Why Posting Black Boxes for #BlackoutTuesday, or Hashtags Without Action, Is Useless (Column)

By the time the Washington Redskins posted a black square to stand against racism — yes, the Washington Redskins — #BlackoutTuesday was well and truly done for.

Hours before, a barrage of black squares hit Instagram with solemn captions vowing to stay silent on social media for one whole day. The original idea behind the social media “blackout” came from Black executives Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang, who wanted musicians and businesses to use the hashtag #TheShowMustBePaused in order to shine a spotlight on the Black Lives Matter movement, galvanized by the death of George Floyd at the hands of police.

And yet, as protests have burned on across the country, “performative nonsense” has been the order of the day from those trying to signal that they are Good and Progressive Enough to understand. Corporate Twitter accounts tweeted #BlackLivesMatter and heart emojis at each other. Celebrities responded with vague affirmations that things are bad. Democrats drafted statements that tried to balance on the line between sympathy and outright support, but instead stumbled into meaningless word salad.

At the very least, all of the above got rightfully lambasted for being toothless. DeGeneres eventually even deleted her tweet, replacing it with a pledge that she would be donating to several anti-racist organizations.

But an acknowledgment without matching action, or even just a strong and specific point of view, is barely worth the effort. And at some point, especially in the cases of corporations that don’t practice what they preach for PR purposes, using the language of protests for the sake of it is just another way of co-opting the very real pain that inspires movements like #BlackLivesMatter in the first place.

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