrate leadership and acknowledge your own growth in moving forward.
Focus on transformative, not transactional conversations.
Similar to the above, guide the conversation so it has space to turn into follow-up conversations for additional growth and understanding.
It's okay to pause and pick up later.
If the conversation reaches a boiling point, you can firmly end and request to pick up later. It might feel tempting to keep pushing, but sometimes that can break connection and leave a relationship difficult to repair.
Ask them what they need.
Guiding the conversation with questions, not statements, gives agency to the other person, and may illuminate where their perceptions are stemming from.
Prepare yourself with concrete examples in response to FAQs:
These protests are going to cause more COVID-19 spikes.
A recent study found "no evidence" that protests across 315 of America's largest cities caused a spike in the number of new COVID-19 cases, because people not protesting were more likely to stay home
All the looting is ruining local businesses.
Stories from businesses that were directly impacted by property destruction or looting, like Indian restaurant Gandhi Mahal in Minneapolis, might help your discussion.
That cop is just a bad apple, and the system will hold them responsible.
You can point to the ongoing history of violence by the police, name that there's recent murders were cops have not found justice, and how the protests themselves are delivering justice for Rayshard Brooks and Breonna Taylor that might not otherwise be found.
Key resources in this compilation include the SURJ Google Doc for talking about protests and this NPR interview with Ijeoma Oluo.
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