Resources for Informed Activism & Digital Advocacy

• Center Black voices 

• Share carefully researched information, donation links, petitions, resources, and educational materials

• When reposting, find and cite the source of the original post 

• Before participating in a social media campaign, look into its source and purpose 

• Do not share images with faces of protesters 

• Do not share videos of Black people being murdered or harmed - there are many other ways to bring awareness to anti-Black racism that don’t exploit Black trauma 

#BlackoutTuesday was created as a result of The Show Must Be Paused campaign, formed by Jamila Thomas and Brianna Agyemang. Their goal was to get the music industry to pause all promotions on Tuesday, June 2, 2020, and instead discuss actions to support the Black Community. Many Black leaders found this social media campaign to be counterproductive, as it was co-opted by the public and ultimately had the effect of stifling rather than amplifying Black voices. For more on this, please watch Brittany Packnett’s IG video. 

#8CantWait is a campaign spearheaded by CampaignZero that has faced harsh criticism from Black abolitionists. #8CantWait's leaders have since apologized for detracting from the efforts of abolitionists. It had proposed that police departments adopt these 8 use of force policies:

• Ban chokeholds and strangleholds
• Require deescalation 
• Require warning before shooting
• Require the exhaustion of all alternatives before shooting
• Duty to intervene
• Ban shooting at moving vehicles 
• Require use of force continuum 
• Require comprehensive reporting

#8toAbolition is an important reframing of the 8 Can’t Wait campaign that draws upon the work of abolitionists. Criticisms of the 8 Can't Wait campaign note that 1) many cities have already adopted one or more of these policies (e.g. the ban of chokeholds in New York City in 1993) without much decrease to police violence, that 2) the above policies do not necessarily prevent police officers from continuing to engage in the destructive behaviors, and that 3) the campaign takes away attention from movements to defund and/or abolish the police. #8toAbolition instead proposes that communities:

• Defund the police
• Demilitarize communities
• Remove police
• Free people from prisons and jails
• Repeal laws that criminalize survival
• Invest in community self-governance
• Provide safe housing for everyone
• Invest in care, not cops