Tag Archives Twitter

Friday Five: Weekly Twitter Roundup 5/01/15 – Baltimore Uprising Special Edition

Another Black Life As a Hashtag

Police Brutality from "Another Black Life As a Hashtag" on The Girl Next Door is Black
source

I felt the sting of threatening tears as I read tweet after tweet, largely authored by black faces. Individual, collective, virtual protests over the acquittal of the police officer who killed Rekia Boyd. Rekia, a 22-year old, black Chicago resident was unarmed when off-duty officer, Dante Servin, shot her in the back of the head, killing her. Rekia joins a growing list of unarmed black Americans who’ve died as a result of encounters with law enforcement. Rekia Boyd also became another hashtag: #RekiaBoyd.

As the burning tears pooled, I noticed another name repeating in my feed, another black death turned symbol of America’s continued refusal to acknowledge it’s institutional racism problem. This time it was 25-year old Freddie Gray of Baltimore, who suffered a SEVERED SPINAL CORD after an arrest, the cause of his eventual death on April 19, 2015.

Last week it was #EricHarris.

The week before that, it was #WalterScott

Unfortunately many other names accompany theirs on the registry of lives ended by those hired to “protect and serve,” including those whose stories for whatever reason don’t get socially amplified.

All around me life goes on. The media makes a fuss over the usual news of unimportance like fashion at Coachella, Kylie Jenner “lip challenges” or which fast food establishment a Presidential candidate visits. Meanwhile, more Americans get shot by law enforcement and in some cases even pay-for-play officers, and life goes on for every else.

Why does this keep happening? And why do so few people seem to care?

I’m sick and tired of seeing black lives as hashtags.

Every hashtag inflicts another cut on my soul and dampens my faith in America’s ability to overcome it’s oppressive roots.

I’m tired of seeing people erase #BlackLivesMatter with #AllLivesMatter nonsense when we routinely see examples in this county of just how much black lives DON’T SEEM TO MATTER.

It’s evident in the amount of energy some people waste in forming intellectually dishonest comments like:

“Well, why was he running from the cops?”

“If you just obey the law, you have nothing to worry about.”

“What about black on black crime?”

“Not all cops are bad.”

We all know not all cops are bad. Right now this isn’t about cops. This is about a flawed system of government-sanctioned murder. This is about people routinely abusing their power and getting away with it while dead bodies pile up.

I think we’re in the middle of a national crisis and not enough people are talking.

I’m laying low this week, turning away from media, social and otherwise. I can’t handle another hashtag.

Rest in peace to all the black lives lost in this crisis. May their families also find some relief from their suffering.

May more Americans wake up to the reality of what’s going on in our “justice” system.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Quote  from "Another Black Life As a Hashtag' on The Girl Next Door is Black
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Friday Five: Weekly Twitter Roundup 11/28/14

Here are five things you may have missed on Twitter this week.

Friday Five Weekly Twitter Roundup | The Girl Next Door is Black

 

1. Some of today’s hottest music artists performed at Sunday’s American Music Awards. Hosted by rapper Pitbull, the AMAs provided plenty of tweet fodder. #AMAs

 

2. On Monday, November 24, after a grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri elected not to indict Officer Darren Wilson for the murder of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, the mood on Twitter was tense and reactions mixed. #FergusonDecision

 

3. In response to the Ferguson Decision, many took the protest to their wallets and participated in the anti-Black Friday, national day of activism. #BlackoutBlackFriday calls for those who support the fight against racial injustice to boycott shopping on Black Friday.

 

4. Rarely is there a dull moment when families gather together for Thanksgiving each year. #Thanksgiving 

 

5. The day after Thanksgiving in the US marks Black Friday – a day when people go Hunger Games on their fellow citizen in the name of shopping. This year, it’s not just Americans going bananas for electronics at reduced prices. #BlackFriday

 

Friday Five: Weekly Twitter Roundup 11/21/14

Here are five things you may have missed on Twitter this week.

Friday Five Weekly Twitter Roundup | The Girl Next Door is Black
1. I missed the “controversial” Aaliyah biopic on Lifetime, but based on the stream of tweets flowing during the film, I didn’t miss much more than a hot mess. #AaliyahMovie

 

2. Beyonce’s little sister, Solange Knowles, slayed the internet with fierce photos of her New Orleans wedding and put Twitter in a tizzy. #SolangeWedding

 

3. In holidays the US doesn’t need: November 16th was National Fast Food Day, some saw it as cause for celebratory gorging, others a sign of a bleak feature. #NationalFastFoodDay 

 

4. CNN Anchor Don Lemon stuck his foot all the way in his mouth (again) this week. When he asked one of the Bill Cosby rape accusers why she didn’t take a bite out of his tallywacker to fend him off,  he garnered a hashtag of his very own, #DonLemonReporting.

