From #RenishaMcBride to #RememberRenisha: Locating Our Stories and Finding Justice

Abstract

Is hashtag activism real activism?" I am often asked this question. It is an odd question that I have found leads to unwieldy debates. This essay, however, does not engage the question of whether or not hashtag or Twitter activism is "real activism." Instead, this article presents a meditation on what hashtags can tell us about ourselves, our communities, and about the political movements of which we are a part. As digital artifacts, hashtags locate cultures across time and space. No matter the context-that is, grassroots, institutional, or corporate-hashtags compel us to act. They are political actors, and most importantly, hashtags represent evidence of women and people of color resisting authority, opting out of conforming to the status quo, and seeking liberation, all by way of documentation in digital spaces. To wit, hashtags represent a new semiotics of emancipation (Chela Sandoval 2000).On November 2, 2013, Renisha McBride, a nineteen-year-old black woman was fatally shot in the face on the porch of Detroit homeowner, Theodore Wafer, a fifty-four-year-old white man. When McBride was gunned down and killed, no one but local citizens and activists were privy to the details of the tragedy. A few days after the incident people converged on Twitter to talk openly about the tragedy while seeking justice for McBride's family, and to talk about their own struggles confronting race and gender-based violence. Four days later, the story about Renisha McBride appeared on mainstream news outlets and the hashtag #RenishaMcBride 1 trended nationwide. Activists, feminists, and mediamakers around the country converged on the hashtag, and their conversations, questions, and plans-of-action were all traceable.Later that same month, I published a web-based case study about the impact of online organizing in the Renisha McBride case. I sought to better understand if it was possible to trace the impact of online organizing involved in the McBride case. The research revealed insight into the ways users across online social spaces shared camaraderie and mediated kinships. During a Twitter conversation hosted by MSNBC host Melissa HarrisPerry, Twitter user, Claire Manes (2014) responded to an exchange between Harris-Perry and the online publication Hashtag Feminism about the value of using Twitter to make sense of Renisha McBride's murder. Manes tweeted that Twitter "[b]rought us together, [made us feel] less alone." I also found that people across other social media platforms like YouTube and Instagram attached their voices, images, and tribute videos to the tragedy while using the hashtag #RenishaMcBride. COMMENTARY AND CRITICISM 1111By early 2014, the #RenishaMcBride hashtag had transformed into #RememberRe-nisha, a subsequent tag created by the racial justice advocacy organization, Color of Change. The transformation of the hashtag overtime represented evidence of people first naming a victim to then claiming the young woman as part of their own communities. The evolution of this hashtag points to the current political disposi...

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