#Ferguson

 Area 1

Bonilla and Rosa discuss activist's use of social media to respond to "racial inequality, state violence, and media representations" (5). Hashtags are use to "performatively frame" (5) what a social media post is about and also to "locate texts within a specific conversation" (5). Hashtags can also be used to recontextualize a post's content. For example, #Ferguson was used to link the protests in the Middle East with those in the U.S. The use of a hashtag alone does not necessarily indicate one's alignment with one side or the other of an issue. It does not indicate context. 

The percentage of Black Americans who use Twitter is more than that of white Americans, so that alone will lend some context to tweets & hashtags, and the platform is used to "collectively [construct] counternarratives and [reimagine] group identities" (6). Twitter hashtags also enable a sense of 'shared temporality' (7), because users can read and respond to threads in real time. 

Area 2

The authors make an interesting allusion comparing #Ferguson the hashtag with the actual town. Social media and hashtags do give a distorted view, and I am very aware I am entering a specific space, a bubble of sorts, that I have helped create in part by the way I select who I follow and what hashtags I choose to use and view. I do assume, to a certain point, that using a hashtag will attract a certain audience, and I use it to amplify my message with the hashtag. Sometimes I may slightly modify my desired hashtag to match one that is trending better, or I may modify a trending one slightly to match my message, even if may not be as noticeable. Alternately, I might use a trending hashtag and then add my own to more accurately represent my viewpoint. 

I think one of the ways that marginalize folks capitalize on social media and hashtags is that they can respond quickly and get ahead of the official response from the state. While much of this article is old news for me, I think the way that I've followed these events on social media and in the press over the past 8 or so years has helped me understand a lot of the points the authors make, i.e. I understand some of the ways in which "racialized bodies are systematically stereotyped, stigmatized, surveilled, and positioned as targets of state-sanctioned violence" (9). However, and I'll wager as opposed to much of the Black community, I am still shocked each time it happens, because I feel like we should be learning something as a country, and it doesn't seem like we are. Much of the Black community has experienced this for generations, and so it is nothing new for them. It is not a surprise; it is a way of life, which outrages and saddens me even more. I like to believe we are at a turning point. I hope we are. But every so often, I am reminded that we probably aren't, as another innocent Black man (usually) is murdered by police, and no one is held accountable.