The Black Lives Matter movement has recently been catapulted back into the spotlight after the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis policeman, Derek Chauvin, alongside his accomplices (Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J Alexander Kueng).
Millions have shared their support for the movement, with many protesting, writing and signing petitions, as well as educating themselves on what it means to be black today and throughout history.
However, over the last couple of weeks, some online ‘trends’ associated with the movement have received immense criticism.
The term ‘performative allyship’ has become well known and has been linked to these online trends on many occasions.
With the aid of a bit of research and a questionnaire that I held on my Instagram, this article should provide some information on what performative allyship is, how it can be related to these social media trends and how we can act as genuine supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Many people who participated really were trying to help but were simply naïve to the fact that this trend could have harmful rather than helpful effects.
Performative allyship is: “when someone from a non-marginalised group professes support and solidarity with a marginalised group in a way that either isn’t helpful or actively marginalises that group”. Examples of this include:
- Putting ‘#blacklivesmatter’ on social media but not confronting family members over insensitive and potentially racist remarks
- Sharing a petition or liking a post about a petition without actually signing the petition oneself
- Publicly displaying support with the aim of making oneself feel better/ appear like a better person to others (in other words, being a surface level supporter)
There are countless other examples of performative allyship; however, these seem to be the recurring forms of it.
This leads us to trends.
One trend which was faced with immense criticism was a ‘chain’ trend. People tagged 5 friends on a post, most of which read ‘Black Lives Matter’ on top of a black screen, and the next five people had to share the post tagging five others.
I was not fond of this trend as it did not really spread or promote awareness and acceptance of others.
For example, the posts would have been better if they had included links to petitions supporting the rights of black people or had links to literature that people could read to educate themselves.
When I asked the question, “How effective do you think chain posts are?”, on my Instagram Story, the average answer was approximately 25% effective, whilst 64% of people believed that chain posts have done more harm than good.
Many people who participated really were trying to help but were simply naïve to the fact that this trend could have harmful rather than helpful effects.
However, it must be said that some people were simply being performative rather than true allies. This argument applies to both the ‘Tag 5 Friends’ challenge and ‘Blackout Tuesday’.
When I asked the question, “How effective do you think chain posts are?”, on my Instagram Story, the average answer was approximately 25% effective, whilst 64% of people believed that chain posts have done more harm than good (see pictures below).
One may say it is extreme to claim that chain posts have done more harm than good.
However, by likening BLM to other chain trends, such as the “baby picture challenge” or the “run 5K challenge”, it could lead to the movement being trivialised.
This is harmful as it makes a group, who on the whole have felt extremely marginalised, feel as if their voice is being dampened further by empty and exasperating trends.
Additionally, instead of many people making meaningful lifelong changes to support equality of all races, they are using this as a ‘quick fix’ approach, which ultimately achieves nothing and is, therefore, purely performative.
Many of the replies I received on my Instagram story were from individuals in different walks of life but who shared these same views. Here is a selection of these highly insightful responses:
Like myself, and many others, Heather believes that “it’s all well and good to sign a petition but if you’re not actually actively criticising the system and people’s views then nothing will happen”.
She then went on to add: “they might charge the police officers who killed George Floyd but without a shift in views, change will happen at a much slower rate”.
Ebele pointed out that Blackout Tuesday “had good intentions but it gave a lot of people who don’t genuinely care, are racist, etc, an opportunity to appear in support and absolve them of their guilt”.
I found that most people were under the consensus that the black screens, in particular, were just one big poorly run initiative with little direction. This allowed fake supporters to hide behind the trend.
Lily told me that she thought the day “could have been an amazing show of solidarity but honestly, it was not executed well and caused a lot of confusion, so I would say that that chains so far have not been proven effective in any way”.
So… what is effective?
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CA6uC66gF_q/?igshid=ej0fnc8bkdj9
Athena shared with me this Instagram TV video and told me, “I felt it was helpful to me as a white person in understanding how best to support the BLM movement”.
She added that it explained to her how “beyond social media I have to reflect on my own behaviour, understanding my own ignorance and become more mindful of things I would usually overlook” and that she needs to confront casual racism wherever she is.
There are so many things that you can do to support the cause, from donating towards paying bail fees for protesters, to challenging casual racism in your homes.
As well as taking advice from some of the story replies shown throughout this article, here is a link showing other ways that you can show your support as a true ally of the BLM movement!
https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/
Morenike Tomori
Featured image courtesy of Bill Ward via Flickr. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image. Article images courtesy of Morenike Tomori.
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