 

5. #Snowvember continues as upstate New York got slammed by snow storms this week. The frozen residents shared scenes of the aftermath. Stay safe! #Snowvember

 

Have a great weekend!

Friday Five: Weekly Twitter Roundup 11/14/14

Here are five things you may have missed on Twitter this week.

Apologies that there wasn’t a Friday Five last week. I was eating my way around New York.

Friday Five Weekly Twitter Roundup | The Girl Next Door is Black

 

1. When the reality star with a big derriere and a child named after compass points released yet another photo of her naked body parts with the hashtag #breaktheinternet, Twitter responded with it’s own trending topic: #fixtheinternet.

 

  2. The Nation’s favorite weatherman, Al Roker, bested the Guinness World Record for longest weather report by staying up for 34 hours straight.  Here’s Twitter with your commentary. #rokerthon

 

3. This week, for the first time in history, a human landed on a comet. Twitter used to occasion to point out the less than stellar progress of humanity with the hashtag #WeCanLandOnACometButWeCant:

 

4. People in some parts of the world reported seeing white flurries falling from the sky. I believe they call this snow. Twitter saw lots of snow chatter this week.
#snowing.

 

5. Because there is a holiday for everything, today is National Pickle Day. Twitter loves a good pickle. #NationalPickleDay.

 

Have a great weekend! Maybe have a pickle!

Friday Five: Weekly Twitter Roundup 10/31/14

Here are five things you may have missed on Twitter this week.

Happy Halloween | Friday Five Weekly Twitter Roundup | The Girl Next Door is Black

 

1. If there’s one thing the internet does well, it’s obsess over pay homage to kitty cats and #NationalCatDay proved no different:

 

2.  Jesse Williams, of Grey’s Anatomy and “hot eyes” fame, is one of the more sociopolitically active celebrities on Twitter. This week, he went in on racial inequality, Ferguson and “you should really know better” Halloween costumes. (I’ve only posted a subset, check out his timeline for more.)

 

3. video of a woman getting catcalled on the streets of New York went viral, prompting a stream of comments on street harassment. #streetharassment

 

4. In honor of Halloween, Comedy Central’s @Midnight challenged Tweeters to share their #ScaryStoriesin5Words.

 

5. Each Halloween a topic of grave importance and subject of intense debate arises, candy corn: gross or nah?

 

Happy Halloween everyone!

Friday Five: Weekly Twitter Roundup 10/24/14

Here are five things you may have missed on Twitter this week.

Friday Five Weekly Twitter Roundup | The Girl Next Door is Black

 

1. Renee Zellweger strolled onto the red carpet wearing a different face this week. Of course, Twitter had something to say about it. #ReneeZellweger

 

 

2.Supermodel Chrissy Teigen ditched Twitter for the calmer waters of Instagram after her tweet condemning gun violence in the US resulted in death threats. #ChrissyTeigen

 

 

3. Don’t send for Shonda Rhimes on Twitter unless you want her to come for you. When some viewers tweeted their disapproval of “gay scenes” in last week’s How to Get Away with Murder, Shonda took them to task. #ShondaRhimes

 

 

4. This week in Ebola and people with no damned sense. #ebola

 

 

5. Bloomberg tweeted something racially suspect and quickly deleted it, but not before Twitter saw it and screen-capped it!

 

 

Have a great weekend everyone!

Friday Five: Weekly Twitter Roundup 10/17/14

I’m trying out a new feature, Friday Five. Let me know what you think!
Friday Five Weekly Twitter Roundup | The Girl Next Door is Black

Here are five things you may have missed on Twitter this week.

1. I love everything about this White Macaroni and Cheese dish from the New York Times. It has brie! and mascarpone! The recipe looks simple enough that I might attempt to make it myself.

  2. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley doesn’t think her state has a Confederate Flag problem. (I’ve made my personal views on the flag clear.) 

  3. If you’re tired of hearing “Why are you single?”, you’re not alone!

 

4. Fall drinks are all the rage. Everything’s turning up squash. Eater asks: has it gone too far?

  5. Check out the trending #MyLoveLifein3Words. If you’re single, maybe your Prince/ss Charming is on Twitter. When I last checked, it had over 125,000 tweets!

 

Have a great weekend everyone!