My storify is at
https://storify.com/HDCC106/iftheygunnedmedown
The hashtag that I am exploring in this project is #IfTheyGunnedMeDown. This hashtag originated after the death of Mike Brown and the following events that occurred in Ferguson, Missouri. Michael Brown was an unarmed African American teenager that was killed by a police officer which then sparked riots causing media to flock to the city of Ferguson. As the media reported on this issue viewers began taking note of how Mike Brown and others involved in this issue were represented. Specifically, African Americans were being portrayed as thugs through the use of informal pictures usually posing at a party, holding up alcohol, explicit hand signs or wearing baggy or sagging clothing. Whites on the other hand, were generally portrayed as innocent bystanders through the use of portraits that are very formal, specifically of them wearing their graduation caps and gowns. What happened next is that Twitter users noticed the sharp contrast between how blacks and whites were portrayed by the media. This is what actually spurred the use of the hashtag as the hashtag activists attempted to spread awareness about this issue.
This hashtag was first utilized by the twitter user @CJ_musick_lawya on august 10th 2014 and contrasted a black male posing with a bottle of alcohol with a picture of him speaking at graduation with the caption “Yes let’s do that: Which photo does the media use if the police shot me down? #IfTheyGunnedMeDown”. This hashtag gained a huge following as hundreds of thousands of people began retweeting and responding to it. The group of people that actually contributed to posting on it however was mostly comprised of black males. After some time white males also began posting under the same tag with the purpose of spreading the same message. However, when utilized by white Twitter users it was meant to highlight the fact that whites were also in disagreement with how the media portrayed the majority of white criminals as “mentally ill” and as victims of circumstance. I did notice that there was a severe lack of women, black or white, that posted including this hashtag. The tweets that I opted to include had a mixture of serious activist tweets with a clear message as well as some tweets that satirized the hashtag because I believed that these provided an accurate summary as to what was represented by the tag as a whole.
There has definitely been a media response to this issue as they reversed how perpetrators of crimes were presented. As police brutality gained mass media attention black youths transformed into having a more innocent image as different media outlets began placing their graduation pictures on news broadcasts. White police officers on the other hand began to lose sympathy from the media and began having their mugshots or other unflattering images used on these broadcasts. This stimulated a response from the masses of Twitter users that fell into two major categories; those that sided with the police officers and those that sided with the black youths. The group of people that sided with the police officers cited that many of the blacks that had become victims of police brutality had in fact committed a crime giving members of the police force the right to protect their own lives through the use of force. The other side of this argument noted that the victims were unarmed and had not provoked violence thus the police officers had no right at all to use lethal force to deal with these issues. The hashtag itself developed as all popular memes do as it gained popularity many began satirizing the action providing images such as photoshopped images of themselves that had nothing to do with the activist movement itself. I feel that it is important to note the extremely large amount of sexual content that was posted with the same satirical intent as the photoshopped images (which I elected not to include in my 40 tweets). Overall the response to these purposefully comedic images has been surprisingly positive consisting mostly of laughing emojis and very rarely there would be an individual that felt offended mixed in.
This hashtag exists to try to destroy the cultural bias that exists within the media as they generally attempt to create sympathy for whites involved in any dispute while blacks are given almost the entirety of the blame. It was very encouraging to see that while the majority of these tweets were from black individuals, there was still a significant number of whites that had decided to stop being silent and had actually spoken up in favor of racial equality. This has been an extremely effective means of both provoking discussion and creating thought. I know that I personally experienced a change as this tag gained traction. As an active Twitter user at the same time that this first developed I was able to watch as this tag grew and gained in popularity. I know that I personally had never thought about how criminals were portrayed by the media or the implications behind it until after this specific hashtag. It made me notice more than just the pictures that were used now whenever a tragedy occurs that is reported on I definitely analyze the message that they are sending out and attempt to make my own judgment of a situation based on the facts and events. In conclusion I am very thankful to have come across this hashtag as it helped me to personally grow more aware and develop more understanding of the world around me.