If You Take It, Respect It

By: Noel Austin

Currently, America is going through a historic moment. If you didn’t know protests are happening not only in all 50 states but in a handful of countries. These protests are coming as an outcry for justice for George Floyd. On May 25th, 2020, George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer having his knee pressed on his neck for almost nine minutes while Floyd was saying he couldn’t breathe. When the whole world saw the video everyone felt sick. Some didn’t know how to even respond to the video. This video made news cycles all across the country, and the hashtag #BLACKLIVESMATTER started trending on twitter. This whole moment felt different. We as black people have either seen or encountered injustice and police brutality in this country to many times to count. This video made the majority of citizens across the country furious. The day after Floyd’s death the city of Minneapolis began the 1st of many protests around the country.

Let’s get one thing straight, Black American culture is the biggest and most influential culture worldwide. From sports, fashion, music, hair, etc. Hip hop is the biggest music genre in the world. Whatever black people deem cool people will follow suit, for example, Black twitter. Black twitter is like a whole other realm of twitter, where all the constant jokes, videos, and memes come from. Black twitter is a powerful twitter presence. Black twitter is a form of how African Americans shape the culture. With sharing our culture with the world, people are bound to think stuff is cool and maybe learn more about it, but if you consume black content or engulf yourself in black culture as someone that isn’t black, you will have a big responsibility on your hands.

If you take or engulf in black culture it is a responsibility to speak up when injustice is happening to those same people. During the ongoing riots and protests across the country, it seems like twitter is the place to be when it comes to knowing what’s happening on the ground at these protests. Its also been a place for everyone to speak out on the injustice of African Americans in this country. Unlike during the civil rights era where we had actual civil rights leaders to help, in this day in age its all about your platform. Using your platform to voice and reach a lot of people. Black Twitter has been asking for white people to use their platforms and privilege to relay the message about what’s going on to their audience, But people have noticed that a certain select group of people are kind of quiet when Black people need them the most.

The issue at hand is a race issue that we have to deal with in America whether we like it or not. This is also a human issue and being on the side of what we all know is right. It has come to a lot of people’s attention that some people that use and take our culture have yet to say or do anything about this issue. To the black community, it seems like a slap in the face. You take our culture, music, fashion, etc. but don’t want to call out an injustice happening to the very people that made the culture that you indulge in. Rather than taking the culture and not doing anything when injustice happens, how about you try to gain a bigger worldwide view on the people that bring you that culture, and what you can do to help them. If you want to help the Black Lives Matter or help out with injustice, go to the protest in your city, or sign some petitions and donate money if you can. You can also just talk to a black person and listen to them. Don’t listen to debate and respond but listen to try and understand where they are coming from and what you can do.