White folks’ work: digital allyship praxis in the #BlackLivesMatter movement

ABSTRACT

#BlackLivesMatter, a social-media-fueled social movement for racial justice in the United States, rose to international prominence between 2014 and 2016. Described by one of its co-creators as a call to collective action in the struggle against racial inequity, the movement’s hashtag (#BlackLivesMatter) was second to only #Ferguson among the most frequently used racial justice hashtags in the first 10 years of Twitter’s existence. This critical case study analyzes the reflective narratives of 14 self-identified White social media users – part of a larger, interracial group of self-identified online social actors – who used the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag as part of their online activism repertoire during the height of the movement. Grounded by the application of Helms’ White Racial Consciousness Development Scale, this research presents a descriptive account of the ways antiracist labor – colloquially described as ‘White folks’ work’ – can be performed via social media. Using an a priori definition of allyship as the processes of affirming and taking informed action on behalf of the subjugated group, this research illustrates that strategic information seeking and sharing on Twitter – particularly the amplification of marginalized voices – were key components in the development of digital allyship praxis within this social-media-fueled movement for racial justice.

KEYWORDS:

• Black Lives Matter
• hashtag activism
• racial justice
• social media
• Twitter
• white allies

Acknowledgments

I gratefully acknowledge funding support from the Spencer Foundation, without which the larger project would not have been possible. I also thank the journal’s reviewers, as well as Jen Schradie, Ph.D., (Sciences Po) and Yolanda Flores Niemann, Ph.D., (UNT) for their insightful feedback in the development of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. In June 2015, McKinney, Texas, police officer Eric Casebolt was recorded brandishing a gun and forcefully restraining a 15-year-old girl after being called to break up a pool party. The incident was caught on camera and shared via social media with the hashtag #McKinney. Casebolt later resigned.

2. 12-year-old Tamir Rice, a Black boy, was shot and killed by Cleveland police officer Timothy Loehmann, a White man, on 24 November 2014, as he played in a city park. The incident was caught on camera, and shared online with hashtags including #TamirRice and #BlackLivesMatter.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Spencer Foundation [10005810].

Notes on contributors

Meredith D. Clark

Meredith D. Clark, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Media Studies at the University of Virginia.