#blacktwitter helped mobilize social protests against police brutality across the country, like this one in New York City in July 2020.
Ira L. Black/Corbis via Getty Images
Black Twitter is often the preferred forum for candid and authentic Black-centered discussions on police brutality. Without it, holding police accountable may become even more difficult.
A photo from a demonstration calling for police accountability and an end to police brutality in Vancouver, in May 2020.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
Lee M. Pierce, State University of New York, College at Geneseo
When there is nothing new to say, pegging news stories to the anniversaries of the deaths of Black Americans objectifies the victims and helps make violence ordinary.
Police body camera video shows Adam Toledo’s hands were raised just before he was shot.
Chicago Police Department via AP
In the aftermath of Adam Toledo’s death, police and a prosecutor framed the incident as a confrontation with an armed male holding a gun. Should reporters have been so quick to accept that version?
A man meditates on the road by a police line as demonstrators protest on the section of 16th Street renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza, June 23, 2020, in Washington.
(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
At age 7, Black, white and Hispanic children have a similar opinion of the police. But this increasingly turns negative by the time they are teenagers, especially for nonwhite teens.
Suffragists march from New York to Washington D.C. in 1913.
AP Photo
As Americans celebrate the legacy of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote, it is also a moment to acknowledge how suffragists first used hunger strike as a form of protest.
A ‘Black Lives Matter’ billboard hangs above a Modell’s in New York.
Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images
Big businesses often engage in social activism because they want to sway public policy outcomes. They’re not exclusively trying to appeal to liberal customers.
Protesters in front of Boston Police Headquarters during a United Against Racist Police Terror Rally on June 7, 2020.
Matthew J. Lee/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Across the United States, police are shielded from both public and departmental accountability by multiple layers of contractual and legislative protections.
A protester holds up a sign with Breonna Taylor’s name. Taylor was killed by police officers on March 13.
Brett Carlsen/Getty Images
Young men make up the majority of black people killed by police in the US. That’s fed a perception that black women are somehow shielded from the threat of police violence. They aren’t.
Volunteers helped city workers paint ‘Black Lives Matter’ on the street near the White House.
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser ordered ‘BLACK LIVES MATTER’ to be painted on a street near the White House. The act would have been considered vandalism had it not been done by city workers.
There are currently at least four major calls to defund police forces in Canada. Here, hundreds of people participate in a Black Lives Matter demonstration in front of Saskatchewan’s Legislative Building in Regina on June 2, 2020.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Mark Taylor
Another world is possible when we defund and reimagine policing as we know it. A review of police budgets could mean more money towards community initiatives.
A protester raises a fist in New York’s Washington Square Park during a June 2, 2020 demonstration.
Ira L. Black/Corbis via Getty Images
The US has a centuries-old tradition of killing black people without repercussion – and of publicly viewing the violence. Spreading those images can disrespect the dead and traumatize viewers.